Thai police say 20 people behind attacks that killed 4

By Max Constant

BANGKOK

Thai police have claimed that up to 20 people may have been involved in carrying out a series of deadly bomb attacks across the country's south earlier this month, but refused to underline a motive.

Police Chief Chakthip Chaijinda told reporters Monday that investigations showed that up to 20 people, mostly from Thailand's three Muslim majority provinces, carried out the attacks.

"We won't comment on the motive at this time as it could have been related to the referendum, the insurgency or they may be hired guns," he said.

Bomb attacks across Thailand Aug. 11-12 left four people dead and more than 20 wounded.

The attacks targeted security officials and tourist sites.

Immediately after the bombings, Thailand's military government claimed that they were not the work of terrorists or insurgents but related to local politics.

Junta chief-cum-Prime minister Prayuth Chan-ocha insisted that those behind the attacks intended to create “chaos and confusion” because “the situation and the economy were being stabilized” after a junta-backed constitution was approved.

But several elements seem to point towards the involvement of Muslim separatists active in the far south of the kingdom.

Police have concluded that the type of bombs used and the method used to detonate them remotely with mobile phones are the same as that used in bomb attacks which occur routinely in the provinces of Yala, Pattani and Narathiwat, close to the Malaysian border.

The phones used were also bought in Malaysia and fitted with SIM cards, also purchased in Malaysia.

The only arrest warrant so far in relation to the Aug. 11-12 bombings has been issued against Ahama Lengha, a resident of the insurgency-plagued majority Malay Muslim province of Narathiwat.

Lengha is accused of having place a bomb near Patong beach in the tourist island of Phuket on Aug. 12.

On Aug. 13, 17 people were arrested and put under detention in military compounds for alleged links to the bombings.

But last Friday, national police chief Pol Gen. Chakthip Chaijinda said that the 17 were political opponents of the junta who were not connected to the bombings, but whose “political movements” had to be restricted.

At the Aug. 7 referendum, four days before the bombings, more than 61 percent of voters said "yes" to the military-sponsored constitution, especially in the predominantly Buddhist southern provinces affected by the bombings -- however, "no" votes, abstentions and spoiled ballots prevailed in the deep “Muslim south” affected by the decades-old insurgency.

Analysts said that the high rate of “no” votes in the deep south could be explained by the discontent of the Muslim population over a constitutional clause in the draft charter giving enhanced status to the Buddhist religion