Thai police yesterday said they were searching for two more suspects, including a possible explosives specialist, in a botched terror plot against Israeli diplomats that has been blamed on Iran.
One of the two new suspects may have been providing training in the use of explosives to three Iranian men who were detained after the plot was discovered on Tuesday in Bangkok, said the city’s police commissioner, Lieutenant General Winai Thongson.
Winai said the man was seen on closed circuit camera footage as he left a house that had been used by the Iranians. The roof of the residence was blown off later the same day after a cache of explosives there detonated accidentally, and the same cameras captured each of the three Iranian men leaving the residence shortly afterward.
Winai said the man was 52 years old and of Middle Eastern descent, but that he did not know his nationality. He said police were also looking for a suspect who had rented the destroyed home with an Iranian woman, who is now believed to be back in Tehran.
Israel, which has threatened military strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities, has accused Iran of being behind the botched plot in Thailand. Israel alleges it was part of a covert campaign of state terror that included a bombing on Monday in New Delhi that wounded an Israeli diplomat’s wife and driver, and a failed bomb attempt the same day in Tbilisi, Georgia.
Iran blames Israel for the recent killings of Iranian atomic scientists and has denied responsibility for all three bomb plots.
Thailand’s national police chief said on Thursday that the detained Iranians were plotting to attack Israeli diplomats, citing the similarity of so-called “sticky” bombs that can be attached magnetically that were used in New Delhi and Tbilisi.
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