Monday, February 13, 2012

Terrorists Target Israeli Diplomats In India and Georgia; Israel Blames Iran For Attacks

Two Israelis were injured when a bomb went off in their diplomatic vehicle in New Delhi. A diplomat's wife and their driver were injured when the bomb ripped through their vehicle.



A grenade was discovered by Israeli security underneath a diplomatic vehicle in Tblisi, Georgia and was safely defused before it could cause injury. It comes as Israel issued warnings to its diplomatic corps ahead of the anniversary of the death of Hizbullah leader Imad Mughniyeh that has long been attributed to Israel.

The Israeli government is holding Iran responsible, which shouldn't be all that surprising given that Iran blames Israel for being behind the current spate of attacks that have killed several Iranian nuclear scientists and conventional wisdom also suggests that Israel was behind the Stuxnet virus that crippled the Iranian nuclear centrifuge computer systems.
Israeli officials earlier told The Associated Press that an explosion tore through an Israeli diplomat's car in New Delhi. The driver and a diplomat's wife were injured, according to Indian officials.

Television footage showed a charred minivan with blue diplomatic plates, its rear door apparently blown out.

Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor would not discuss who was injured nor the extent of the injuries because it was a security matter.

"There was one attempted attack, and one successful, as it were," said Paul Hirschson, a spokesman for Israel's foreign ministry. "In both cases, the people concerned worked with the Israeli embassies."

Hirschson said the Israeli ambassador to India was not hurt in the New Delhi attack.
Israel had put its foreign missions on especially high alert ahead of the February 12 anniversary of the assassination, in 2008, of the military mastermind of Lebanon's Hezbollah guerrillas, linked to the Shiite Islamist group Hezbollah, Imad Moughniyeh.
That the attacks come four years to the day since Mughniyeh was killed suggests that Hizbullah may have been involved, or Iranian intel services, or a combination of groups. The New Delhi attack appears to have been carried out by an unknown assailant attacking the bomb to the car by motorbike.

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