WarSclerotic

A man carrying an Iranian passport lost his legs and injured four other people in the Thai capital on Tuesday when grenades he was carrying apparently exploded by accident, police said.

Surapong Tovichakchaikul, the Thai foreign minister, said on Wednesday that two Iranians had been arrested in connection with the incident.

“They are charged with causing an illegal explosion in a public area and attempting to kill police officers and members of the public,” said Surapong.

Investigators said they were examining possible links between the explosion in Bangkok and Monday’s blast in New Delhi and failed attack on an Israeli diplomatic vehicle in Tblisi.

An unnamed Thai official told AFP that Israeli diplomats were the target of Tuesday’s botched bombing.

“These three Iranian men are an assassination team and their targets were Israeli diplomats including the ambassador,” the official said. “Their plan was to attach bombs to diplomats’ cars.”

“Yesterday’s incident was caused by current international tensions in world politics,” said Wichian Podphosri, a security official. “It’s happening not only in Thailand but also elsewhere.”

He said that a magnet found among the material looked similar to ones used in the Indian bombing and in the device defused in Georgia.

Israel blames Iran

Israel has accused Iran and its Lebanese ally Hezbollah of being behind all three incidents.

Ehud Barak, the Israeli defence minister, said: “The attempted terrorist attack in Bangkok proves once again that Iran and its proxies continue to perpetrate terror.”

“Iran and Hezbollah are unrelenting terror elements endangering the stability of the region, and endangering the stability of the world,” said Barak, who spent a few hours in Bangkok on Sunday.

Iran strongly denied any involvement in the Thai explosion, as well as the incidents in India and Georgia.

“The foreign ministry spokesman rejected Israeli claims that Iran was involved in the Bangkok bombing and added that efforts by the Zionist regime to harm friendly and historic relations between Iran and Thailand will bear no fruit,” the semi-official Fars news agency reported.

Tuesday’s explosion on a Bangkok street occurred shortly after another explosion, apparently accidental, at a house which the man carrying the grenades was renting, police said.

Police found other explosive material in the house.

The injured man, whose name was given as Saeid Moradi, lost one of his legs in the blast and the other leg had to be amputated in hospital.

Two other men shared the rented house with him. One was arrested at Bangkok’s international airport on Tuesday but the third had slipped past security at the airport and fled to Malaysia, Wichian said.

Monday’s attack on an Israeli diplomatic car in New Delhi left a female diplomat and three other people injured. Georgian police said they had thwarted on an Israeli diplomatic vehicle on the same day.