Iran denies role in bomb attacks on Israeli embassies
Tehran says Israeli accusations are "sheer lies"; Netanyahu blames Iran, Lebanon's Hezbollah for attacks on missions in India, Georgia after car bomb injures Defense Ministry rep's wife in New Delhi.
By HERB KEINON, GIL STERN STERN HOFFMAN, REUTPeople walk by Israel embassy in Tbilisi, Georgia_390(photo credit: Reuters)
Iran rejects as "sheer lies" accusations that it was involved in a bomb attack on the Israeli embassy in India, the official IRNA news agency quoted the Islamic Republic's ambassador to New Delhi as saying on Monday, after Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu implicated Tehran and its ally Hezbollah in the attacks."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."Netanyahu placed blame for the dual attacks against Israel's diplomatic missions in New Delhi and Tbilisi Monday squarely on Tehran, saying that Israel will continue to "systematically and with patience, use a strong arm" against international terrorism emanating from Iran.Netanyahu said that Iran, and its proxy Hezbollah, is responsible for a string of attempted attacks against Israeli and Jewish targets abroad in recent months, including in Thailand and Azerbaijan. In each of the previous cases, he said, the attacks were thwarted with the help of the local authorities."Iran, which is behind these attacks, is the greatest exporter of terrorism in the world," Netanyahu said. "The Israeli government and its security forces will continue to work together with local security services against these terrorist actions."Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman said that Israel knows exactly how to identify those responsible for the attacks and how to identify those who carried them out, after two seemingly coordinated attacks were launched on Monday against Israeli embassies abroad. Israel, he added, will not allow terrorism to affect its agenda."It just shows that Israel and its citizens face terror inside and outside of Israel," Liberman said. "We deal with it every day. We know how to identify exactly who is responsible for the attack and who carried it out.""We will not allow this to affect our agenda," the foreign minister concluded.In the first attack, the wife of an Israeli diplomat was injured when a bomb exploded in her car in New Delhi, India. The woman succeeded in driving to the Israeli embassy where she was evacuated to a nearby hospital.Local authorities were investigating the possibility that the bomb was planted under the car or alternatively that an assassin on a motorbike attached it to the vehicle as it was driving. Indian television cited witnesses who saw a motorbike following the car and possibly throwing an object toward it before the explosion.In the second attack, an embassy staffer in Tbilisi, Georgia discovered a bomb underneath his car as he was driving to the embassy Monday morning. The staffer – a local Georgian national – heard something during the drive, pulled over to the side of the road, noticed the bomb and called local authorities. The bomb was dismantled before exploding.Yaakov Katz contributed to this reportJpost.com staff contributed to this report
