Bangkok bombings death toll rises to three

The death toll in the New Year's Eve bombing in the Thai capital Bangkok rose to three today.

One of the victims, a 26-year-old Thai, died after undergoing an operation to remove shrapnel from his lungs, police and doctors said.

Thirty-eight people were injured in the string of bombings across Bangkok yesterday, including two Britons.

The nine bombs that exploded across Bangkok capped a year of unrest in Thailand, including a military coup three months ago and an increasingly violent Muslim uprising in the south.

There was no claim of responsibility. National deputy police chief General Ajirawit Suphanaphesat said Muslim separatists were probably not behind the attacks.

Foreigners injured were two Serbians, the two Britons, a Hungarian and a US citizen, said Suchila La-oan, a staff member of the Police General Hospital, where they were sent.

The bombings triggered a major security lockdown in the Thai capital.

The first six blasts rocked Bangkok around 6pm, killing two people and injuring more than 20. The small bombs - in some cases triggered by clocks and placed in rubbish bins - went off within an hour of each other around the city.

Among the targets were a department store at the Victory Monument, near a vegetable market in the Klong Toey slum and a police post in the Saphan Kwai district.

A second round of bombs went off just after midnight in a phone booth, a hotel, and near a canal bridge in a downtown area thick with heavily-visited hotels and shopping malls.

"Due to several bomb explosions in Bangkok and for the sake of peace and security, I would ask all of you to return to your homes now," Bangkok mayor Apirak Kosayothin told some 5,000 revellers at the downtown Central World Plaza shopping mall. The crowd dispersed quickly, but calmly.

Hotels stepped up security, searching cars and cancelling expensive New Year's Eve dinners.

"I heard a loud explosion and I thought it was fireworks. I ran there and saw a bleeding woman at the bus stop," said Somrak Manphothong, a receptionist at the Saxophone bar along a busy traffic circle near the Victory Monument.

"Another guy was lying on the floor, covered with blood, and his wife was shaking his body."

In Klong Toey, a pool of blood and egg yolks covered the roadside beside an overturned motorcycle.

New Year festivities, however, continued in parts of Bangkok, with hundreds of foreign tourists still partying into the night in the famous Patpong Road red light district.

Fireworks lit up the sky at midnight in both Bangkok and Chiang Mai, with many people still gathered in the streets.

Police and army troops with assault rifles guarded some entertainment venues, stations and roundabouts. Roadblocks were set up on some streets.

Several foreign embassies responded to the bombing by issuing updated travel advisories, warning that the threat of terrorism was high and advising citizens not to travel within Bangkok and to avoid mass gatherings.

"There is a possibility of further attacks in coming days," said a travel advisory from the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.

The bombings came in the middle of a long holiday weekend during the peak tourist season in Bangkok, a city known for its easy going, party spirit. Many tourists said they would not be deterred and packed popular sites on New Year's Day like the Grand Palace.

The city has rarely experienced deadly bombings, although several small explosives were set off during recent political turmoil in an apparent attempt to create a sense of instability, not to cause casualties.

In September, a group of generals ousted prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra in a bloodless coup and the military installed Surayud Chulanont as interim prime minister until elections set for October.

Thaksin still has widespread support and a number of arson attacks in provincial areas have been blamed on his followers.

"There are two potential suspects: Muslim insurgents and Thaksin's residual power. I tend to think it's residual power. I suspect the previous regime," said Thitinan Pongsudhirak, a political scientist at Chulalongkorn University.

Thaksin's lawyer, Noppadol Patama, was quoted on the Matichon newspaper's website as saying that Thaksin was in China and not involved in the bombings.

Bombings and shootings occur almost daily in Thailand's three southernmost provinces of Yala, Narathiwat and Pattani, where an Islamic uprising that flared in January 2004 has killed more than 1,900 people.

The insurgents have carried out numerous attacks in the south, but are not known to have launched any in Bangkok.

Later today a small explosive was thrown at a mosque in the northern Thailand city of Chiang Mai, injuring a caretaker working there, said police Maj Gen Bandop Sukhonman.

Bandop blamed local troublemakers for the attack and said it was unrelated to the Bangkok bombings.