Thai police hunt for bomb suspects

BANGKOK — Police worked to identify suspects Saturday in a series of bombing and arson attacks that struck several tourist towns, killing four people and wounding dozens, including 11 foreigners.

Voice TV and other media outlets reported that police in Nakhon Si Thammarat had arrested a 67-year-old man who is suspected of being responsible for a fire at a supermarket in the southern city that the authorities had listed in the series of attacks.

Police said they found evidence at his home and in electronic devices they had confiscated from him that he was involved in an active political movement against the government.

While police and other officials have suggested opponents of the military government may have been behind the attacks, they also have acknowledged signs that Muslim separatists from the country’s south could have had a hand in the violence.

Royal Thai Police Col. Krisana Patanacharoen said the bombings followed “a similar pattern used in the southern parts of the country” — a reference to a low-level insurgency in the largely Islamic south.