Burma: Burma's military rulers yesterday blamed ethnic rebel groups for a series of bomb blasts that ripped through two upmarket shopping malls and a convention centre in the capital Rangoon, killing at least 11 people and wounding 162 others.
The explosions took place over a 10-minute period on Saturday afternoon, as the malls were jammed with shoppers, and the convention centre was filled with visitors to the final day of a Thai trade fair.
The attack was the deadliest, and most sophisticated, in Burma since a 1983 bombing, allegedly planned by North Korea, which killed four South Korean ministers and seven others during a visit by a South Korean leader.
A Rangoon-based western analyst said the unprecedented attacks were "out of character" for all of Burma's major political groups, and "don't seem to be part of a general strategy".
Instead, he speculated that the attacks stemmed from "general anger and frustration" among radical activists fed up with the lack of progress in ending the military's 40-year, vice-like grip on the country.
Although smaller bomb explosions in recent years have killed handfuls of people in open-air bazaars, train stations and other public spaces in the impoverished country, another Rangoon-based analyst said the shopping centres targeted at the weekend were patronised mainly by wealthy families.
"These are the places where the sons and the daughters of the privileged military and businesspeople go," the analyst said.
The attacks come as the junta has been staging a constitutional drafting convention, which it claims is part of a "road map to democracy".
But western analysts have denounced it as little more than political theatre aimed at improving the junta's image.
The Burmese military has also been recently racked by internal tensions. Last October, the then prime minister, Khin Nyunt, head of the much-feared military intelligence, was deposed and placed under house arrest, along with hundreds of other senior military intelligence officers.
Burma's state television blamed the attacks on three ethnic rebel groups: the Karen National Union, the Shan State Army and the exiled National Coalition Government of the Union of Burma.
However, opposition groups rejected the charges.