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Updated 11.21 am
THAI POLICE ARE searching for this man who they believe left a backpack bomb at a Bangkok shrine that exploded amid a crowd of worshippers, killing 20 people and wounding more than 100 others.
No one has claimed responsibility for Monday’s attack, which occurred at the Erawan shrine in one of the Thai capital’s popular tourism and upscale shopping districts.
Here is what we know about the investigation:
Thai police are offering a reward for information on bombing suspects.
Police spokesman Lt. Gen. Prawut Thavornsiri says in a tweet that 1 million baht — equivalent to €25,390 — is being offered for any word on bomber or bombers suspected of planting the explosive device that went off at a downtown shrine on a busy Monday evening.
Here’s what we know so far:
What do we know about the suspected bomber?
The first glimpse came a day after the blast when police disclosed grainy security footage of a man casually walking into the shrine with a backpack on. He sits on a bench close to some iron railings that surround the shrine, puts the rucksack under a bench and slowly walks away while apparently looking at his smartphone. Police said he left on a motorcycle taxi, a common form of transport in Thailand.
Minutes later a bomb, packed with ball-bearings, explodes in that exact spot.
Is the bomber acting alone?
Police are increasingly confident the man seen on Monday night must have had accomplices, both to build the devices and plan the attack.
“It’s a network,” national police chief General Somyot Poompanmoung told reporters on Wednesday. “We believe there must be people helping him, Thai people.”
“There must be a network,” added Thai junta chief Prayut Chan-O-Cha Wednesday. “He can’t just buy the bomb in a market and then place it.”
Prawut said officers were focusing on two people seen in the security footage who may have shielded the prime suspect as he dropped his deadly cargo under the bench.
In the evening, national police spokesman Prawut Thavornsiri said the prime suspect had been overheard speaking a “foreign language, not English” and might hail from South, Central Asia or the Middle East.
Who has suspicion fallen on?
Many groups have been discussed as potential culprits, but security experts say there are strong reasons to discount each and are baffled over who is responsible. These include political rivals, Muslim insurgents,
Chinese Uighur militants and Isis.
What about the second attack?
On Tuesday, shortly after 1:00 pm, one or more people threw an explosive device from a bridge into a canal near the busy Saphan Taksin Skytrain station. No one was harmed.
Police have yet to decide whether the two incidents are linked.
Colonel Kamthorn Ouicharoen, head of Bangkok’s bomb squad, told reporters both devices were “exactly the same”.
But police chief Somyot Poompanmoung has said that attack could also be an unrelated or “copycat” act.
I am willing to go one step further than the Thai authorities, and state that this guy is 100% either Thai or foreign. Thats all i can give away at this point.
would you go so far as to call him Asian?
“The wrong-doer” I could think of a few other things to call him!
Yup Alan. Same thought here.
But the dictionary describes same as someone who is evil or mentally deranged.
Which he is.
“Might be foreign or Thai.” Well that certainly narrows it down. Do the authorities still execute people in Thailand? Hope so.
I dunno about anyone else, but the guy in the CCTV does not look like the guy they sketched. The CCTV guy looks Thai to me, or at least not mixed European. Having lived in Thailand, I know Thai people are unbelievably proud of their country and never speak ill of the country or their fellow people. I fear the police may simply not want to entertain the thought that one of their own may have done this. Its easier to pin something on an outside force invading the country than admit they have a fault within their own social system.
More than likely it was a muslim from the south!
“More than likely”? What gave you that idea? The fact that since the day it happened the Thai authorities have been saying they’re the last guys on their list of suspects?
I know it must be very hard for you to see a bombing attack that wasn’t carried out by your favourite scapegoats, but I sure you’ll get over it.
@Bryan k. Not so fast BK. Above report says suspect overheard speaking foreign lang. which might have been South Central Asia or Mid East. So nobody,but nobody, is off the hook yet.
SCAsia countries:
Afghanistan
Bangladesh
Bhutan
India
Iran
Kazakhstan
Kyrgyzstan
Maldives
Nepal
Sri Lanka
Pakistan
Tajikistan
Turkmenistan
Uzbekistan
And yet the Thai authorities in that very same article you pulled out the “maybe” language card from, have outright discounted any of the Muslim groups that people such as yourself have been jumping to the assumption were responsible.
Like seriously, I can’t believe that were here on day three with more and more quotes and statements from the officials on the ground saying that Muslims weren’t involved, and you’re still pulling these mental somersaults to try and maintain your narrative,
Is it just that you’re afraid to be wrong? Is it that difficult to admit that jumping to an assumption based on zero evidence, even with evidence pointing to the contrary at the time you made your first assumption was not a “logical” conclusion to make?
You’re there acting like you got me because they said the language was POSSIBLY Middle-Eastern, and then went off and gave a list of all the Middle-Eastern countries. I mean was that supposed to prove me wrong, because if so, I’m missing your point entirely…or you never actually made one.
