Car bomb injures 7 people in Thailand tourist resort
A car bomb explosion has injured seven people in a mall on Thailand’s resort island of Samui.
Officials said the injured, including six locals and a 12-year-old Italian girl, sustained only minor injuries in the blast and are all in good condition.
The explosives, which had been planted in a stolen pickup truck, went off in the parking area of the Central Festival Mall.
Thai police said, “It’s a car bomb but we cannot confirm what type of explosive materials they used.”
A police bomb squad was searching the debris at the site for potential clues as to who might have been behind the attack.
Following the bombing, the military government in Thailand moved to reassure foreigners that the country is a low-risk tourist destination.
A spokesman for the military’s Internal Security Operation Command said there had been no intelligence to suggest there would be more bombings in the country.
But “it’s possible insurgents with bomb-making skills were hired to attack for other purposes,” Colonel Banphot Phunphien said without elaborating.
Around 20 million people visit Thailand each year and the country’s main source of income is tourism. Samui is among the popular tourist islands in the Gulf of Thailand.
The Thai junta, which came to power in a coup on May 22, 2014, has blamed dissidents for a series of small bomb attacks in Bangkok this year, using the attacks as a justification for the imposition of martial law.
The coup by the Royal Thai Armed Forces was launched against the caretaker government of former prime minister, Yingluck Shinawatra, and established a military body called the National Council for Peace and Order to govern the nation.
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