Deadly Thai bomb attacks connected, arrests made

Police in Thailand have arrested a man over multiple blasts that killed four people and wounded dozens in a central bar district in the seaside resort of Hua Hin.

The arrests were made after an as yet unidentified group carried out a series of deadly bomb attacks on five separate provinces on Thursday and Friday in coordinated strikes that authorities said were set up to cause chaos across the nation.

A man believed to be an accomplice in one of the attacks was arrested by Thai police. He was also interrogated in connection with another arson attack on a supermarket in the southern province of Nakhon Si Thammarat.

Police over the weekend found and defused five explosive devices that had failed to detonate.

The attacks came just days after Thais voted to accept a military-backed constitution that the ruling junta, which seized power in 2014, has said will lead to an election by the end next year.

"These acts were undertaken by a group in many areas simultaneously, following orders from one individual," Pongsapat Pongcharoen, a deputy national police chief, told reporters on Sunday, without elaborating

Bombs exploded on Thursday and Friday in the upscale resort of Hua Hin and beach destinations in the south including Phuket, Phang Nga and Surat Thani, a city that is the gateway to popular islands in the Gulf of Thailand.

The wave of attacks came as tourists flocked to the beaches at the start of a public holiday. Several attacks used incendiary devices that hit shops and markets in southern Thai provinces.

“Suspicion would inevitably fall on enemies of the ruling junta aggrieved by the referendum results, or insurgents from Muslim-majority provinces in the south of the mostly Buddhist country,” analysts say.

Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha has instructed the police to be thorough and cautious in their investigation.

Thai police, in fact, have come under fire in the past over investigations into high profile cases, including the brutal murders of two British backpackers on a tourist island in 2014.