You’re wilfully ignoring all of the people on the ground who have the first hand experience of what groups within their own country could have pulled this off, because those same people don’t agree with you. You took one part of the article about an overheard language, and that Middle-Eastern could’ve been one of many and saying that it trumps the Thai authorities stating flat-out that Muslim groups weren’t involved.
And since you seem to have a really short memory, I told you yesterday that if tomorrow they come out and say that is was a Muslim group I’ll be the first to condemn them. But as you said, nobody’s off the hook yet. So why are you all acting like there’s only one suspect? Don’t deny it, you’ve been dogging me for days using your infallible “logic” to argue that it was definitely Muslims, that it must have been Muslims.
I mean the absolute obliviousness that you must possess to come at me for calling out someone else for assuming the identity of the perpetrators to the exclusion of all others by attacking me with “Hold on a gosh darn second no one’s off the hook yet.” You realise that’s exactly what I was doing in the first place, saying that you can’t assume it was Muslims, and it could’ve been anyone. You literally agreed with me, but your manner of saying that it could’ve been anyone was to say: hey look at all these predominantly Muslim countries it could’ve been.
Bryan, out of the four suspected people / groups; three are muslim. Uighurs, ISIS or Thai Muslims…
Political opponents in Thailand have no history of this. Therefore probability, history and the police suspect list point one way.
That’s where I got that idea from Bryan, so you can sit back down, unless you think the Thai police force are also looking to scapegoat muslims… you’ll happily apply that label because you don’t have a case!
Go back and read it. The list of groups is a list of groups they’ve discounted as potential culprits.
It’s literally listed after the sentence where they explain that those groups are NOT suspects.
@BK. Security experts say there are ‘strong reasons’ to discount ‘becomes ‘outright discounted’! in BrianKelly’s language.Stretching it there.Read the article again.
Nitpicking at semantics? That’s the white flag of people who’ve been caught out. I’m done with this, if the best you can do is pick apart my hyperbolic choice of vocabulary to spin some narrative where I’m stating 100% that it wasn’t Islamic extremists, but you aren’t capable of addressing your own statements over the days that it 100% must have been Islamic extremists, then this conversation is utterly pointless.
Get some self-awareness, re-read the comments where I was the actual one saying that people shouldn’t jump to assumptions about the perpetrators, realise that that’s exactly what you yourself have been doing repeatedly for three days, and consider all this next time.
Ta ta.
@BK.Calling your hand.Produce comments where I claimed 100% it was Muslim act.You are lying.
Incredible. You talk of semantics, yet you criticise me about slight nuances in the article which still don’t confirm your theory (semantics). Just because there were reasons to discount them as suspects does not mean they are not suspects.
Its quite clear you need to take your own advice.
So I said “more than likely”, and in your comment above you are trying to claim I said it was 100% islamic terrorists?
I said no such thing, and like I said above, take some of your own advice
Every Thai citizen over the age of 15 must by law have and carry at all times their National Identity Card. So if he is Thai it won’t take too long to identify him with facial recognition software from files. If foreign that may pose a bigger problem.
All people entering or exiting Thailand at airports or official border crossings are Photographed by Thai immigration police ….
It’s Richard Ayoade
Ross from Friends
It’s Artie Ziff!
No one has claimed it yet,
Cui Bono?
No Bono’s glasses are usually tinted. Doesn’t really look much like him in fairness.
Alan Shatter ?
Passport photo. ……… Evidence points to him
Reading the report its not easy to have faith in the Thai police. Seen better detective work on The Bill
It’s Mario Lopez from Saved by Bell.
Of the four possible suspects given. Three are Muslim groups. Some odds!
Read a bit more closely. That’s the list of discounted suspects, not the list of possible suspects. I know reading’s difficult for people who jump to assumptions, but give it a try…I believe in you.
I’d say read a bit more closely yourself buddy.
“Many groups have been discusses as potential culprits, but security EXPERTS say there are strong reasons to discount each, and are baffled over who is responsible.”
So what it’s saying here is that they’ve considered many groups and based on their intelligence and experience, these experts have discounted each of them as culprits. The article then continues in the same paragraph to list several of these groups who have been completely discounted as suspects…
“These include political rivals, Muslim insurgents, Chinese Uighur militants, and Isis.”
So to recap, authorities heading the investigation have flat out stated that they DO NOT consider Muslim insurgents, Isis, Uighur militants and political rivals as suspects.
What exactly was I supposed to realise when I went back and read it again? Think you might want to take your own advice there…but maybe go back and take Junior Cert reading comprehension again first.
Hi Bryan.
Could you show me the quote where it says they have been “completely discounted” as you claim in your comment. I have looked really hard but according to you its in there so Im sure you’ll find it.
…before it reopened to the public.
jermaine Clement anybody?
Ac slater
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