Thai Hostages Still Missing a Year After Hamas Attack

[Thai at Heart]

Can a device be detonated easily once it is under water. Certainly it can't be detonated by cell phone.

Yes, phone signal can penetrate water as deep as that canal without issue

Why would they do it, knowing that the water will massively reduce the explosion? Sounds rather pointless.

[mauGR1]

Yes, phone signal can penetrate water as deep as that canal without issue

Are you sure a cell phone could receive under water? The higher the frequency the ls penetration the signal has. Couple that with the sensativity of a cell phone with the attenuation of the water and if it is over a metre I wouldnt put money on the signal being received. The attenuation can be calculated but if it gives a figure of <-dB120 then I would consider it very lucky if it would operate anything

If you have a waterproof modern phone you can feel it ring underwater in pools

Maybe the phone call activates a countdown timer also , they both seemed to use phones especially the 2nd guy

He didn't need to behave so suspiciously for so long if he could have dropped it off the bridge while still walking and made less cctv evidence and potential witnesses

Not if it has been submerged for 17/18 hours. Highly unlikely anyway.

Mechanical timer would do it, but why would it be preset for that sort of time lapse? Because he didn't set it before kicking it in.

Go back to the original reports that a man was seen to throw the device and that it bounced into the water. Is this now being refuted?

Exactly, after reading lots of topics with contraddicting statements ( you don't know if to blame the media or the Police for that ) and hundreds of posts, we are not sure if this vdo is related with the explosion at the pier.

As " Thai at Heart " said, it would be pointless to explode the bomb after several hours underwater.

[UKJASE]

i think he must have been dumping the bomb, as for some reason he changed his mind about detonating it. maybe the pier was the initial target, with the many tourists that are there at that time, but he received a call from the yellow shirt guy, that the bomb was bigger than they thought, and he should not let this one off. (the motorbike taxi did say the yellow shirt guy was on the phone as they drove away from Erawan)

maybe, as is said above, they are young amateurs, being sponsored by someone else, and they were duped into thinking that these were only small bombs that would not kill

they do look very young in the video.

is it possible the bomb could lie on the river bed overnight, and then detonate by itself, or would it have to be timed to go off?

[isopax]

i think he must have been dumping the bomb, as for some reason he changed his mind about detonating it. maybe the pier was the initial target, with the many tourists that are there at that time, but he received a call from the yellow shirt guy, that the bomb was bigger than they thought, and he should not let this one off. (the motorbike taxi did say the yellow shirt guy was on the phone as they drove away from Erawan)

maybe, as is said above, they are young amateurs, being sponsored by someone else, and they were duped into thinking that these were only small bombs that would not kill

they do look very young in the video.

This is also what i somewhat believe as parts of the planning in this doesnt seem to be very professional, ex walking around town with a bomb in a plastic bag for the pier or the use of motorbike taxis and tuk tuk as transport, even the walking in, taking off the bag and then leave is also not a big thing.

One thing though, the guy on the pier seems pretty calm, could maybe have expected abit more panick, he is quite calm walting for his moment when not many on the bridge before he kicks it into the water.

but motive still blows my mind...why....

[arrowsdawdle]

Can a device be detonated easily once it is under water. Certainly it can't be detonated by cell phone.

Yours doesn't have alarm and appointment reminder features?

[Carmine6]

Not if it has been submerged for 17/18 hours. Highly unlikely anyway.

Mechanical timer would do it, but why would it be preset for that sort of time lapse? Because he didn't set it before kicking it in.

Go back to the original reports that a man was seen to throw the device and that it bounced into the water. Is this now being refuted?

That throwing thing never really make sense to me. Originally was called grenade, but then said to be same as the other one. If it was the same size as the first and was somewhere near 3kg of explosives plus pipe and 2 end caps, that's a lot of weight to throw. We haven't seen the earlier part of the video at the bridge, but there should have been a huge splash in the video. Not that the video is handled well, but normally, the release would be show the splash, then show explosion in the same spot some time later. Only the explosion part has been released.

Also, throwing from the bridge in broad daylight seems one of the worst places to do something like that. There's no quick hiding place, and the person or vehicle has to get off the bridge without traffic cams and other cars or people seeing those people. How many people are on that bridge on a Tuesday afternoon? Probably lots.

Dropping something the same night as the first seems more likely. I can't recall an instance where there has been two related attacks a day apart. Hard to do when everyone's alert and aware. I think there have been several though that have been in the same night. Bali and India. Usually second designed to hurt responders or shortly afterwards someplace else. Which maybe could have been intended this time, just one guy didn't follow through.

[ourmanflint]

The second bomb is making me think the whole operation was a botched job performed by youngsters who didn't know what they were doing (assuming these two bombs were not pure coincidence, which is surely beyond reasonable probability).

