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Myanmar's military regime accused anti-junta "terrorists" of planting a bomb at a Yangon hotel at the weekend and of other recent blasts.

The bomb, which exploded before dawn Saturday in a bathroom of the Panorama Hotel popular with Asian backpackers, caused no injuries.

It was claimed by one of several militant groups the junta says have infiltrated the country to conduct sabotage.

Another small bomb was also detonated in a bus at the Shwemanthu terminal in eastern Yangon on Thursday, causing no casualties, while a similar device at the terminal was found and defused Wednesday, the junta reported.

The bombings were "due to subversive acts of terrorists," and security in the country has been tightened as a result, the junta said in the New Light of Myanmar newspaper.

It also accused outlawed anti-Yangon groups including the National League for Democracy - Liberated Areas, or NLD (LA), and the All Burma Students' Democratic Front (ABSDF) of sponsoring attacks.

"Fugitive destructive groups ... are recruiting new members and training them, stockpiling explosives, and sending groups of newly completed trainees into the nation through various routes," the junta said.

It pointed to the February 5 arrest of a man identified as Win Aung, 32, who it said was sent by the ABSDF to destroy a bridge south of Yangon.

The outlawed NLD (LA) is an offshoot of the legal National League for Democracy, which is headed by opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

It consists of MPs who won seats in the 1990 election won by the NLD in a landslide but who moved to the Thai border area after the junta refused to recognise the results of the vote.

A group called the Vigorous Burmese Student Warriors told a freelance Myanmar journalist in Thailand on Saturday that it was responsible for the hotel blast.

It said the attack was intended to a halt a national convention under way to draw up a new constitution as part of the junta's "democracy roadmap", a process that has been described internationally as a sham.

"We don't want to harm foreigners, nor ordinary people. We want to stop the national convention and we want the release of all political prisoners," a member of the group said.

The group -- which was behind an embassy hostage drama in Bangkok five years ago -- said in a statement in December, after another blast, that more bombings would follow unless its demands were met.

Myanmar has been ruled by the military since a 1960s coup.

AFP