– Foreigners ‘targeted’ –
While there was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack, the initial comments by Thai police cast immediate suspicion on the kingdom’s rival political factions.
Thailand has been seared by a near-decade of political violence that has left the country deeply divided and seen repeated rounds of deadly street protests and bombings – but none on Monday’s scale.
Many observers had predicted a fresh round of violence after the military seized power in a coup in May last year, toppling a civilian government led by Yingluck Shinawatra.
Thailand’s defence minister said the bombers had targeted “foreigners” to try to damage the tourist industry, which is a rare bright spot in an otherwise gloomy economy.
“It was a TNT bomb… the people who did it targeted foreigners and to damage tourism and the economy,” said Prawit Wongsuwong, a former general who is believed to have been one of the key coup-makers.
Singaporean and Taiwanese authorities said their citizens were among those injured.
Self-exiled former premier Thaksin Shinawatra, who is Yingluck’s brother and who was toppled by a 2006 coup, sits at the heart of the political divide.
Parties led by him or his sister or supporters have won every election since 2001 thanks to the votes of the rural north and northeast. But he is loathed by the Bangkok-based royalist elite.
Thailand is also fighting a festering insurgency in its Muslim-majority southernmost provinces bordering Malaysia. More than 6,400 people – mostly civilians – have been killed there.
In the so-called “Deep South”, bombs are a near-daily reality alongside shootings and ambushes of security forces.
Civilians are overwhelmingly the target. But the conflict, which sees local rebels calling for greater autonomy from the Thai state, has stayed highly localised.
There has never been a confirmed attack by the insurgents outside the southern region despite the years of war.
The Erawan is an enormously popular shrine to the Hindu god Brahma but is visited by thousands of Buddhist devotees every day.
It is located on a traffic-choked intersection in Bangkok’s commercial hub and surrounded by three major shopping malls.
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