Suspected bombers identified in South

Meanwhile, a roadside bomb wounded a kamnan and three other officials as they were travelling in his pick-up truck in Pattani’s Yarang district yesterday.

A note was left by insurgents at a nearby security box, saying: “You play games with tokens, but I will play with [your] lives.”

Ismael Buenae, chief of tambon Kor Lam, sustained only minor injuries, as did three civil defence volunteers sitting in the bed of the truck, despite the vehicle being blown 30 metres from the bombsite. Police said the bomb consisted of 15kg of explosives buried in the middle of the road, with a wire detonator.

Security sources alleged yesterday that Sahudin Tohjehmae carried out three bomb attacks in Yala, with the help of Saifulloh Sahfru, a terrorist suspect who is a friend of Faisol Hayisama-ae. Faisol is wanted for the Hat Yai airport bomb attack in 2005.

Sahudin was also supported by Abdulloh Pula, and Masoreh Tueramae. “They possibly met to plan the attacks [over the weekend] at Byte village, in tambon Budee, and Muang district one week before that,” the source said.

Masoreh may have assembled the car bomb used in the attack at the Lee Gardens Hotel in Hat Yai, and possibly drove the vehicle and parked it at an underground carpark himself, the sources said.

In Pattani, security officials raided a home in tambon Muang Tia in Mae Lan district and arrested Samlee Puluduereh, 34, following tip-offs. A pair of iron-cutting pliers and 100 metres of electric wire were found in his home. 

The officials said later he resembled one of three members of a team of insurgents caught on security cameras parking two vehicles at the Hat Yai hotel before fleeing.

In Bangkok, a defence intelligence unit affiliated with the Bangkok Metropolitan Adminis-tration will call a meeting on April 5 to discuss security in the capital and measures to heighten it during the funeral of Her Royal Highness Princess Bejaratana and the Songkran celebrations in the capital.

The meeting, held on behalf of an Internal Security Operations Command detachment to the 

BMA, is the second this year and was called in the wake of the bomb attacks in the deep South, BMA spokesman Wasan Meewong said.

In Phnom Penh yesterday, Asean foreign ministers expressed sympathy with Thailand over the blasts and condemned the attacks, Foreign Minister Surapong Towichukchai-kul said after a meeting prior to today’s Asean Summit. He did not name specific countries.

A Foreign Ministry spokesman said the meeting aimed to pursue frameworks to help achieve an Asean Community in 2015 in regard to three aspects: politics and security, economy and society, and culture. He said Surapong expressed condolences to Malaysian Foreign Ministry officials over the death of a Malaysian tourist in the Hat Yai bomb.

At a Senate session yesterday, the government, authorities and intelligence chiefs were criticised for lax security and performance, which was blamed as a cause of the attacks. 

Senator Somchai Sawaengkarn warned against possible bomb blasts at Hat Yai airport, or even Bangkok, as insurgents may exploit loopholes, as they succeeded in doing to get to a target in downtown Hat Yai.

Senator Charoen Phakdeewanich called on the government to convene a joint session of Parliament to talk about the problem and report to the public what it would do to prevent possible insurgent attacks in the future. He called for an overhaul of all intelligence services.

Another senator, Prasert Prakhun-suksaphan, said tall buildings and those with underground floors had been targeted for attack. The Hat Yai hotel drama would be a lesson intelligence and security officials should learn from, he said.