12 tourists hurt in Maldives blast, 2 locals held

Colombo: Maldives police have arrested two local men after a nail-packed bomb exploded in a busy park Saturday and wounded 12 foreign tourists, a government spokesman said Sunday.

The homemade bomb exploded outside the crowded Sultan Park in the Capital, Male, the first such incident reported in this Indian Ocean archipelago renowned for its exclusive tourist resorts.

Government spokesman Mohamed Shareef said that police arrested the suspects hours after the blast. But no motive has been established yet, and it was unclear whether they would be charged.

''The Maldives has never had something like this before. We are taking this very seriously because tourism is our life blood,'' Shareef said after the blast on Saturday.

The injured included two Britons, eight Chinese and two Japanese, all of whom suffered burns, Shareef said. All except the British couple, who sustained burns over 40 per cent of their bodies, were discharged from hospital and immediately sent home, he said.

Shareef said Saturday was too early to say whether the bomb targeted the tourism industry or determing whether an Islamic jihadist organization was involved.

Some Western diplomats have expressed concern about the potential for violence in this Sunni Muslim country. Half the population is under 18, reasonably well-educated and with few prospects for good jobs. Some young people have turned to drug use, while others have embraced a conservative strain of Islam that had been virtually unheard of on the islands just a few years ago.

Attacks against the tourist trade are virtually unheard of, though there has been tension and occasional outbreaks of violence in recent years between opposition activists and government forces, who are controlled by President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom, who has ruled the country for 29 years.

The opposition Minivan News reported on its Web site that witnesses said they saw nails, presumably from the bomb, scattered in the park, which is located near the country's army headquarters.

The Maldives, with a population of about 350,000, is by far the wealthiest and most orderly country in south Asia. About 600,000 tourists visit the country each year, accounting for one-third of its economy.

Authorities will seek help from Interpol, the US and India in investigating the blast, Shareef said.