ISRAEL BLAMED Iran and the Lebanese Hizbullah for yesterday’s car bombing in India and an attempted strike in Georgia, vowing a “determined response”.
Prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu said yesterday’s incidents, in which four people were hurt, were merely the latest in a series of attempted attacks against Israeli targets, in countries as far apart as Thailand and Azerbaijan.
“Iran and its proxy Hizbullah are behind each of these attacks,” said Mr Netanyahu. “We will continue to take strong and systematic, yet patient, action against the international terrorism that originates in Iran.”
Iranian and Hizbullah officials denied any involvement in yesterday’s attacks.
Police in the Indian capital New Delhi said a bomb destroyed the car carrying Tal Yehoshua Koren, the wife of the Israeli defence attaché, as she was going to pick up her children from school. She was operated on in a local hospital to remove shrapnel and her condition was described as serious but stable.
Three Indians, including the driver of the car, were slightly hurt in the explosion. Indian police launched a search for the motorcyclist who attached the sticky bomb to the rear of the car and then sped away.
The blast marked a major security lapse for the Indian authorities as it occurred in a high-security VIP area that houses foreign embassies and the prime minister’s residence.
At almost the same time an attempt to bomb an embassy car in the Georgian capital Tbilisi failed. Georgian officials said the bomb, attached to an embassy car, was spotted by a local Israeli embassy employee and safely defused.
In both incidents sticky bombs were attached to the cars, copying the method used in recent attacks in Tehran, which targeted Iranian nuclear scientists. These assassinations were blamed by Iran on Israel, raising speculation that yesterday’s incidents could have been revenge attacks.
Israel had put its foreign missions on high alert ahead of the fourth anniversary of the February 12th, 2008 assassination in Syria of Hizbullah’s operations chief, Imad Moughniyeh.
President Shimon Peres said that acts of terror would not deter Israel. “Iran is not only building a bomb and threatening to destroy our people; the government of Iran today is the headquarters of terrorism, of hatred and of war, and will not spare any effort to attempt to kill and to destroy. We shall meet the Iranian dangers with the maximum effort to make the region secure and peaceful.”
Israeli officials said that pointing the finger of blame at Iran was based on concrete intelligence information.
Security sources expressed fear that the two attacks could mark the beginning of a new wave of worldwide terror against Israeli targets. All diplomats were ordered to check vehicles before journeys, and Israeli tourists were ordered to be especially alert.
Tension between Israel and Iran was already high over Tehran’s nuclear programme, which it claims is for peaceful purposes. Israel says all options are on the table to prevent Iran acquiring a nuclear bomb.