A series of explosions rocked a residential neighborhood in Bangkok on Tuesday, leading Thai authorities to a cache of bombs in a rented house and the capture of two men identified in Thai media reports as Iranians. A third suspect was being sought. Witnesses said the three men fled a house in the Sukhumvit neighborhood of Bangkok after an explosion in the early afternoon tore off the roof of the house. Two of the men ran immediately from the house. One was later detained at the city’s main international airport. As the third man tried to leave the area, he threw two grenades, one at a taxi and one at approaching police officers. The blast from the second struck him, however, blowing off his legs and injuring several Thais. The police said that the man tried to hail a taxi and threw an explosive device, possibly a hand grenade, when it did not stop, destroying the front half of the vehicle. 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 him. In any case, his legs were destroyed in the blast. At least three other people were injured. Thai media reports identified him as Saci Morabi. Among his belongings, police found a receipt from a hotel. The man put his nationality as Iranian when he checked into the hotel. The police also found Iranian currency in the man’s wallet. In the early evening, the second suspect, identified in the Thai media as Mohammad Hazaei, a 42-year-old Iranian, was detained at Bangkok’s main international airport. The police searched the house into the night and discovered C4 explosives and at least two improvised explosive devices.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/15/world/asia/explosions-in-bangkok-injures-suspected-iranian-national.html?_r=1

Crow posted:

babyfinland posted:
these were all done in the same style as the hits on the iranian scientists

so proxies of mossad?

i dont know, just pointing out the consistency

Impper posted:
yeah, there's a chance the sex tourists are actual human beings

yes, the kind that should be culled.

Impper posted:
yeah, there's a chance the sex tourists are actual human beings

a percent of 0 is still 0, my friend.

Goethestein posted:
whats with the downvoat

AmericanNazbro posted:
i dunno why you think iranian nuclear scientists (laboring under the auspices of using their creation to reign nuclear missiles on israel/the west ) are worse people than caricatures of western hedonists

edit: hey coding team i dunno if you know but if you put words inside brackets it hides them

he is very ill

Amid the din of accusation and denial, amplified by camp-followers of both parties, puzzled independent observers have managed to concur on only two aspects of the still unexplained events.

First, the incidents in India and Georgia on February 13, and in Thailand the following day, were almost certainly linked in a coordinated plot intended to assassinate Israeli diplomats using "sticky bombs" attached to vehicles by magnets. The fact that the same method was used successfully against Iranian nuclear scientists assassinated in Iran in attacks believed carried by Israeli agents clearly implied an operation intended to be seen as tit-for-tat retaliation.

Second, the operations in all three cities were marked by a startling lack of professionalism. In Bangkok, incompetence veered into a bloody comedy of errors that in any work of spy fiction would have been dismissed as ludicrous. Now celebrated highlights include a premature explosion in a rented house; panicked flight by the apparent bomb makers; bungled bomb attacks on a taxi and a police car that cost one Iranian both of his own legs; and arrests of two accomplices at Bangkok’s international Suvannabhumi airport and in Malaysia.

The Valentine's Day fiasco was followed by the discovery of stickers bearing the Koranic term "SEJEAL" plastered along a 1.5 kilometer stretch of road in central Bangkok as well as in a house rented by one of the apparent Iranian bomb making team. Another was discovered on a motorcycle believed to be intended for use in one or more attacks. While Thai police initially speculated the stickers marked out a getaway route, security analysts who spoke to Asia Times Online are skeptical they had any operational relevance, suggesting instead some religiously auspicious significance.

While less farcical, the operations in Georgia and India were also marked by remarkable mistakes. In Tbilisi, the would-be assassin attached an explosive device - later found and disarmed - not to a diplomatic vehicle but to the car of the Israeli ambassador's Georgian driver. The choice appeared to indicate either a failure of reconnaissance or a last-minute need to settle for a secondary, related target rather than a primary one.

In New Delhi, an Israeli diplomat's wife was actually wounded by a magnetic bomb and the would-be assassin was able to escape. However, he reportedly attached the device to the rear of the vehicle near a tail light rather to its side, significantly lessening the chance of killing his target.

...

Iran is certainly no stranger to foreign assassinations. Indeed, since shortly after the Islamic revolution of 1979, Tehran has been deeply implicated in directing and conducting both assassinations and larger mass-casualty terrorist attacks in Europe, the Middle East and Latin America. Its primary targets have been Iranian dissidents based in Europe perceived as threats to the revolutionary regime.

Both in terms of intelligence gathering and "direct action", external operations are the responsibility of two organizations understood to work either independently or, occasionally, in conjunction. The primary body is the Ministry of Intelligence and National Security (Vezarat e Etela'at va Amnita e Keshvar, or VEVAK); the other, the elite Qods Force of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), the branch of the armed forces that answers directly to Iran's senior most clerical leadership.

...

Against this backdrop, it is puzzling that a state with decades of experience in conducting overseas operations and with access to an extensive network of proxy operatives would find itself abruptly reduced to deploying a team of its own nationals with little evident training or field support given to adorning Bangkok's busy streets with bumper stickers in advance of an attack.

Another puzzling aspect of the Iranian state responsibility alleged by Israel centers on the decision to conduct a coordinated operation more or less simultaneously in three foreign countries. Details of both Iranian and Israeli assassination operations which have emerged in recent years indicate clearly that achieving a successful outcome in a single operation is complex enough and requires careful planning, reconnaissance and execution by skilled operatives with plans for unforeseen contingencies. Not least would be the need for back-up travel documents and possibly an alternative safe-house.

...

A third alternative that merits close attention centers on the Iranian domestic opposition, grouped loosely around the People's Mujahideen Organization of Iran or Mujahideen e Khalq (MeK). An Islamic-socialist group founded in 1965 in opposition to the then US-backed shah regime, MeK began an urban guerrilla campaign in the early 1970s and later took part in the Islamic revolution of 1979.

...

Following the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq, MeK's military units were disbanded by the Americans but the organization has continued to operate clandestinely inside Iran while conducting a public relations campaign from Europe. Its network in Iran is generally believed to have provided the US and Israel with intelligence - notably on Iran's nuclear program - as well as with assets for the covert destabilization of the Islamic regime.

...

Strategically, the organization has ample motive. The successful assassination of Israeli diplomats would at the least serve to further isolate the Iranian government at a critical juncture. At most, it might provide the impetus to push Israel into an attack on Iran that would destabilize or even topple the regime - a result MeK has no chance of achieving itself.

...

Operationally, the hand of MeK or allied opposition elements also provides an explanation for the otherwise puzzling blunders displayed in mid-February. It can be safely assumed that a small number of Iranian opposition elements has been recruited, trained and deployed by Israeli and/or US intelligence services in the covert war against Iran's nuclear program. However, MeK remains a larger - and largely uncharted - group without access to specialized training.

It is also worth noting that for an opposition group to commit poorly-trained and supported personnel openly using Iranian travel documents would pose no real risk of blow-back: In the event of failure or fiasco, the simple fact that the operatives were Iranian would serve well enough to implicate the Tehran regime in the eyes of an already skeptical world.

so I figure that's a pretty compelling theory, it might have been the MeK, which accounts for the sloppy execution and motives/