Thai police: Series of fatal bombings not terror-linked

By Max Constant and CS Thana

BANGKOK (AA) – Thai police said Friday that a series of bomb blasts that killed at least three people and injured around 35 were not related to terrorism.

"Thailand has no religious or territorial quarrel with anyone. Therefore this was an act of sabotage, internal sabotage," police spokesman Piyapan Phingmuang told reporters.

The overnight attacks rocked four cities in the south as the country prepared to celebrate the birthday of its queen -- also Mothers' Day in Thailand.

An insurgency in the country's Muslim south has wracked border areas with Malaysia for decades, but insurgents have rarely troubled areas as north as some of the areas struck.

Initial blasts struck the southern province of Trang close to Malaysia late Thursday, with subsequent explosions shaking the resort city of Hua Hin (at 200 kilometers away, the closest of the targets to Bangkok), the large city of Surat Thani (again in the deep south), the tourist island of Phuket and then Hua Hin again.