Maldives blast wounds 12 tourists

COLOMBO, Saturday (AFP) - A bomb ripped through a crowded park in the Maldives Saturday, wounding 12 foreign nationals in a rare attack on tourists in South Asia's top luxury holiday destination, the tourism minister said. Two Britons, two Japanese and eight Chinese were injured in the blast, in an area of the capital Male popular with holiday-makers, Mahamood Shougee told AFP.

A mobile phone and other parts of a device, said to have been used to trigger a bomb, are seen in Male September 29, 2007.

“Only two Britons suffered extensive burns, while the others had minor injuries,” he told AFP by telephone. There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack on tourists in the Indian Ocean archipelago, which has a reputation as one of South Asia's safest destinations.

“We saw a lot of blood and some of the shrapnel from the bomb,” a Maldivian journalist who was at the scene said by telephone. The wounded tourists were taken to two hospitals in the capital, where their condition was listed as stable. Shougee said the crude device went off while tourists were visiting the popular spot in the tiny one-square-mile (2.5-square-kilometre) Male, the most populated coral island with more than 70,000 inhabitants.

“Police have begun investigations and in the meantime the government and the tourist resorts are taking care of the needs of the victims,” Shougee said. Witnesses saw a mobile phone and nails at the scene, suggesting that the telephone may have been used to trigger the improvised explosive device.

There was no official word from the government about possible suspects, but the Minivan news service in the Maldives quoted an unnamed official saying that it could be the work of “jihadists on our tourism industry.” Tourism is a key foreign exchange earner in the Maldives, a cluster of 1,192 coral islands scattered some 850 kilometres (530 miles) across the equator.

Local residents said no Maldivians were affected by the blast, which occurred as tourists were visiting the main island as part of a guided tour. There have been simmering political tensions in the archipelago of 330,000 Sunni Muslims ruled by President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom since 1978.

Gayoom last month won a referendum to maintain the presidential system of government, with voters overwhelmingly rejecting a parliamentary system advocated by his detractors. Britain, which has considered Maldives a “protectorate” since 1965, confirmed that a dozen people had been wounded in Saturday's blast in Male.

A British Foreign Office spokeswoman said “approximately a dozen people have been injured,” including possibly two Britons. The Maldivian capital saw anti-government riots in September 2003 which led to a major crackdown on dissidents. Since then, Britain had been helping the government and opposition groups sink their differences and work towards democratic reforms.