The first open attack on an Israeli target in India coincided with an aborted strike against Israeli diplomats in Tbilisi, Georgia, pointing to a marked escalation of hostilities between the Shiite theocracy in Iran, which is defiant about pursuing its nuclear programme, and Israel, the US as well as the Sunni Arab world who are equally determined to stop it.
On Monday afternoon, a motorcycle-borne youth tailed an Israeli embassy vehicle on Aurangzeb Road in the high security zone in New Delhi, close to the PM's residence, and allegedly placed "something" on the rear of the car when it stopped at a traffic signal at the intersection of Aurangzeb Road and Safdarjung Road in the Capital's high-security zone.
Seconds later, there was an explosion and the Toyota Innova car, bearing registration number 109 CD 35, went up in flames. Three persons including the Israeli defence attache's wife Tal Yehoshua Korene, who was going to pick up her children from the American Embassy School, were injured.
Investigators later got a crucial clue to the assailant in the footage from two CCTV cameras installed at industrialist Analjit Singh's 15, Aurangzeb Road residence. The bomber, in brown jacket on a motor cycle, is seen tailing the embassy car at 3.10 pm at a distance of 2-3 seconds. The cameras could not capture the registration number of the bike.
The victim was in a critical condition, having suffered serious spinal injuries from shrapnel in the device that seemed to contain nitroglycerine.
The first terror strike involving the use of magnetic bomb mirrored the one that killed Iranian nuclear scientist Mostafa Ahmadi-Roshan on January 11, when a small magnetic bomb was planted on his vehicle by two terrorists on a motorcycle. Four Iranian nuclear scientists have been killed in attacks in the past two years.
Indian authorities remained tight-lipped about the source of the attack.
Source