Bangkok:
A day after triple blasts rocked Bangkok, Thai authorities probing the links between explosions here and those in India and Georgia said on Wednesday that bombs being used by the Iranian suspects were designed to target individuals and did not appear to be intended for large scale acts of terrorism.
Thai police have arrested two Iranian men. After the blasts, two Iranians fled the scene; a third named Saeid Moradi, had his legs blown away when he tried to throw a grenade at police that fell on ground and backfired on him. The police took Moradi to the hospital. One of the other two Iranian suspects, who fled the scene, was arrested at the airport as he was trying to flee to Malaysia. The third suspect is still at large.
A National Security Council official said that the bombs that exploded in a central Bangkok neighbourhood were intended to attack certain individuals, and were not for terrorism or sabotage, as they were made of materials that could not cause large-scale destruction.
The Thai authorities are examining materials that were used to make the bombs to find if they were of the same type as those used in the New Delhi bombing.
Council secretary-general Wichean Photephosree told reporters after a meeting with representatives of security agencies, including the armed forces, Royal Thai Police Office, and the Foreign Ministry, that it was not clear that the bombs were intended for acts of terrorism, judging from materials used to make the bombs.
The authorities were probing if yesterday's incident was linked to the near-simultaneous attacks targeting Israeli diplomats in Georgia and India.
Israel's ambassador to Thailand Itzhak Shoham said today that the suspects involved in assembling bombs here were "part of the same network" that targeted Israeli diplomats in India and Georgia. While the attacks in India and Georgia were near simultaneous, the one in Thailand came within 24 hours of the them.
(With inputs from PTI)