Thai police today confirmed that a man seen in CCTV wearing a yellow T-shirt and carrying a backpack was the bomber who killed at least 22 people at a central Bangkok shrine.
Chilling footage shows the bespectacled terrorist calmly placing the bag next to the the Erawan Shrine minutes before the blast ripped through a crowd of worshippers.
'The yellow shirt guy is not just the suspect. He is the bomber,' Police Lt Gen Prawut Thavornsiri said.
Prawut earlier said the man 'is a suspect' and had released several photos of him, with and without the backpack, on a social media platform.
The images were apparently taken from closed-circuit video at the shrine before the bombing occurred around 7pm local yesterday near a busy Bangkok intersection.
Thailand's junta leader Prayut Chan-O-Cha described the blast as the 'worst ever attack' on the kingdom, adding that the suspect was believed to be from country's north-east – the heartland of the anti-coup Red Shirt movement.
'Today we have seen the CCTV footage, we saw some suspects, but it wasn't clear,' Prayut said. 'We have to find them first.'
Meanwhile, fuelling tensions even further, a device was thrown into a canal and blew up near a busy train station in central Bangkok this afternoon, sending people running for cover.
Prayut also said he believed Facebook messages apparently warning of an imminent danger to Bangkok ahead of the bomb came from an 'anti-government group' based in that area.
'We are looking for them now, some of them are in Isaan (northeastern Thailand),' he added.
Later, Prayut gave his first televised address since the bombing, saying the government will expedite 'all investigative efforts to find the perpetrators and bring them to justice,' but providing nothing specific about suspects or the status of the investigation.
National police chief Somyot Pumpanmuang said the suspect could be Thai or a foreigner.
'That man was carrying a backpack and walked past the scene at the time of the incident. But we need to look at the before and after CCTV footage to see if there is a link,' Somyot told a news conference.
Police earlier said they had not ruled out any group, although officials said the attack did not match the tactics of Muslim insurgents in the south.
More than 130 people were injured by the improvised explosive device, which scattered body parts, spattered blood, blasted windows and burned motorbikes to the metal.
Thai authorities identified five victims as Thai and four as Chinese - two of them from Hong Kong - along with two Malaysians and one Singaporean, and said the nationalities of the other eight victims remained unknown.
Defense Minister Prawit Wongsuwan said the attack was aimed at destroying the country's economy by targeting a major tourist area.
'It is much clearer who the bombers are, but I can't reveal more right now,' Prawit said, as he headed into a Cabinet meeting Tuesday morning. 'We haven't ruled out terrorism.'
He acknowledged that authorities had no idea an attack was planned.
'We didn't know about this ahead of time. We had no intelligence on this attack,' the defense minister said.
Meanwhile, raising tension in the city, a small explosive was thrown from a bridge over a river today but no one was injured, a police officer at the scene said.
The unidentified man threw the explosive near a busy pier on the city's Chao Phraya river and it landed in a canal, said Colonel Natakit Siriwongtawan, deputy police chief of Klongsan district.
'No one was killed or injured. Police are at the scene to investigate what kind of device it was,' an officer at Yanawa police station, who asked not to be named.
He said the incident took place shortly after 1pm (6am BST) near the Saphan Taksin BTS skytrain station.
CCTV footage of the incident posted by Thairath TV showed commuters scurrying for cover over a footbridge after the device exploded in the canal, sending a large plume of water into the air.
The Yanawa police official said officers believed the device was thrown from a road and rail bridge which spans Bangkok's Chao Phraya river and overlooks the canal below.
The luxury Shangri-La hotel, the Mandarin Oriental and the French embassy are close to Saphan Taksin station.
No one claimed responsibility for the incident.
Bangkok has endured more than a decade of deadly political violence, with the junta ruling the nation since May last year after toppling the elected government of Yingluck Shinawatra.
Armed elements on both sides, in a kingdom awash with military-grade weapons, have been known to instigate unrest at key moments.
The Red Shirts are a grassroots network of rural and urban poor that are loyal to Yingluck and her self-exiled brother, Thaksin Shinawatra, a populist politician who was a previous prime minister.
Thaksin Shinawatra, who was toppled by a 2006 coup, sits at the heart of the political divide.
Parties led by him, his sister or their proxies have won every election since 2001 thanks to the votes of the rural north and northeast, but the clan is loathed by the Bangkok-based royalist elite.
However, no-one has claimed responsibility for the attack and security analysts expressed scepticism over the government's lightning move to cast suspicion on its opponents.
'Even if they (Red Shirts) are hell-bent on bringing down the government, I just can't see them targeting a Hindu or any other religious shrine,' said Zachary Abuza, an independent expert on Thai security.
'That would really alienate many of their supporters.'
Muslim rebels from the country's far south have also waged a separatist insurgency for more than a decade that has claimed thousands of lives, mostly civilians.
But they have never been known to carry out substantial attacks in Bangkok, and Abuza as well as other analysts said Monday's bombing did not follow the insurgents' typical modus operandi.
Paul Chambers, director of research at the Institute of South East Asian Affairs in Thailand, said groups with links to military factions also had to be considered as potential suspects.
Junta leaders said the bomb was aimed at damaging the country's tourist industry, which is a rare bright spot in an otherwise gloomy economy, and tarnishing the junta's reputation.
'(The attackers) had the clear target of destroying our economy and tourism... and discrediting the government,' Defence Minister Prawit Wongsuwon told reporters.
National chief of police Somyot Poompanmoung said the bomb was made with a pipe wrapped in cloth and weighed three kilograms.
It detonated at the Erawan Shrine, which is dedicated to the Hindu god Brahma, but is extremely popular among Thailand's Buddhists as well as Chinese tourists.
Although Thailand is predominantly Buddhist, it has enormous Hindu influence on its religious practices and language.
Throngs of tourists come there to pray at all hours, lighting incense and offering flowers purchased from rows of stalls set up on the pavement along the shrine.
The site is a hubbub of activity, with quiet worshippers sometimes flanked by Thai dancers hired by those seeking good fortune, while groups of tourists shuffle in and out.
Thailand's baht currency slumped to a more than six-year low today and shares fell in Bangkok over concerns the attack could damage the tourism sector.
The blast site remained cordoned off early today as bomb experts photographed the area scouring for clues.
Police also tightened security across Bangkok, with hundreds of schools closed and checkpoints thrown up across the city.
Built in 1956, the Erawan is an enormously popular shrine to the Hindu god Brahma but is visited by thousands of Buddhist devotees every day.
The bomb was detonated shortly before 7pm (1pm BST) in the middle of the city's rush hour, sending a fireball into the sky as commuters and tourists fled in panic.
As dawn broke, Thais expressed fear about more potential violence in the coming days.
'I'm worried about Bangkok, I don't know what will happen next,' one woman, who only gave her name as Rivewan, said.
Around 1,000 people queued for hours at a nearby blood donation centre, many crying as they waited to be seen by nurses.
'This shouldn't have happened to the Thai people,' Pongchai Kulsitthiwong, a 45-year-old mobile phone seller said, tears rolling down his cheeks while waiting to give blood.
Monday's attack drew expressions of grief from around the world.
The U.S. government released a statement warning its citizens to avoid the area, while also voicing sympathy for the victims.
Daily Mail
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