* Three small explosions in Bangkok
* Bomber loses legs in blast
* Israel blames attack on Iran
* Lebanese man arrested in Bangkok in January on explosives
charges
(Adds Iranian comment)
BANGKOK, Feb 14 (Reuters) - An Iranian man was
seriously wounded in Bangkok on Tuesday when a bomb he was
carrying exploded and blew one of his legs off in an incident
Israel said was an attempted terrorist attack by Iran.
Shortly beforehand, there had been an explosion in a house
the man was renting in the Ekamai area of central Bangkok. Soon
after that, there was a third blast on a nearby road, Thai
police and officials said.
"The police have control of the situation. It is thought
that the suspect might be storing more explosives inside his
house," government spokeswoman Thitima Chaisaeng told reporters.
Police said they had detained another supsect at Bangkok's
main Suvarnabhumi airport, one of two men they were looking for
who had been living at the house where the initial blast took
place.
"We discovered the injured man's passport. It's an Iranian
passport and he entered the country through Phuket and arrived
at Suvarnabhumi Airport on the 8th of this month," Police
General Bansiri Prapapat told Reuters.
The three explosions in Bangkok came a day after
bomb attacks targeted Israeli embassy staff in India and
Georgia. Israel accused Iran and its Lebanese ally Hezbollah of
being behind those attacks. Iran denied involvement.
Hezbollah is a Shi'ite group backed by Syria and Iran that
is on the U.S. blacklist of foreign terrorist organisations.
Thai officials declined to say whether the two men they had
detained were involved with any militant group, but Israeli
Defence Minister Ehud Barak blamed Iran.
"The attempted terrorist attack in Bangkok proves once again
that Iran and its proxies continue to perpetrate terror," Barak
said on a visit to Singapore.
"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 incident.
"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.
TAXI A TARGET
Thai police said they were working to make safe an
unspecified amount of explosives found in the house where the
initial blast took place.
Police declined to make any link between Tuesday's incident
and the arrest last month of a Lebanese man in Bangkok who,
according to the Thai authorities, had links to Hezbollah.
The police discovered a large amount of explosive material
in an area southwest of Bangkok at around the time of that
arrest. The United States, Israel and other countries issued
warnings, subsequently lifted, of possible terrorist attacks in
areas frequented by foreigners.
The Lebanese man has been charged with possession of
explosive material and prosecutors said further charges could
follow next week. Tuesday's blasts were not near Israel's
embassy nor the main area for embassies.
A taxi driver told Thai television the wounded suspect had
thrown a bomb in front of his car when he refused to pick him up
near the site of the first blast. The driver was wounded
slightly.
Government spokeswoman Thitima said police had then tried to
move in and arrest the man but he attempted to throw another
bomb at them. It went off before he was able to do so, blowing
one of his legs off. A doctor at Chulalongkorn Hospital told
reporters the other leg had to be amputated.
Another doctor was quoted on TV as saying three Thai people
had suffered minor injuries, in addition to the taxi driver.
(Additonal reporting by Sinsiri Tiwutanond and Annie Chenaphun;
Writing by Alan Raybould; Editing by Robert Birsel)
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