Israel blames Iran for attack on embassy in Delhi

“Iran is behind these attacks. It is the biggest exporter of terror in the world,” the Israeli PM told members of his Likud party.

The explosionin New Delhi took place 500 metres from the official residence of Indian Prime Miniser Manmohan Singh. It destroyed a car with diplomatic plates. Israeli embassy spokesman in Delhi, David Goldfarb, said that one of the injured occupants of the car was an Israeli diplomat, but declined to comment further.

Ravi Singh, a petrol pump attendant who was on the other side of the road when the bomb exploded said: “I heard a bomb blast near the petrol pump. I went to see what happened and the next thing I saw was the car ablaze. There was a lady and a driver inside the car. The people pulled them out of the car.”

A number of witnesses told Indian television that they saw two people on a motorbike sticking a device onto the rear of the car when it stopped at a traffic signal.

Indian police cordoned off the area surrounding the burnt-out vehicle and investigators are at the site. New Delhi police spokesman Rajan Bhagat told the AFP news agency: “We are examining the materials at the site and we are yet to get the expert’s report so we still cannot say how the blast occurred.

Tbilisi attack thwarted

Georgian police prevented a similar incident on Monday, managing to defuse a bomb found in a car of an Israeli embassy staff member.

Thailand said last month that it had arrested a Lebanese man who had links with Hezbollah and a confiscated cache of explosives. In January, authorities in Azerbaijan arrested two people suspected of plotting to attack Israel’s ambassador and a local rabbi.

Israel put it’s foreign missions on high alert ahead of the February 12 anniversary of the assassination, in 2008, of the military mastermind of Lebanon’s Hezbollah guerrillas, Imad Moughniyeh. Hezbollah had vowed to avenge Moughniyeh’s death in a Damascus car-bombing, blaming it on the Jewish state.

The Israeli newspaper Haaratz is suggesting that the decision not to carry out attacks on Israeli soil was so as not to give Israel an excuse for retaliating against Hezbollah’s military apparatus in Lebanon.

In a speech on 24 January, Israel’s military chief, Lieutenant-General Benny Gantz accused Hezbollah of trying to carry out proxy attacks while avoiding direct confrontation. He said: “During this period of time, when our enemies in the north avoid carrying out attacks, fearing a harsh response, we are witnesses to the ongoing attempts by Hezbollah and other hostile entities to execute vicious terror attacks at locations far away from the state of Israel.”