Israel accuses Hezbollah and Iran of attacks on diplomats

Israel accused arch-enemies Iran and its Lebanese ally Hezbollah of being behind twin bomb attacks that targeted embassy staff in India and Georgia yesterday, wounding four people.

Tehran denied involvement in the strike, which has amplified tensions between two countries at loggerheads over Iran’s contested nuclear programme. Hezbollah, the powerful Shi’ite Muslim movement in neighbouring Lebanon, declined to comment.

Police in the Indian capital New Delhi said a bomb wrecked a car carrying the wife of the Israeli defence attache as she was going to pick up her children from school. She needed surgery to remove shrapnel but her life was not in danger, officials said.

Three others suffered lesser injuries in the same blast. Israeli officials said an attempt to bomb an embassy car in the Georgian capital Tbilisi had failed and the device was defused.

Israel had put its foreign missions on high alert ahead of the anniversary of the Feb 12, 2008, assassination in Syria of the military mastermind of Hezbollah, Imad Moughniyeh — an attack blamed on the Jewish state.

Israel is also believed to be locked in a wider covert war with Iran, whosenuclear programme has been beset by sabotage, including the unclaimed killings of several Iranian nuclear scientists, most recently in January.

Israel prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu was quick to blame both Iran and Hezbollah, accusing them of responsibility for a string of recent attempted attacks in countries as far apart as Thailand and Azerbaijan.

“Iran and its proxy Hezbollah are behind each of these attacks,” said Netanyahu. “We will continue to take strong and systematic, yet patient, action against the international terrorism that originates in Iran.”

Iran’s ambassador to India denied that his government had anything to do with the attack on the New Delhi embassy.

“Any terrorist attack is condemned [by Iran] and we strongly reject the untrue comments by an Israeli official,” Mehdi Nabizadeh was quoted as saying by IRNA. “These accusations are untrue and sheer lies, like previous times.”

Israeli officials have long made veiled threats to retaliate in Lebanon for any Hezbollah attack on their interests abroad.

The New Delhi blast took place some 500 metres from the official residence of Indian prime minister Manmohan Singh.

Israel named the injured woman as Talya Yehoshua Koren.