This story is so stupid I could almost believe it was planted by the Iranians in order to be ridiculed. You don’t ask random import-export people ‘where to find C-4 explosives in Bangkok.’ You don’t make C-4 at home. You don’t use grenades as detonators. The two achieved targets (in Georgia and Bangkok) were not moving when attacked. The Iranians are not fixated on the anniversaries of Imad Mughniyeh’s death, nor is Hezbollah; this is an annually recurrent Israeli propaganda meme – RB
Bangkok bombings: unravelling the truth out of chaos (extracts)
Kate Hodal, Guardian, Feb 20 2012
It was the bizarrest of twists to a whodunnit story already teeming with convolutions about murky men committing even murkier deeds. First, there were the suspects: a supposed team of assassins hired by the Iranian government to kill off Israeli diplomats in the Thai capital. Then there was the getaway vehicle: a Honda motorcycle with a Qur’anic reference underneath its seat that would trail the diplomats’ cars. There were the weapons: a cache of homemade C-4 explosives stuffed into portable radios, with hand grenades serving as their detonators and magnetic strips to slap the bombs on to moving targets. And, of course, there was the motive: an escalating cold war between Israel and Iran being played out in cities all over the globe, from Tbilisi to Delhi and now, apparently, Bangkok. [...] Things got really weird when I found on Friday a gaggle of police near the Guardian office randomly questioning a 41-year-old Iranian national. “Routine check,” the police smiled at me. The man, an import-export businessman, lived nearby; one hour later, he told me the most bizarre tale. He said:
Last month, I was approached by a government official in Tehran who wanted to know where to find C-4 explosives in Bangkok. The man told me they needed the C-4 immediately, for some anniversary (the Mughniyeh myth again – RB), and that they’d pay whatever it took. I asked if they couldn’t just send someone with the explosives to travel back to Thailand with me. They could arrange for the C-4 to go through customs in Iran. When I asked him, ‘Why, out of everyone you could ask, are you asking me?’ The man said, ‘Look, if I want to travel somewhere, I could take a limo, a taxi or a bus to get there. The bus gets noticed the least. Consider yourself the bus.’ I refused the pitch, flew back alone to Thailand, and forgot about the incident until the bombs in Ekkamai reminded me.
His story was impossible to corroborate. It seemed unlikely, but given the wackiness of all the other details that had emerged so far, perhaps it was true. Maybe Iran was using amateurs like him to deflect attention. Maybe someone did bring in C-4 from outside Thailand (at least she got that right – RB); a bomb specialist recently told the Bangkok Post such bomb-making methods had never before been seen in the country.
