Thai police yesterday said they were seeking two new suspects — a Thai woman and a foreign man of unknown nationality — in the widening investigation into Bangkok’s deadly bombing two weeks ago.
In a televised statement, police released a photograph of the woman’s Thai identification card — showing a young woman in a black headscarf — and a sketch of the man whose nationality was unknown.
The development came after police on Saturday arrested a man from an apartment in Bangkok’s outskirts and seized bomb-making equipment that included detonators, ball bearings and a metal pipe believed to be a bomb casing.
Photo: Reuters
More bomb-making materials were found in a second apartment during a raid on Sunday in a nearby apartment.
Royal Thai Police spokesman Prawuth Thavornsiri yesterday said the second apartment that was raided, in a neighborhood known as Min Buri, was rented by the Thai woman, who is being sought.
He identified the woman as 26-year-old Wanna Suansun.
Photo: Reuters
The man is believed to have lived in the apartment, where police found fertilizer, gunpowder, digital clocks and remote-controlled cars, whose parts can be used for detonation, among other items, Prawuth said.
“These are bomb-making materials,” Prawuth said. “Nobody would keep urea fertilizer and gunpowder unless they wanted to make a bomb.”
Saturday’s arrest was the first possible breakthrough in the investigation into the Aug. 17 blast at the Erawan Shrine, which killed 20 people, more than half of who were foreigners, and injured more than 120 others.
Much remains unknown about the suspect, including his nationality, his motive, his relationship to the alleged bombing network or if he was plotting an attack, Prawuth said, adding that another attack was “possible” because police found 10 detonators.
“We still have to work out the details, but we are very certain he is part of the network [that carried out the bombing],” he said.
Prawuth on Sunday said that police were working with “a number of embassies” and interpreters to try to establish the man’s nationality, adding that he did not speak Thai, but spoke some English.
Authorities have dodged questions about whether the suspect is believed to be Turkish, saying that he was traveling on a fake passport. Images circulated online after his arrest of a fake Turkish passport with the apparent suspect’s picture.
The Turkish Embassy in Bangkok could not immediately be reached for comment. A Turkish government spokesman in Istanbul said he had no information on the suspect or any possible Turkish link to the attack.
The blast at the Erawan Shrine was unprecedented in the Thai capital, where smaller bombs have been employed in domestic political violence over the past decade, but not in an effort to cause large-scale casualties.
Kehinde Sanni spends his days smoothing out dents and repainting scratched bumpers in a modest autobody shop in Lagos. He has never left Nigeria, yet he speaks glowingly of Burkina Faso military leader Ibrahim Traore. “Nigeria needs someone like Ibrahim Traore of Burkina Faso. He is doing well for his country,” Sanni said. His admiration is shaped by a steady stream of viral videos, memes and social media posts — many misleading or outright false — portraying Traore as a fearless reformer who defied Western powers and reclaimed his country’s dignity. The Burkinabe strongman swept into power following a coup in September 2022
TRUMP EFFECT: The win capped one of the most dramatic turnarounds in Canadian political history after the Conservatives had led the Liberals by more than 20 points Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday pledged to win US President Donald Trump’s trade war after winning Canada’s election and leading his Liberal Party to another term in power. Following a campaign dominated by Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats, Carney promised to chart “a new path forward” in a world “fundamentally changed” by a US that is newly hostile to free trade. “We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons,” said Carney, who led the central banks of Canada and the UK before entering politics earlier this year. “We will win this trade war and
‘FRAGMENTING’: British politics have for a long time been dominated by the Labor Party and the Tories, but polls suggest that Reform now poses a significant challenge Hard-right upstarts Reform UK snatched a parliamentary seat from British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s Labor Party yesterday in local elections that dealt a blow to the UK’s two establishment parties. Reform, led by anti-immigrant firebrand Nigel Farage, won the by-election in Runcorn and Helsby in northwest England by just six votes, as it picked up gains in other localities, including one mayoralty. The group’s strong showing continues momentum it built up at last year’s general election and appears to confirm a trend that the UK is entering an era of multi-party politics. “For the movement, for the party it’s a very, very big
The Philippines yesterday slammed an “irresponsible” Chinese state media report claiming a disputed reef in the South China Sea was under Beijing’s control, saying the “status quo” was unchanged. Tiexian Reef (鐵線礁), also known as Sandy Cay Reef, lies near Thitu Island, or Pagasa, where the Philippines stations troops and maintains a coast guard monitoring base. Chinese state broadcaster CCTV on Saturday said that the China Coast Guard had “implemented maritime control” over Tiexian Reef in the middle of this month. The Philippines and China have been engaged in months of confrontations over the South China Sea, which Beijing claims nearly in its
RSS