It’s not every day that bombs go off in your neighbourhood. It seems that whoever is behind the Bangkok bombings was not out to kill a multitude of people, but rather to send out a message to those in charge of the country. Casualties were minimal last night considering the number of bombs that went off. Perhaps there would have been more if the Bangkok governor had not seen sense in canceling the celebrations at Central World. The message has now been delivered, but delivered by who?

I received this in an e-mail from a friend who had had it passed onto him:

As best as my intel gives me, the bombings were co-ordinated by supporters of Thaksin. We had warnings a week ago but everyone basically was held in the dark and the military were on alert as were Police (irrespective of the factions within the Police who support Thaksin). So at this point there appears to be no Muslim involvement with the exception of one ‘later starter’ who may have been militant Muslim riding the wave thinking his compatriots had forgotten to tell him… idiot!

This came in from The Guardian yesterday:

There have been no reports of any British casualties, a Foreign Office (FCO) spokesman said. But the FCO has changed its travel advice for the country, recommending Britons do not travel about in Bangkok "unless absolutely necessary". Embassy officials have also set up two emergency phone numbers for anyone concerned about relatives who are currently in the Thai capital.

I don’t know about anybody else, but I’m a little concerned about being in the city at the moment. All those people who brushed off the initial wave of bombings last night were silenced as the explosions chimed in like midnight bells as 2006 drew to a close. Travel warnings occur from time to time, and often they are nothing to worry about, but they do make you think, especially considering we still don’t know who set off all of these bombs, in spite of speculation. The official word is that we just don’t know.

From The Nation this morning:

Government Spokesman Yongyuth Maiyalarp said the meeting of security and intelligence agencies at the Internal Security Operations Command head office late Sunday night failed to establish culprits behind the bomb attacks. The meeting was chaired by Prime Minister Surahyud Chulanont and was participated by the chief of the National Intelligence Agency. Yongyuth said the agencies needed more evidence to analyse the information.

What more evidence could they possibly need? This is ridiculous. Why aren’t they telling us what is going on? We have to go to work on Wednesday (or Tuesday) walking the same streets that were ripped apart by small explosive devices. Don’t we have a right to know whether or not we should be feeling safe or not? Thai Rak Thai this morning denied that it was behind the bombings.

What further complicates the issue is that the information that was getting through last night was sketchy. This morning a friend sent me a link to a news story that suggests there were two bombs at Saphan Kwai, when I had thought there was only one.

Bangkok Governor Apirak Kosayodhin has advised everyone to stay home today, as was reported by the Bangkok Post.

Techno’ tags: Terrorism in Thailand, Bangkok bombings