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Global Spin/
“We would be talking in a different tone if it had happened 20 minutes later and her kids were in the car,” a senior Israeli intelligence official told TIME on Monday, commenting on the bomb attack in New Delhi that injured an Israeli diplomat. An eyewitness claimed to have seen a man aboard a motorbike pull up alongside the car carrying Tali Koren Yeshova, 42, and attach an explosive device whose detonation injured Yeshova, her driver, and two bystanders. Yeshova, who had been en route to pick up her children in the Indian capital, has been hospitalized with spinal and liver injuries and is reported to be in “critical but stable” condition. Soon after the blast, which took place around 3 p.m., Israel blamed Iran for the attack, as well as a foiled attempt on the same day to attach a hand-grenade to an Israeli embassy vehicle in the Georgian capital, Tbilisi.
“We would be talking in a different tone if it had happened 20 minutes later and her kids were in the car,” a senior Israeli intelligence official told TIME on Monday, commenting on the bomb attack in New Delhi that injured an Israeli diplomat. An eyewitness claimed to have seen a man aboard a motorbike pull up alongside the car carrying Tali Koren Yeshova, 42, and attach an explosive device whose detonation injured Yeshova, her driver, and two bystanders. Yeshova, who had been en route to pick up her children in the Indian capital, has been hospitalized with spinal and liver injuries and is reported to be in “critical but stable” condition. Soon after the blast, which took place around 3 p.m., Israel blamed Iran for the attack, as well as a foiled attempt on the same day to attach a hand-grenade to an Israeli embassy vehicle in the Georgian capital, Tbilisi.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told reporters in Jerusalem
that “Iran stands behind the bombers.” Israeli embassies around the
world has been on high alert Sunday, the fourth anniversary of the
assassination of Imad Mugniyah, former military commander of the
Iran-backed Lebanese Shi’ite Hizballah organization.
Iranian officials denied the allegation, while India’s Foreign Minister S.M. Krishna condemned the attack vowed to investigate.
Israeli officials believe the latest attacks are related to a series
of as many as ten failed attempts, including one in Thailand and one in
Azerbaijan in recent weeks. And they suspect Hizballah, perhaps
operating through local proxies, as being the perpetrators.
If Monday’s attacks were related to the Mughniyeh anniversary,
Israeli sources said, they highlight just how difficult it has been for
Hizballah to replace a mastermind whose resume allegedly included
spectacular track bombings of U.S. and French embassies in Beirut in
1983, attacks on the Israeli embassy and a Jewish cultural center in
Argentina in 1994 and the Khobar Towers bombing in Saudi Arabia in 1996,
which together claimed hundreds of lives. By comparison, Monday’s
attacks appear to have been relatively unimpressive, even amateurish in
the case of the Georgian attempt.
Earlier in the evening, Indian television channels showed a burning
car around 300 meters away from the Israel embassy in Delhi, which is in
a high security zone in the country’s capital, with the Indian Prime
Minister’s residence only 500 meters away. Later in the evening,
however, the scene at the Israeli Embassy on the six-lane, tree-lined
Aurangzeb Road was calm. Three or four security personnel stood around
making sure the rush hour traffic moved quickly. The gates to the
embassy were closed but not barricaded and floodlights lit up the
compound from the inside. The windows facing the street were lit, a sign
of the alarm of the embassy officials inside.
David Goldfarb, the spokesman for Israel’s Delhi embassy, said
Yeshova’s car was close to the building on Aurangzeb Road when the
explosion went off. Syed Akbaruddin, spokesperson of India’s Ministry of
External Affairs told TIME that Indian officials are working closely
with the Israelis. Officials of the central forensic laboratory were
seen collecting evidence at the blast site on Monday evening.
India now finds itself caught in the geo-political mire between
Israel and Iran, two countries that both share friendly relations with
New Delhi. The coming few weeks will be a test for Indian diplomacy as
well as its security establishment. It’s unclear whether Hizballah is
gaining a foothold in the country, which has suffered no terrorist
attack since a blast at Delhi’s High Court last September. In the grisly
2008 assault on buildings in ritzy south Mumbai, conducted by
Pakistan-based terror group Lashkar-e-Taiba, a prominent Jewish center
was targeted. This is the first prominent attack on a foreign government
property in India since the January 2002 attack on the American Center
in Kolkata. Monday’s blast has brought the spotlight back on the
vulnerability of diplomatic missions in the country. India is not taking
any chances and has strengthened its security apparatus across the
country to prevent a repeat of Monday’s incident.
—with reporting by Elliot Hannon/New Delhi
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