Thai police have issued an arrest warrant for an 'unidentified foreign man' wanted over the Bangkok bombing – but admitted he might just a local using a 'fake nose' as a disguise.
The move came after detectives released a sketch of the suspect – with bushy, dark brown hair and thick-rimmed glasses – seen planting a bag minutes before the deadly blast at a Hindu shrine.
They have also identified two suspected accomplices spotted on CCTV standing in front of the bomber at the scene of the explosion.
Police said the picture was also partly based on a description provided by a motorcycle taxi driver believed to have given him a ride on the night of the Monday blast which left 20 people dead and more than 120 injured.
But the national police chief Somyot Poompanmoung has expressed uncertainty about the man's origin, saying said the suspect 'looks like a foreigner' but 'might have been in a disguise and wearing a fake nose' to conceal his identity.
Police spokesman Prawut Thawornsiri was also convinced the suspect was foreign.
'He had white skin and must have been a European or have mixed blood, perhaps with Middle Eastern blood,' he said, without giving a reason for his assumptions other than the colour of the man's skin.
Somyot had earlier admitted that the authorities had few solid leads, except their suspicion that it was not a lone-wolf attack, and has offered a 1 million baht ($28,000) reward for help leading to his capture.
'He didn't do it alone, for sure. It's a network,' said police chief Somyot Poompanmoung, who added that a second bomb blast yesterday was linked to the shrine attack and strengthened suspicions he received help.
'There must be a supporter and it's likely a Thai,' Somyot told reporters late Tuesday. Investigators have offered a one million baht ($28,000) reward for information that leads to the prime suspect's arrest.
The sketch released Wednesday showed a young man in glasses with bushy, dark hair that is cropped at the sides.
'If citizens or anyone can give us information or clues that leads to the arrest of this man I have set a reward of 1 million baht,' Somyot told reporters, adding that police believe the bomber worked with accomplices.
Meanwhile, in show of defiance today, Thai monks chanted as they led the morning ceremony to mark the re-opening of the Erawan Shrine hit by the blast that drew together devotees and tourists who knelt and held joss sticks.
The unprecedented attack left at least 11 foreigners dead, with visitors from Britain, China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Singapore, and a family from Malaysia among the victims.
One of those named yesterday was London law student Vivian Chan, 19, who was travelling in Thailand with a friend, who also died in the blast.
Professor Peter Crisp, Dean of the Law School at BPP University in London, said that colleagues and students had been 'devastated to hear of the loss of one of our students'.
Another 68 people remain in critical condition after a blast that shredded bodies and incinerated motorcycles at one of the city's busiest intersections, sending a shockwave through the country's pivotal tourist industry.
Widely circulated video of the suspect, apparently young and slightly built, and sporting glasses and shaggy dark hair, has prompted social media chatter that he could be a foreigner.
In a televised address Wednesday, Thai junta spokesman Colonel Winthai Suvaree said security has been tightened in tourist areas 'especially where there are many Chinese tourists, to regain their trust and confidence'.
Police have not ruled out any group, including elements opposed to the military government, for the attack though they say it did not match the tactics of Muslim insurgents in the south or 'Red Shirt' supporters of the previous administration.
'The attack did not bear the hallmarks of either southern Muslim separatists or Red Shirt militants,' said Angel Rabasa, an expert on Islamist militancy at the RAND Corporation.
'Both groups have carried out terrorist attacks in the past, but not on this scale in terms of loss of life.'
He said the attack could be the work of Islamic State, which has been expanding its reach in Southeast Asia, or an Al Qaeda-related or independent jihadist group. However, such groups usually claim responsibility for their attacks.
Police said they were also considering the possibility that ethnic Uighurs were behind the bombing.
Thailand forcibly returned 109 Uighurs to China last month.
Hundreds, possibly thousands, of members of the Turkic-speaking and largely Muslim minority have fled unrest in China's western Xinjiang region, where hundreds of people have been killed, prompting a crackdown by Chinese authorities.
Many Uighurs have travelled through Southeast Asia to Turkey.
The Erawan shrine – a popular tourist attraction that typifies the kingdom's unusual blend of Hindu and Buddhist traditions – and its surroundings have already been largely restored and the pools of congealed blood scrubbed away.
Twisted iron railings were the only immediate sign of the blast point, which police believe was caused by a bomb made up of three kilogrammes of high explosives.
A relative of the dead Malaysians had laid bundles of clothes at the shrine to represent the lost loved ones, witnesses said.
One devotee had more reason than most to give thanks.
Tommy Goh, 56, a Thai-Malaysian from Penang, said only a delayed taxi from his hotel spared him from being at the shrine around the time of the blast.
'Every year I come down to this shrine, we were meant to be here around 6.50 to 7pm but the taxi didn't arrive from the hotel... so we went somewhere else,' he said. 'Ten minutes later and it could have been so different.'
Police released images Tuesday showing the suspect, wearing a bright yellow T-shirt and dark shorts, walking into the shrine with a backpack.
In the security footage he casually places the backpack underneath a bench and then walks away clutching a blue plastic bag and what looks like a smartphone.
The bomb exploded several minutes later, leading Thai police to make the man their prime suspect.
Police said a second explosion at a Bangkok pier on Tuesday that caused no injuries was linked, deepening fears for residents as police conceded they do not know who was responsible.
Colonel Kamthorn Ouicharoen, head of the police bomb squad, confirmed the bridge device – which was hurled into the water and shocked pedestrians – was the same type as the one detonated at the Erawan Shrine.
'It's exactly the same, the equipment used to make it, the bomb size,' he said.
But a senior source at the National Security Council said the difference in execution and intent of the two attacks reduced the likelihood of a tie.
'The second bomb appears aimed at inciting unrest,' rather than kill, the source told AFP news agency, requesting anonymity.
Thailand has experienced a near-decade-long political crisis that has seen endless rounds of street violence.
But it has never seen anything on the scale of Monday's bomb and foreigners are generally not targets in a country that prides itself on extending a warm welcome to outsiders despite any political troubles.
A festering insurgency by Muslim rebels in the Thai south has claimed 6,400 victims – the majority civilians – but is a highly localised conflict.
Monday's attack has caught Thailand's junta flat-footed, raising security fears at a time of deepening discontent with the economy, a contentious new constitution and the kingdom's poor human rights environment.
The military seized power last May, casting its coup as a necessary evil to prevent the country imploding after months of protests against the former government.
But with the bomber still on the run ordinary Thais said they fear another attack.
'I'm still scared because you never know where they (the perpetrators) will strike again,' said 43-year-old Sommai Gazem.
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