UPDATE: Some additional information added below

What happened?

Around 2.20pm there was an explosion at No. 66  Soi Pridi Bhanomyong 31 (close to Pridi Bhanomyong 35) on Sukhumvit 71. This was at a house that had been rented to three Middle Eastern males who identified themselves as Iranian and a female who had been living there for several weeks (Bangkok Post). The first explosion appears to have been an accident. AP:

In Thailand, Tuesday’s bizarre sequence of explosions began when explosives apparently detonated by accident, blowing off part of the roof of the Bangkok house.

BP: Based on the explanation, and as BP said in the earlier post, BP would concur with this.

After the first explosion, according to ThaiPBS, two men left the rented house quickly – they are suspects No. 1 and 2 below – and, according to the Bangkok Post, they got into a taxi.

Around 5 minutes (Bangkok Post)/10 minutes (ThaiPBS) after the 1st explosion, another man – Suspect No. 3 as per below – left the rented house. He was carrying a large backpack and two boxes (Bangkok Post). He was bleeding (Bangkok Post; ThaiPBS; NYT). According to the NYT, the police said that the man moved further down the soi towards Sukhumvit 71 and tried to hail a taxi and threw an explosive device, possibly a hand grenade, when it did not stop, destroying the front half the vehicle. This is backed up by what the taxi driver told Thai television (Reuters). Bloomberg states it was a M-26 grenade. Photo of taxi is here. This is the second explosion.

Sometime after this, the suspect continued walking and made it to Sukhumvit 71, but his attack against the taxi driver meant he was now known per the NYT:

Mr. Wichai then saw the man running up a busy thoroughfare. “People were yelling, ‘Get him! Get him!’ ” he said.

Maliwan Taengaiemthai, a 37-year-old street sweeper, said she saw the man heading toward a school where a police pickup truck was parked.

“The police got out of their car and crouched down, pointing their guns at the man,” she said. “The man stopped for a while. He looked at the police.”

Ms. Maliwan said she then heard an explosion and saw the man fall to the ground. The police said he tried to throw a grenade at them, but that it did not go far enough. An account in the Thai media said the grenade hit a tree and bounced back toward Mr. Morabi. In any case, his legs were destroyed in the blast. At least three other people were injured.

BP: He was later taken to hospital – see below…

Who are the suspects?

CCTV from near the scene which has been released to the media

Source: A reporter from Jor Sor 100 who adds that the person in white is the one who got away [suspect No. 1]; the one in blue was later arrested [suspect No. 2]; and the  one in black [suspect No. 3] is the one injured; .

For suspect No. 1, not much is known about him. He left the scene immediately after the explosion at the rented house.

For suspect No. 2, according to The Nation the police said his name is Mohammad Hazaei, he is 42, and from Iran. One assumes they got this information from his passport which means well none of it might be true as the passport could be a false, counterfeit, or forged passport (see here for an explanation of the difference between those types of passport), but confirming whether he is Iranian or not is likely the first and easier task (as from BP’s professional experience it is difficult for people to maintain the façade of being from one country when they are not in the hands of a skilled interrogator). According to the Bangkok Post, he was arrested at 6:20 at Suvarnabhumi Airport as he was about to board a flight to Kuala Lumpur.* You can see a photo of him being presented by the police here – from the same Jor Sor 100 reporter.

For suspect No. 3, he is identified as an Iranian named Saeid Moradi (The Nation). The Nation has details of his condition:

Doctors at Chulalongkorn Hospital said the suspect had lost his right leg and sustained injuries to an eye and abdomen. They have also had to amputate his left leg. “He has serious wounds but he should survive,” deputy director Dr Ratthaphlee Phak-at said

BP: A very graphic video of him on the sidewalk injured can be seen here.

Per Reuters:

“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.

According to Matichon, the police say this was his first entry into Thailand which doesn’t match up with the description above of three men coming and going from the house. Either there was another man or Suspect No. 3 was used a false, counterfeit, or forged passport for the latest trip.

There may be a fourth suspect. The Bangkok Post:

Da Klongdan, 34, who lives opposite the two-storey house where the first explosion occurred around 2.20pm, said four foreigners _ three men and one woman _ frequently went in and out of the building.

Matichon reports that there was a Thai female as part of the group. In the article, there is mention that the Suspect No. 3 entered Thailand from South Korea on TG655 on February 8 and he flew together with a Thai woman who has now departed Thailand. This women had left and entered Thailand 6 times. Clearly, the authorities know who the Thai female who flew into Thailand with Suspect No.3 and has left the country is. Is this woman the same one who was living with the other three and was coming and going frequently?

(UPDATE:From the Bangkok Post:

A Thai woman who had reportedly accompanied the suspects and was believed to be the girlfriend of one of the men had left the country, Pol Lt-Gen Wiboon said.

It was believed she had nothing to do with yesterday’s incident, he added.

From Bloomberg:

Wichien said a third suspect may have fled the country and police are also searching for an Iranian women who helped the men rent the house in Bangkok. Thai authorities tightened security at immigration checkpoints and “important places,” and have asked neighboring countries for assistance, he said.

