Blasts Rattle Bangkok As Israel Accuses Iran

[WunMoneyBunny]

Blasts rattle Bangkok

A senior official denied any links to terrorism, but police have yet to rule on whether the blasts were part of a terrorist attack, or if they had anything to do with last month's arrest of a Lebanese man with Swedish nationality in an alleged bomb plot.

"So far, we haven't found any links between these two cases," senior police commander Pol General Pansiri Prapawat said.

-- (c) Copyright AFP 2012-02-15

Meanwhile, a police spokesman said that investigators had identified a link to something far more alarming than terrorism.

"It has been established that all 3 Iranians had been in country for more than 200 days, & not one of them, I repeat not one had submitted a 90-day report," he said.

"The immigration department views this blatant disregard for our very specific regulations as a serious matter. These aliens will be interviewed to determine the reason why they chose to not advise the department of their residential addresses. Regardless of their excuses, they will be fined the specified amount, & warned that if they do not follow the rules in future, they will need to find a country other than Thailand in which to make & explode their bombs!"

Edited February 15, 2012 by WunMoneyBunny

[rubl]

It is Thailands newest tourest draw, Terrorist Tourism.

Maybe they can get stumpy to reenact it 3 times a day for the tourists.

Ha ha, I just had a vision of a Tombstone Arizona gun fight re-enactment type of touist attraction for Thailand.

With as background music some Ennio Morricone stuff, like from the famous scene at the cemetary in "The Good, The Bad and The Ugly"

[Ulysses G.]

How wrong you are. Christian churches are being burnt and destroyed and Christians persecuted all through certain African countries and also Egypt, hardly what I would call tolerance. Just Google "burning of Christian churches".

Indeed.

Edited February 15, 2012 by Ulysses G.

[metisdead]

Off topic posts have been removed.

[pxlgirl]

The boom wasn't big enough and since farungs (and not Thais) might have been the target, it's easy to boil things down. We find the same attitude all over the place, until a few thousand people die and politicians wake up and choke on their morning coffees.

[witsawakorn]

Grenades bounce? Who knew? Do they have a warning label?

Yes, not terrorism, most Iranians settle disputes between themselves with C4 and grenades.

That could well be true!! Does all C4 come from the US?

[Suradit69]

The Normal Thai person in the street will simply swallow all the bovine excreta thrown at that them by the "powers to be" ,this is just a normal every day crime and in no way should any future travelers to the kingdom be alarmed .

The normal Thai person will just accept what the government says???

Did you just arrive in Thailand? Do you recall the reactions to government that lead to the riots in Bangkok, the storming of the ASEAN conference in Pattaya, the anger at the management of the recent floods ??

Your patronizing assumption that Thais are innocent naifs who take everything told them by government or the press at face value is laughable. Only the farangs on ThaiVisa can see through politicians, right?

Just amazing. I suggest you sometime get to know some "normal Thai people" before you shoulder the burden of dismissing them with xenophobic disdain.

[metisdead]

Comment on moderation has been removed. Read the forum rules.

There are plenty of other places to discuss conspiracy theories, this is not the place for that discussion.

[pattayadingo]

An everyday occurrence that Foreign people throw grenades at taxis and police? That is how the Thai authorities seem to paint this picture. Then I would be even more worried !!

There have been a few times I wish I had a grenade to toss into a taxi.

Especially at 2 a.m. after a few beers and wanting them to use the meter.

[AlanL1275]

I know how frustrating it can be, trying to get a Taxi to stop, or use the Taxi Meter. Especially if you're standing in the rain.

Maybe it's not Terrorist related, but frustration at Taxi's :-)

If he survives he will have his own Taxi. Two large wheels, and two small ones.

[belg]

thailand, hub of terrorists ?

Edited February 15, 2012 by belg

[dundee48]

It is very, very convenient for Israel to blame Iran for anything at this point.

And it is very, very, even more convenient for Iran to be blamed by Israel. This is why many Iranian nuclear scientists have been assassinated recently by the Iranian Government - in order to give Iran an excuse to use their nuclear weapons against Israel as soon as they are ready. This is why Iran want's to provoke Israel into an attack - so Iran can claim to be acting in self-defense when they nuke Israel.

Sorry but I don't understand what you are saying. How can Iran use nuclear weapons if they are killing thier own people who are suppose to be making them. Would it not be easier to protect the people who make them so they have them ready to use if they wish. I thought it would be more logical for the otherside to do the assasinations. What your saying is like a game of football and both sides are kicking to the same end.

Whoosh.

[witsawakorn]

It is quite frightening when the Thai authorities are not facing the reality with this terrorist act. What else is happening that they consider "normal"? By sticking their stupid heads in the sand they will unfortunately cause further innocent casualties.

It is NOT an ordinary spit between criminals. I believe they were out to bomb the Israeli or American embassies or God forbid they were after nearby targets frequented by tourists.

