Indeed, the position of the country s leader was so secure that no one thought it strange that Mr Thaksin was travelling aboard a scheduled flight accompanied by a planeful of ordinary passengers. That illusion was shattered in dramatic fashion by Saturday s blast which completely gutted the 737-400 Boeing aircraft, killing one crew member and injuring several others. Had the blast occurred only a few minutes later after the passengers had boarded the plane, the death toll could have been in the hundreds. One of the victims could well have been the prime minister himself. And now that investigators have concluded that the blast was almost certainly caused by a bomb, it seems increasingly likely that Mr Thaksin was the target.
Speculation abounds , but so far none of it is particularly convincing.
If so, they would have to have a remarkable intelligence network and the ability to move extremely swiftly. After all, Mr Thaksin was originally scheduled to go to Chiang Mai on Sunday and only changed his plans the day before the blast. Similarly it is hard to imagine how a political conflict within the government could have precipitated the crime. The case is downright baffling . Now, the editorial continued, it is up to the authorities to find out who issued the warning and why it was carried out in such a barbaric and heinous manner.