Police Arrest Suspect Over Us Consulate Attack

[george]

Thai police arrest suspect over failed US consulate attack: report

BANGKOK - Police in northern Thailand have arrested a Thai man on charges of attempted arson for allegedly tossing a small firebomb at the US consulate in the city of Chiang Mai earlier this month, state media reported Saturday.

The 21-year-old student, identified only by the pseudonym “Pin,” was arrested after police said he confessed to throwing a gasoline-filled soft drink bottle with a lit fuse at the consulate on Nov. 19, the Thai News Agency or TNA said.

The bomb failed to explode or cause any damage.

It was unclear when the suspect was arrested or what penalty he would face if found guilty of the charge.

Police arrested the man after witnesses provided information about the registration number of a motorcycle seen fleeing the scene of the attack.

They said the suspect confessed to throwing similar homemade bombs - known as Molotov cocktails - at the US consulate on two other occasions, when he also left written messages that denounced the United States for trying to act as a “global policeman.”

He said he acted alone and threw the explosive out of anger at the United States’ “display of power and its bombing of other countries,” according to TNA.

Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra said earlier that the incident was not linked to terrorism and was probably a prank.

At a news conference in Chiang Mai, 580 kilometers (360 miles) north of Bangkok, Pin covered his face, apparently trying to hide his identity.

Police, citing witnesses, said the suspect had arrived on a motorcycle, set fire to a fuse on a two-liter (half-gallon) soft drink bottle filled with gasoline and rolled it down the sloping road toward the US compound’s gate.

The burning Molotov cocktail hit the compound wall but did not explode, they said.

The US Embassy in Bangkok confirmed the incident.

Security around the US Embassy in Bangkok - the second-largest US mission in the world after Cairo, Egypt - was stepped up after last year’s Bali bomb attacks in Indonesia.

--The Nation 2003-11-30