[If actually carried out by Iran, the attacks would be another indication that the leadership in Tehran was willing to reach beyond its borders against its enemies and expand its attacks to civilians. The United States has charged that Iran was behind a plot to assassinate a Saudi ambassador on American soil, and Israel has said that Iran has planned to attack its citizens in various countries, but that those plots were stopped.]
By Ethan Bronner
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Daniel Berehulak/Getty Images
Police investigators examined an Israeli Embassy vehicle in New Delhi on Monday
after a bomb wounded several people.
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JERUSALEM — Tensions
between Israel and Iran rose sharply on Monday when bombers struck at
Israeli Embassy personnel in the capitals of India and Georgia. Israel accused
the Tehran government of being behind the attacks, which Iran denied.
The wife
of an Israeli defense envoy to New Delhi was hurt along with several other
people when her car was destroyed by an explosive device placed on it by a
motorcyclist at a red light. In Tbilisi, the Georgian capital, a similar device
was discovered on the car of a local staff member of the Israeli Embassy, but
was defused by the police.
Both
resembled attacks that have killed five of Iran’s nuclear
scientists in recent years, most recently last month. Iran has
attributed the assassinations to Israeli agents and has vowed to take revenge.
The scientists’ assassinations — along with sabotage of Iran’s nuclear program through cyberwarfare and faulty parts — are aimed at delaying what the West believes is Iran’s drive to build a nuclear
weapon.
If
actually carried out by Iran, the attacks would be another indication that the
leadership in Tehran was willing to reach beyond its borders against its
enemies and expand its attacks to civilians. The United States has charged that
Iran was behind a plot to assassinate a Saudi ambassador on American soil, and
Israel has said that Iran has planned to attack its citizens in various
countries, but that those plots were stopped.
Prime
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu contended that Monday’s attacks fit that pattern.
“In recent
months, we have witnessed several attempts to attack Israeli citizens and Jews
in several countries, including Azerbaijan, Thailand and others,” he said. “In
each instance, we succeeded in foiling the attacks in cooperation with local
authorities. Iran and its proxy, Hezbollah, were behind all of these attempted
attacks.”
Iran’s
Foreign Ministry rejected Israel’s accusations on Monday. A spokesman, Ramin
Mehmanparast, said, “Israel has bombed its embassies in New Delhi and Tbilisi
to tarnish Iran’s friendly ties with the host countries,” adding, “Israel
perpetrated the terrorist actions to launch psychological warfare against
Iran.”
Iran has
defended its nuclear program as peaceful and has defiantly pursued uranium
enrichment through years of international pressure and sanctions. Israel’s
increasingly urgent warnings on the need to halt Iran’s nuclear progress,
before it gets much closer to being able to build a bomb, have prompted
concerns that Israel might unilaterally mount a military strike — and have
added to the implacable enmity between the two.
Iran’s oil
and banking industries are suffering from sanctions implemented by the United States and Europe to pressure the
country to back off its nuclear program. Iranian leaders have vowed to fight
back through shutting the vital Strait of Hormuz and through military strikes
on countries that are used as launching pads for attacks on it.
Gen.
Masoud Jazayeri, a spokesman for Iran’s Joint Armed Forces Staff, said recently
that “the enemies of the Iranian nation, especially the United States, Britain
and the Zionist regime, have to be held responsible for their activities.”
Iranian
leaders have called Israel a tumor that must be removed, and Iran arms and
finances Hezbollah and Hamas, which are founded on the principle that Israel
has no right to exist.
On Monday,
Israeli officials said there was enough evidence from the scenes in Georgia and
India to say that the bombs were the work of Iranian agents.
“Iran’s
fingerprints are all over this,” one official said after emerging from
high-level meetings in Jerusalem, speaking on the condition of anonymity.
Some
American Jewish leaders have expressed concern that synagogues and American
Jewish centers could be targets in the increased tensions. In 1994, a Jewish
community center in Buenos Aires was bombed, killing 85 people. The authorities
there have accused Iranian diplomats of being behind that attack.
Hezbollah,
the Lebanese Islamist group with close ties to Iran, has promised to take
revenge for the killing of its top
commander, Imad Mugniyah, four years ago
this week. Mr. Mugniyah had been sought by the United States in terrorist
attacks that killed hundreds of Americans in the 1980s.
Israel
held him responsible for Hezbollah military operations in southern Lebanon from
the mid-1990s. Israel is widely thought to have killed him with a powerful bomb
in Damascus, the Syrian capital.
Israeli
analysts said the attacks on Monday were insignificant enough that the Israeli
government would not feel driven to counterattack.
“Clearly
Israel is not going to attack Iran over this,” Yoram Schweitzer, director of a
terrorism project at the Institute for National Security Studies at Tel Aviv
University, said by telephone. “The effect of this specific attack does not
necessitate a harsh Israeli response other than condemnation.”
Michael
Herzog, a retired brigadier general who is an international fellow in Israel
with the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, agreed. “There is no need
to respond,” he said in a telephone interview. “What is at stake in Israel’s
calculations about Iran is much bigger than this.”
The attack
in New Delhi took place less than a mile from the residence of the Indian prime
minister, Manmohan Singh.
In a news
conference Monday night, Delhi’s police commissioner, B. K. Gupta, said a
witness “saw a person on a motorcycle sticking some kind of device on the back
of the car.” As the motorcycle moved away, “a mild blast took place in the back
of the car,” he said.
The
injured woman was Tal Yehoshua Koren, who is married to an Israeli defense
official at the embassy and also works there. She was on her way to pick up her
children at the American Embassy school. The car’s driver, Manoj Sharma, was
also wounded. Two occupants of a nearby car were also hurt.
Ms.
Yehoshua Koren underwent spinal surgery, according to Dr. Deep Makkar of Primus
Super Specialty Hospital, in New Delhi’s diplomatic enclave.
Shrapnel
“penetrated her spine and her liver,” Dr. Makkar said, adding that she could
face neurological injuries. The other three victims were admitted to a nearby
hospital with minor injuries.
“India
very strongly condemns such an unfortunate incident,” said S. M. Krishna,
India’s minister of external affairs, who also called Avigdor Lieberman, the
Israeli foreign minister. “It will be fully investigated and the culprit will
be brought to justice.”
India has
resisted American and European pressure to curtail trade with Iran because it
relies heavily on Iranian oil.
Israeli
diplomats have been on high alert since Pakistan-based militants attacked in
the city of Mumbai in 2008, hitting luxury hotels and a railway station, and
killing six people in the Chabad
Jewish community center there.
Reporting was contributed by Isabel Kershner from
Jerusalem, Michael Schwirtz from Moscow, Steven Lee Myers from Washington,
Heather Timmons and Hari Kumar from New Delhi, Alan Cowell from London, and
Rick Gladstone from New York.
