Israel claims Iran behind ‘terrorist attack’ blasts

An Iranian man wounded by an explosion in Bangkok lobbed a grenade at police that rebounded and blew off his leg in a series of blasts Israel said were an attempted terrorist attack by Iran.

The blasts came a day after an Israeli diplomatic car was bombed in India. Tehran denied responsibility for that attack and a failed car bombing in Georgia.

Thai security forces found more explosives in the house where the Iranian man was staying with two compatriots in Bangkok, but the targets were not known, Police Gen Pansiri Prapawat said. One of the other men was arrested at the airport.

Monday’s attacks appeared to mirror the recent “sticky bomb” killings of Iranian nuclear scientists that Tehran has blamed on Israel.

Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak said that the Bangkok violence “proves once again that Iran and its proxies continue to perpetrate terror.”

“We know who carried out the terror attacks, we know who sent them, and Israel will settle the score with them,” Public Security Minister Yitzhak Aharonovitch told Israel Radio.

Israeli police raised their state of alert throughout the country, and officials predicted the attacks were the first in a wave of assaults on Israeli targets worldwide by Iran and its Lebanese proxy, Hezbollah.

The bombings ratcheted already high tensions over Iran’s nuclear program. Israel doesn’t believe Iran’s claims that it aims to produce electricity, not bombs, and its threats of a possible military strike have grown more ominous in recent weeks.

In Thailand, yesterday’s bizarre sequence of explosions began when explosives apparently detonated by accident, blowing off part of the roof of the Bangkok house.

City surveillance footage after the blast showed separate images of each of the suspects walking down the middle of a residential street. A passport found at one blast scene identified one man as Saeid Moradi from Iran, Pansiri said.

Moradi tried to wave down a taxi “but the driver refused,” Pansiri said. Moradi threw an explosive that partially destroyed the taxi.

Police tried to apprehend Moradi, who hurled a grenade at them. “But somehow it bounced back” and blew off one of his legs, Pansiri said.

Photos showed the wounded man covered in dark soot on a sidewalk strewn with broken glass. He lay in front of a Thai school, head raised as if he was attempting to sit up or look around. Hospital officials said Moradi’s right leg was severed below the knee, while his left leg was intact but severely wounded.

Later security forces at a Bangkok airport detained an Iranian — identified as Mohummad Hazaei — as he tried to board a flight for Malaysia, police said. They said that he was one of the three in the house where explosives first went off.

A third Iranian is on the run, police said.

A Thai government spokeswoman, Thitima Chaisaeng, said “we need more analysis” to determine who was behind the attack and Iranian involvement. She refused to comment on what the suspects might have been planning or if targets had been identified.