BP: So yes, there is a fourth suspect, but it is an Iranian woman).

Possible Related attacks elsewhere in the world

The blasts came a day after a twin bomb attacks targeted Israeli embassy staff in India and Georgia. Israel accused arch-enemies Iran and its Lebanese ally Hezbollah of being behind those attacks (Reuters). On the Indian attack, The Times of India:

On Monday afternoon, a motorcycle-borne youth tailed an Israeli embassy vehicle on Aurangzeb Road in the high security zone in New Delhi, close to the PM’s residence, and allegedly placed “something” on the rear of the car when it stopped at a traffic signal at the intersection of Aurangzeb Road and Safdarjung Road in the Capital’s high-security zone.

Seconds later, there was an explosion and the Toyota Innova car, bearing registration number 109 CD 35, went up in flames. Three persons including the Israeli defence attache’s wife Tal Yehoshua Korene, who was going to pick up her children from the American Embassy School, were injured.
….

The charge was refuted by a foreign ministry spokesperson in Tehran. “We categorically reject the accusations made by the Zionist regime. They are part of a propaganda war,” the spokesperson said.

Speaking on the condition of anonymity, Indian intelligence sources suspected an Iranian connection to the magnetic bomb attack which they feel could be a retaliation against the covert attempts to thwart the Shiite regime’s relentless pursuit of a nuclear programme which the West as well as Sunni Muslim countries are convinced is meant to equip the theocracy with nuclear weapons.

BP: Rediff also quotes Indian intelligence sources as pointing the finger at Iranian nationals.

That bomb in India was affixed to the car is a magnet bomb. AP has more on what was found inside the rented house:

A bomb disposal squad also said two explosive devices were found in the Iranian’s damaged home and defused. They said each was made of three or four pounds of C-4 explosives stuffed inside a pair of radios.

National Police Chief Gen. Prewpan Damapong said the bombs were “magnetic and can get stuck to a vehicle. It can harm people, but not areas.”

BP: This is not fertilizer for export. These are partly or fully-made up bombs. A similar attack to what happened in India seems the most likely of what would have happened if one of the bombs had not detonated prematurely (one assumes they didn’t want to just blow themselves up).

(UPDATE: AFP:

“These three Iranian men are an assassination team and their targets were Israeli diplomats including the ambassador,” a senior Thai intelligence official told AFP, speaking on condition of anonymity.

“Their plan was to attach bombs to diplomats’ cars.”
…
Explosives and magnets were later found inside the partially destroyed house, police said.

Individuals appeared to be the target of the botched plot as the devices were not powerful enough to cause large-scale damage, said Thailand’s National Security Council chief Wichean Potephosree.

“Yesterday’s incident was caused by current international tensions in world politics,” he told a news conference

BP: The on-the-record statement doesn’t contradict the source. It would be unusual for the Thai government to go on the record and accuse Iran, but maybe if more information comes to light they may)

Are the explosions related to the US travel warning?

BP has already blogged about the travel warning issued by the US last month. The NYT:

And they said Israeli and Thai security forces have been cooperating closely for a month, since American and Thai reports of a possible terrorist attack by foreigners in Bangkok.

Shortly after that warning, a Lebanese man was arrested at Bangkok’s main airport as he tried to leave the country. Thai authorities said his arrest came after a tip from Israeli intelligence agents, who warned that a group of people who appeared to be from the Iranian-backed group Hezbollah were planning to strike tourist sites.

The man, Atris Hussein, led Thai police to a warehouse where they found almost of four tons of chemicals that can be used for making bombs. At the time, Thai authorities said Thailand appeared to have been a staging ground but not the target of any attack.

But there appeared to be few alternative explanations for what unfolded on Tuesday.

BP: Nothing confirmed, but given the killing of the Iranian scientists (Israel the likely culprit) and the attack in India and attempted attack in Georgia (Iran the likely culprit), it is likely that the three suspects were in Thailand to carry out a  similar attack. Given two of the three suspects are in custody, hopefully we will find out some more information to help confirm or deny this. One wonders the Israelis and the Americans will want to have a chat with both of them…..

Reaction from around the world

AP has US reaction:

State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said the U.S. was awaiting the results of investigations. She offered condolences to those injured.

Nuland didn’t blame Iran directly. But she noted Monday’s incidents in India and Georgia, and recent “Iranian-sponsored” and “Hezbollah-linked” plots to attack Israeli and Western interests in Azerbaijan and Thailand.

She called it “reprehensible” for states to use terrorism as a foreign policy tool

AP

Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak said the Bangkok violence “proves once again that Iran and its proxies continue to perpetrate terror.” Another government minister implied Israel would seek revenge, without mentioning Iran explicitly.

“We know who carried out the terror attacks, we know who sent them, and Israel will settle the score with them,” Public Security Minister Yitzhak Aharonovitch told Israel Radio.

BP: More later….

*Have made some grammatical changes and corrected a few sentences since publishing.