Photo Courtesy of UN-Photo/Marco Castro
The wife of an Israeli diplomat was moderately injured on Monday when a car bomb exploded outside Israel’s embassy in New Delhi, India, according to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz. In addition, a separate car bomb threat targeting Israel’s embassy staff in Tbilisi, Georgia was foiled when a local employee spotted the strange package and contacted the police. Israel accused Iran of being behind the attacks.
Haaretz reported the wounded woman, the wife of the Israeli military attaché at the India embassy, had been released from the hospital following surgery. The newspaper cited India’s police chief as telling reporters that witnesses said a bomb was attached to her car by a motorcyclist.
The attacks paralleled assassinations of Iranian nuclear scientists and came one day prior to the four-year-anniversary of the car-bomb assassination of key Hezbollah operative Imad Mughniyeh. Hezbollah, an ally of Iran, has long accused Israel of being behind the attack, although Israel has never taken credit.
Israel was quick to accuse the Iranians for Monday’s violence. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu mentioned two recent foiled plots in Thailand and Azerbaijan against Israelis and Jews and said Iran “and its proxy Hezbollah” were behind both the attempts.
“Iran is behind these attacks; it is the largest exporter of terrorism in the world,” said generic name of klonopin Netanyahu of Monday’s incidents. “The Government of Israel and the security services will continue to act together with local security forces against such acts of terrorism. We will continue to take strong and systematic, yet patient, action against the international terrorism that originates in Iran.”
The attacks come just months after the U.S. accused an Iranian agent of plotting terror attacks in Washington, D.C. Iran’s advancing nuclear program and its potential military dimensions have further raised tensions.
Israeli President Shimon Peres also released a statement accusing Iran of the plots in Georgia and India. “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.
“The Iranian government does not have a future because it does not promise a future. We shall meet the Iranian dangers as it should be done—with the maximum effort to make the region secure and peaceful.”
Peres also said he spoke with the Israeli ambassadors in India and Georgia. “I want to encourage the embassies’ staffs in both countries and thank the governments and security forces in India and Georgia for their help and cooperation in this matter.”
(By Joshua Spurlock, www.themideastupdate.com, February 13, 2012)