Have we had this theory yet: that they were local amateurs operating on their own and got out of their depth? That the first bomb was intended to cause damage and a few injuries, not to kill so many people? And the guy with the second bomb, having heard about the carnage of the first, quickly lost his bottle and got rid of it in this desperate way? Students?

pretty much what I have been saying for a while now. It is just about the only theory that makes some sense

[Stargeezr]

Is the sky falling! Is this a related incident? I hope that I can still get to Thailand this Winter and

enjoy a few weeks away from the Canadian snow and cold. I do know that I would still rather

take my holidays in Thailand than in the Middle East somewhere.

For the arm chair critics, do you know how much the regular policeman or woman gets paid

in Thailand. If you were to ask around you may be very surprised. Then go to the USA or

Europe, Australia or Canada and ask the police there how much they get paid.

At the same time maybe ask how much training they get as well. Oh, I know that is also

another surprise. What I do know is that with the resources that Thailand has

they are doing what they can with the resources and training that they have.

I hope they have good luck and catch at least 2 of these guys, and then get the information

out of them on the third guy. Then the three of them can enjoy many, many years in

a nice Thai prison, eating 3 meals a day and sleeping on a bamboo mat.

[gk10002000]

Having all the CCTV in the world doesn't help if the images are blurred.

All the images of all the suspects cannot offer any identity whatsoever.

Why is CCTV even there ??

you get what you pay for. you want 12,000 cctv all across Bangkok? I am sure they bid the contract, some low bidder won it, and supplied the cameras. Probably no technical spec was part of the statement of work. Just a low price and they bought junk

[canuckamuck]

I don't know why so many people are calling this a botched job. It looks to me that the bomb maker got rid of the secondary bomb and left himself enough time to be long gone before discovery.

Seems to me that the execution was precise. They did it all in the public eye and they will likely get away with it.

Edited August 24, 2015 by canuckamuck

[exbikey]

The Thais take a long time to analyze CCTV video. Do Thais really have the expertise required?

Obviously not. I get the impression also that the CCTV cameras were not exactly placed with a lot of thought

Patong

[duckmandon]

The clip in question.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Exob-2OzCm0

I don't think I'm allowed to link it, but there's another video on a Thai website which is a fairly sharp video of a guy in blue shirt carrying a heavy plastic bag. Same website had this video yesterday, so probably the new one will show up on an English website by tomorrow. The bag is so heavy he has to lean to the other side to balance it while walking.

He has a black bag with a strap like the guy is this video did, and light colored graphics on the front of the shirt as appears to be the case in this video. Crosses a small street or alley toward the camera, then pauses underneath to check something on phone. Seems to make a call right before leaving the camera view, as he puts the phone up to his ear, right before picking up the plastic bag and leaving.

Timestamp is around 19:10, which might be a little after this first video if true. Likely some time issues in one or both of these cameras.

It may be the same guy. If you look at the footage of the bombing, the guy walks away with a plastic bag. Maybe a change of clothes & a new phone also with a smaller bomb so it will destroy all evidence linked to him. Just a thought

[Seann]

He was talking extensively on the phone.

Option #1.

He was Thai. The talk on the phone was a distraction. He pretended to talk about mundane things over the phone so that he could dump the bomb into the water without drawing attention.

Option #2.

He was speaking in a foriegn language and wasn't worried about this attracting attention.

[Seann]

Amazing that despite the video, there is no word of Thai witnesses coming forward to say they were on the bridge and could identify the language being spoken by this man.

Edited August 25, 2015 by Seann

[speedtripler]

Amazing that despite the video, there is no word of Thai witnesses coming forward to say they were on the bridge and could identify the language being spoken by this man.

I was in the area of the bomb attack the evening before it and trying to recall anyone else who might have been in the area is impossible if I think back, we thought thank &lt;deleted&gt; we weren't there but being a good witness would have been impossible

People have unreliabily crap memory's to begin with (this has been proven in courts) , then distract them with talking/listening to the people who they are with, driving, answering messages on a phone, walking in a hurry, thinking about what kind of somtam to get etc etc and the whole crowd of people in a city centre turns into a blur...

[FBlue72]

It makes complete sense to do this if the effects of the first bomb were far bigger than than the bombers intended. Maybe they didn't realise how powerful the bomb was or how much damage it would do? Previous pipe bombs in Bangkok didn't end up killing so many people, so perhaps they just got scared?

Seems likely that somewhere in between where yellow shirt was dropped off and this canal, is where the bombs were made and carried from. A deepwater explosion ie with bomb on river bed does sort of tie up with what was seen on CCTV when this device went off, as if it was anywhere near the surface having been thrown from above, it still should have caused significant damage to pontoon and passers by.

Waiting to toss it into a boat that was ( luckily) running late?