Last month's bombings in Thai tourist towns were not linked to Muslim separatists, Thailand's defense minister said on Thursday, contradicting the police.
There has been a series of bomb attacks in the central and far south, including coordinated bombings in tourist towns in August that killed four Thai people and wounded dozens, including foreigners.
Analysts say separatist insurgents in the country's three southern Muslim-majority provinces of Yala, Narathiwat and Pattani bordering Malaysia were behind the attacks.
Tourist towns in the central south have for years been spared any spill-over of violence from the deep south and analysts say the government is loath to blame the coordinated bombings on southern Muslim insurgents because of fear of damaging tourism in the predominantly Buddhist country.
So far, two suspects have been arrested in connection with the tourist-town attacks