Suicide bomb explosion injures police colonel

Despite being persuaded, the young man decided to commit suicide, detonating a homemade mine, injuring the deputy police director in the arm and killing the young man himself.

On April 25, Lieutenant Colonel Bui Trong Tuan, Chief of Staff of Dak Lak Provincial Police, said: The suicide mine incident on the evening of April 24 left one person dead, while Colonel Pham Minh Thang, Deputy Director of the Provincial Police, was hit in the arm by an iron ball and another person was injured in the leg.

The suicide victim was Nguyen Xuan Minh (30 years old, residing in Buon Triet commune, Lak district). The cause of the mine explosion was a marital conflict.

Minh and his wife have two children. Due to family conflicts, his wife left home to work as a factory worker in Buon Ma Thuot City for over a year. Minh often visits her and the two sides argue, even fight because he asked his wife to come live with him but she refused.

Suicide scene. Photo: Ngoc Sang

On the evening of April 24, Minh and his wife rented a room at a motel on Ngo Gia Tu Street (Buon Ma Thuot City). After about five minutes in the room, the motel owner heard the couple arguing loudly and knocked on the door to remind them, but Minh locked the door, said there was a bomb, and would blow himself up. The motel owner immediately called the authorities.

Upon hearing about the bomb threat, Colonel Thang went to the scene to approach the young man to persuade him, but Minh remained holed up in his room. Minh then let his wife out and left the motel.

Carrying 4-5 homemade mines and a backpack, Minh walked while shouting, threatening to detonate the mines if anyone came near.

Arriving at the Ngo Gia Tu - Nguyen Tat Thanh intersection, despite Colonel Thang's efforts to dissuade him, Minh still took out two homemade mines and threw them onto the road, but they did not explode. About 10 minutes later, he threw the third mine onto the car lane, and a truck driven by a driver named Duy ran over it, causing it to explode. At the same time, Minh detonated another mine on his body, killing him on the spot, his body not intact.

The truck suffered a front tire blowout, minor damage to the cabin, and due to inertia, it rolled forward about 10 meters before stopping. Fortunately, the driver was not injured.

The explosion left Colonel Thang with a ball from a homemade mine pinned to his arm and injured a security guard from the coffee company standing nearby.

“After detonating the mine on his body, the victim still had another detonator. After more than 24 hours, the bomb disposal force of the Dak Lak Provincial Military Command arrived to handle the remaining detonator. The authorities determined that these were homemade mines,” said Mr. Tuan.

According to a doctor from the Orthopedic Trauma Department (Dak Lak General Hospital), through CT scans, the hospital discovered that the guard's left leg was pinned by an iron ball and Colonel Thang had a ball stuck in his hand. "After emergency surgery, the health of the two patients has stabilized" - the doctor informed.

According to PLO