Four hooded suspects fire rockets at Army fuel tank No 6 after it was apparently selected as their target; Cabinet will take strike into account when it decides today on whether to extend the state of emergency
Twin rockets were fired at an empty fuel tank located in an Army installation in Nonthaburi on Sunday night, causing slight damage to the tank but no explosion or casualties.
Relying on witness details, police said the rocket-propelled grenade (RPG) attack was well prepared, as four attackers on two motorcycles were hooded and wore safety helmets, and both vehicles had no licence plate.
Nonthaburi police chief Pol Maj-General Supphakij Srijantharanont said had the of 10-million-litre-capacity fuel tank not been empty, the explosion could have caused wide damage to local communities and a school only 500 metres away.
The tank hit by the RPGs was the only empty one in a group of 11, all located at the Army installation. Police sources said the attackers could have been instructed to target tank No 6. The pillion riders were seen wearing two white cloth backpacks thought to have contained the launchers and rockets.
Second bomb attack within days
The attack, at around 9pm on Sunday night at the Army's Directorate of Quartermasters, was the second bomb attack within days, following an attempt last Tuesday on the headquarters of coalition ally the Bhum Jai Thai Party in Bangkok.
It was the second RPG attack on a fuel depot. The first was carried out on a government-owned fuel tank in Ayutthaya province last month during the red-shirt riots in Bangkok.
The most likely launch site for this latest attack was near Soi Saithong 15, close to a housing estate and Tha Sai Pracha Uppatham School, the officer said.
The RPG attack will be taken into consideration when Cabinet decides today whether to extend the state-of-emergency decree beyond its original July 7 deadline, acting Government Spokesman Panitan Wattanayagorn said yesterday.
The targeted tank, with height equivalent to a three-storey building, suffered two dent marks in its outside skin, which is of 10-centimetre thick metal. Two sets of RPG fins were found at the scene.
The government's Centre for the Resolution of the Emergency Situation (CRES) has concluded the RPG attack was meant to cause disruption by a group of people yet to be identified.
Spokesman Sansern Kaewkam-nerd said it was not yet known whether the attack was carried out by the same group behind numerous bomb and grenade attacks before and during the red-shirt protests that began in March. He also denied the government was behind the attack to cause an extension to the state of emergency.
"The CRES is evaluating why a bomb attack was successfully carried out despite more than 200 companies of troops mobilised throughout Bangkok, and especially under the state of emergency," he said.
Local police said more evidence and eyewitness accounts would determine whether the attackers were local red shirts.
"I don't want to jump to such a conclusion now. Let's wait until tomorrow [June 29] to hear more about this from police," Sansern added.
Meanwhile, police raided the Bangkok home of Warisriya Bunsom, a fugitive suspect accused of jointly plotting the Bhum Jai Thai bomb attack.
Police said she was implicated by red-shirt guard Kamphol Kamkhong and Dejphol Phutthajong, two men now in custody, as an organiser of the attack.
Both men said the Bhum Jai Thai Party was a secondary target chosen as an alternative after the primary target - Democrat Party headquarters - was found to be too difficult to attack.