Seth Mydans has a good front-page story in today’s IHT. He sums up the theories regarding who might’ve orchestrated the new year’s eve bombings and weighs in on where Thailand may be heading:
A string of lethal bombs that disrupted New Year’s celebrations here has brought into the open a simmering confrontation between the ruling military junta and the opponents it unseated in a coup three months ago.
The attacks signaled the start of what could be a difficult year for Thailand as the military, the police and the entrenched elite wrestle for control of the country’s future.
Read the whole thing.
In Time magazine, Hannah Beech quotes an analyst who says the bombings probably weren’t carried out by southern insurgents:
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As the new year began, Bangkok was swirling with speculation about the masterminds behind the bombings. Initial suspicion centered on Muslim insurgents, who have terrorized Thailand’s south with unrelenting attacks that have claimed nearly 2,000 lives over the past three years. But the insurgents, some of whom are fighting for a separate Muslim state, have never taken their bloody campaign out of the south. “It’s unlikely this was the work of southern insurgents,” says Francesca Lawe-Davies, Southeast Asia Analyst for the International Crisis Group. “It’s always been more about their territory; if they were to stage an attack in Bangkok, I think they would choose a target more directly linked to the Thai state instead of public places.” At a press conference a day after the bombings, interim Prime Minister Surayud Chulanont discounted speculation that the carnage was coordinated by Muslim extremists, instead linking the bombs to “people who lost benefits from losing political power.”
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At USNews.com, however, David E. Kaplan, quoting Zachary Abuza, links the bombings to the southern insurgents:
Add Thailand to the list of Islamist insurgencies spinning out of control.
Best known for its spicy food, sex trade, Buddhist monks, and once booming economy, Thailand is now home to one of the world’s more brutal jihad wars. For three years, a stubborn and increasingly violent insurgency has grown in the heavily Muslim districts of the country’s south, made worse by the clumsy and corrupt response by Thai officials.
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You can look forward to hearing more about this mess. Add Thailand to a troubled list that includes Afghanistan, Chechnya, Iraq, Kashmir, Mindanao, and Somalia.
And, finally, the Washington Post is running this Reuters story by Ed Cropley:
Army-installed Prime Minister Surayud Chulanont told Thailand on Thursday to prepare for repeats of the bomb attacks which killed three people and wounded 38 in Bangkok on New Year’s Eve.
“I would like to ask our brothers and sisters to brace themselves for a life-threatening thing like this for a while,” Surayud told the National Legislative Council, which is acting as a parliament in the wake of a September 19 military coup.
He gave no details.
His comments are likely to keep the 9 million inhabitants of the sprawling capital on edge after a string of bomb hoaxes and scares since the New Year. Thai media reported false alarms at a government office and major shopping mall on Thursday.