What is the reality that you expect the government to face up to ? Surely if the government makes a big deal of this matter resulting in panic reactions then that is exactly what the terrorists want. Based on the facts available so far we know that 3 Iranian nationals were ineptly handling explosives resulting in one of them blowing his own legs off. Unless they were friends of yours I can't understand why you would believe that these idiots were going to attack the US or Israeli Embassies or anywhere else for that matter. They could even be on US or Israeli payroll as part of a campaign to stir up anti Iranian feelings ahead of an important vote on sanctions. in fact the more i think about it the more plausible that seems

[rijb]

keep thinking...

[Tony Clifton]

Let's see.

-Corrupt police force.

-Corrupt politicians.

-Yearly U.S accomodations with the Cobra Gold exercises, military presence.

-"Intelligence analysis said [the suspects] were arguing with one another, and the incidents are being treated as normal crimes."

U.S condemns attack but just loves the very convenient Iranian side of it.

Smells funny doesn't it?

[rijb]

keep smelling...

[fantapsy]

Comment on moderation has been removed. Read the forum rules.

There are plenty of other places to discuss conspiracy theories, this is not the place for that discussion.

Ok, I'll respect that though given the wealth of evidence I could provide to back up my claims I believed it was not so much a conspiracy theory as a thoroughly plausible take on current events.

The truth will set us free one day

[unanimosity]

'war room'

Does that mean Thailand is at war finally with these terrorist groups ideology?

A war room to combat common crime? No terrorism iin Thailand, that's the rule.

[chrisinth]

I'm jumping in here without reading all the posts; has it been established what the Iranians were doing:

Were they assembling and selling explosive devices?

Were they buying explosive devices?

If it were a terrorist action, what or who was the target?

Was it in-house fighting between themselves?

Again, sorry if the above points have been clarified. IMHO though, it may be terrorist related to some extent at some stage, but what has happened wasn't planned; complete and utter <snip>

Surprised there hasn't been someone answering this, I'm still (more) confused as to what happened. Reason I asked earlier who or what the target was is that you don't usually do rehearsals with live material (Page 3 of the Terrorist's Handbook) and as far as I'm aware there were no known targets in the area of the second (and third (?)) detonation.

A lot of people on this thread have made their minds up already, but what are the facts; such a variation on the press releases that it doesn't make sense.

[maidu]

It's understandable that top Thai authorities would do figurative double back flips - in order to make this incident look as benign as possible. I agree with an earlier poster, "did they learn their spin blurbs from Iraq's Chemical Ali?" (or something like that).

Really guys and gals at the top of the escalator, you'all really need to take your realism pills. Maybe your diehard Red fans will swallow it, but......... to anyone else, you look like Raggedy Ann meets Chatty Kathy.

[relaxed]

everyone seems to be scrambling now that the USA warning a month ago fell on deaf ears and everyone laughed it off. Now that it has come to fruition everyone seems so surprised. They don't give these warnings to stop tourism.

[geriatrickid]

Let's see.

-Corrupt police force.

-Corrupt politicians.

-Yearly U.S accomodations with the Cobra Gold exercises, military presence.

-"Intelligence analysis said [the suspects] were arguing with one another, and the incidents are being treated as normal crimes."

U.S condemns attack but just loves the very convenient Iranian side of it.

Smells funny doesn't it?

The only thing that smells are the piles of BS posted to try and present the victims and those trying o warn people as the perpetrators of the attack.

[geriatrickid]

I'm jumping in here without reading all the posts; has it been established what the Iranians were doing:

Were they assembling and selling explosive devices?

Were they buying explosive devices?

If it were a terrorist action, what or who was the target?

Was it in-house fighting between themselves?

Again, sorry if the above points have been clarified. IMHO though, it may be terrorist related to some extent at some stage, but what has happened wasn't planned; complete and utter <snip>

Surprised there hasn't been someone answering this, I'm still (more) confused as to what happened. Reason I asked earlier who or what the target was is that you don't usually do rehearsals with live material (Page 3 of the Terrorist's Handbook) and as far as I'm aware there were no known targets in the area of the second (and third (?)) detonation.

A lot of people on this thread have made their minds up already, but what are the facts; such a variation on the press releases that it doesn't make sense.

There is no need for fanciful conspiracy theories because the M.O. has been previously established. No one wanted to believe that the Russians would send a Bulgarian to London to assassinate a dissident by using a poison pellet fired from an umbrella. No one wanted to believe the Taliban were prparing poison gas attacks until the videos of Taliban testing the gas on dogs were publicized. No one wanted to believe that Al Qaeda beheaded kidnap victims until the terrorists posted the videos and too credit. In this case, the Iranian agents were assembling their bombs and fortunately had a mishap. How can anyone deny that the people named were implicated? How does one explain away the explosive tossing iranian now legless, or the Iranian arrested while attempting to flee to the safe haven of Malaysia?

[Ulysses G.]

Hear. Hear!

[maidu]

I'm jumping in here without reading all the posts; has it been established what the Iranians were doing:

Were they assembling and selling explosive devices?

Were they buying explosive devices?

If it were a terrorist action, what or who was the target?

Was it in-house fighting between themselves?

Again, sorry if the above points have been clarified. IMHO though, it may be terrorist related to some extent at some stage, but what has happened wasn't planned; complete and utter <snip>

Surprised there hasn't been someone answering this, I'm still (more) confused as to what happened. Reason I asked earlier who or what the target was is that you don't usually do rehearsals with live material (Page 3 of the Terrorist's Handbook) and as far as I'm aware there were no known targets in the area of the second (and third (?)) detonation.

A lot of people on this thread have made their minds up already, but what are the facts; such a variation on the press releases that it doesn't make sense.

I don't know all the related factoids, but I can take a stab at answering your questions. It appears it was Iranians and/or sympathisers making bombs. It also appears that Israeli interests were the most likely target. Overall security in Thailand is lax, so finding a plum target would not be difficult. However, in this instance, it appears something went wrong in the apartment the guys were at, and in their attempt to flee down the road, they did some very stupid things - like hurling separate grenades at a p.u. truck and a taxi - in their anger and desperation to force those vehicles to stop and take them quickly away. That's what it appears to me at this time, anyway. Should be interesting to see how this unfolds.

I hope the Isrealis and Americans get to interview them, as Thai authorities tend to be too easy on such suspects - preferring to boot them out of the country as soon as possible, in order to lessen the possible smudge it may put on Thailand's tourism image.

[geriatrickid]

Comment on moderation has been removed. Read the forum rules.

There are plenty of other places to discuss conspiracy theories, this is not the place for that discussion.

Ok, I'll respect that though given the wealth of evidence I could provide to back up my claims I believed it was not so much a conspiracy theory as a thoroughly plausible take on current events.

The truth will set us free one day

Thank you for joining Thaivisa to presentyour theories of international domination. My friend has told me that he saw aluminum foil on special at Big C. I suggest you check it out. You may need to create an anti mind reading garment.

[rakman]

Foreign Ministry spokesman Thanee Thongphakdee said an official conclusion on the incidents would be made soon to determine the specific nature of the crimes. "Don't jump to the conclusion that it was an act of terrorism," he said.

Blatantly obvious to all of us that the place was in fact an illegal factory manufacturing fireworks for the upcoming Songkran celebrations.

Safety precautions were somewhat lax, hence the unfortunate explosion and the resultant explosive devices flying around prior to exploding.

No terrorist or terrorism here in Thailand is there ?

Wouldn't these "firework" makers be guilty of not having work permits?

Edited February 15, 2012 by rakman

[Steely Dan]

How can anyone deny that the people named were implicated? How does one explain away the explosive tossing iranian now legless, or the Iranian arrested while attempting to flee to the safe haven of Malaysia?

How indeed? It takes bias and ignoring the cognitive dissonance caused by facts contradicting their fanciful theories to the point of mental illness.

[elektrified]

It is ok for Israel to use a terror group to kill Iranian scientist, but no ok for some other Iranian group to retaliate against Israel

Huh? So you don't mind that Iranians are detonating grenades or other explosives in the capital city of this country???

[geriatrickid]

You sound like a real barrel of laughs to live with Mr shorts.

So muslim's desire to convert the whole world to muslim, including you and me, at any cost, is not objectional then. Glad we got that clear.

Some Muslims are violent - this is not a reflection on the religion itself, nor the majority of its believers who are peaceful and reasonable people who respect other religions and freedom of worship.

Independently of the violence aspect - if you object to evangelism I hope you feel the same way about the Christian, Mormon, 7th Day etc knocking on doors, trying to brainwash kids etc all around the world.

And with regard to violence, which countries sees the most murders, shootings etc as a percentage of the population - what you'll find there is a rabid belief in the most irrational Christian sects.

IMO eliminate all the organized monotheistic religions and the world would be a better place.

Jeez. Get real. The Mormons and assorted bible thumpers in Thailand are basically harmless. they are non violent and go away when so told. They do not set up religious schools in the south preaching jihad. Nor do Thai muslims run about preaching jihad for that matter. Thailand is a battleground for foreigners. We see it with the drug cartels financed from Burma and China, we saw it with the Tamil Tigers, we see it with dubious religious zealots from Pakistan, Iran and Lebanon, we see it with western real estate and phone scam gangs, we see it with European arms merchants and we see it with the world's child sex seekers. Thailand for all of its puritanical public face and zero tolerance drug laws is a bubbling cauldron of crime. Sometimes the pot boils over and splatters people with the deadly brew.