WarSclerotic

‘Iran says Israel attacked its ow… JPost – Diplomacy & Politics.

Israel bombed its own embassies in New Dehli and Tbilisi in order to “tarnish Iran’s friendly ties with the host countries,” Iran said on Monday, after denying Israeli accusations that Tehran and its ally in Hezbollah launched the attacks.

Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast said that “Israel perpetrated the terror actions to launch psychological warfare against Iran,” according to the state Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA).

He said that such actions were in Israel’s “innate nature,” adding that Iran condemns terrorism in the strongest terms.

Earlier Monday, the Iranian ambassador to New Delhi rejected as “sheer lies” accusations that it was involved in a bomb attack on the Israeli embassy in India.

“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 and Jpost.com staff contributed to this report

Jeffrey Goldberg – Authors – The Atlantic.

I’m going to assume for the moment that the attacks on Israeli diplomatic vehicles in India and Georgia are the work of Hezbollah, which has promised attacks; which has recently been active in plotting attacks in Thailand, and which can reach into the rain forests of Latin America. It could be another group, of course, but Hezbollah is the obvious suspect. So: Does this mean war? No, not necessarily. This was not a fatal rocket attack across the Lebanese border. No one was killed in these attacks, and only one person was injured — the wife of a diplomat who had just dropped her children off at school in New Delhi. Yaacov Katz in The Jerusalem Post lays out the choices before the Israeli government:
Until the attacks on Monday, a debate had been raging within the Israeli defense establishment what the appropriate response should be to an overseas attack, if and when one took place.

Hezbollah is understood to prefer such an attack – against an embassy, an El Al plane or a consulate – rather than one along the northern border since this would allow it a level of deniability.

Nevertheless, there are some officials within the defense establishment who believe that such an attack needs to be met by a fierce response.

Just last month, IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Benny Gantz warned Hezbollah not to test Israel’s resolve by perpetrating a terror attack against an Israeli target overseas. If Israel does not respond, it could be perceived as a paper tiger.

Other officials believe that Israel should not go to war over any attack and that the country’s reaction would need to depend on the chosen target and of course the outcome, i.e. the number of casualties.

Iran denies role in bomb attacks … JPost – Diplomacy & Politics.

By REUTERS/Parivartan Sharma

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.

India, Georgia Bombings Target Israeli Diplomats.

NEW DELHI — Assailants targeted Israeli diplomats in India and Georgia in near-simultaneous strikes Monday that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu blamed on archenemy Iran, and its Lebanese proxy, Hezbollah.

The bombing of an Israeli diplomat’s car in New Delhi by an attacker apparently on a motorcycle wounded four people, officials said. Israel said an attempted car bombing in Georgia was thwarted.

“Today we witnessed two attempts of terrorism against innocent civilians,” Netanyahu told a gathering of lawmakers from his Likud Party. “Iran is behind these attacks and it is the largest terror exporter in the world,” he said.

There was no claim of responsibility for the attacks. But Netanyahu also said Israel had thwarted similar attacks in recent months in Azerbaijan and Thailand.

“In all those cases, the elements behind these attacks were Iran and its protege, Hezbollah,” he said, vowing to “act with a strong hand against international terror.”

Both Hezbollah and Iran have deep grievances against the Jewish state.

Hezbollah battled Israel in a monthlong war in 2006, and on Sunday, it the Lebanese guerrilla group marked the anniversary of the 2008 assassination of one of its commanders, Imad Mughniyeh, in a bombing widely believed to have been carried out by Israel. Iran suspects Israeli involvement in a series of killings of officials and scientists involved in its nuclear program.

The New Delhi attack took place just a few hundred meters from the prime minister’s residence as the diplomat’s wife was heading to the American Embassy School to pick up her children, said Delhi Police Commissioner B.K. Gupta.

When the car approached a crossing, she noticed a motorcyclist ride up and stick something on it that appeared to be a magnetic device, he said.

The car drove a short distance, there was a loud sound and then an explosion and the car caught fire, he said.

“It was a loud explosion. We realized it’s not a firecracker, but an explosion, and rushed toward the car,” said Ravi Singh, 50, owner of a gas station near the blast site.

The blast left a charred minivan with blue diplomatic plates, its rear door apparently blown out.

Gupta said the woman, Tal Yeshova, was stable and conscious. Her driver, Manoj Sharma 42, sustained minor injuries. Two people in a nearby car sustained minor injuries, he said.

Israeli diplomats in India have been on constant alert since Pakistan-based militants rampaged across the Indian city of Mumbai in 2008, attacking luxury hotels, the main train station and killing six people in the Chabad Jewish community center.

India’s foreign minister, S.M. Krishna, said India would cooperate closely with Israel in the investigation.

“I have just spoken to the Israeli foreign minister,” he said. “I assured him that the law of the land will take its course.”

Authorities in the former Soviet republic of Georgia said an explosive device was planted on the car of a driver for the Israeli Embassy.

Shota Utiashvili, spokesman for the Georgian Interior Ministry, said the driver noticed a package attached to his car’s undercarriage and called police.

Police found a grenade in the package and it was defused, Utiashvili said.

There was no immediate comment from Iran or Hezbollah. But speculation will undoubtedly be raised over the possibility of Iranian-linked payback for assassinations on nuclear scientists and other covert plots that Tehran has blamed on Israel’s spy agency Mossad and Western allies.

“There have been all kinds of mysterious things happening in Iran, and it could be an Iranian counterattack,” said Mike Herzog, a retired Israeli general and former top aide to Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak. “It’s no secret that Iran uses Hezbollah globally, and Hezbollah has the capacity to carry out attacks around the globe.”

Hezbollah dominates the government of Lebanon, which borders Israel to the north.

Were Iran behind the New Delhi attack, it would be a stunning violation against one of its stronger allies.

Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has resisted U.S. and EU pressure to curtail trade with Iran over the nuclear issue. Energy-starved India relies heavily on Iranian oil imports and the two countries are working to find creative ways for India to pay for the oil by using rupees and investing in Iranian infrastructure projects.

Israel, like the West, accuses Iran of pursuing nuclear weapons and has urged the international community to consider all means, including military action, to stop Tehran. Iran says its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes only.

Last month, a director of Iran’s main uranium enrichment site was killed in a blast from a magnetic bomb placed on his car. The official, Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan, was at least the fifth member of Iran’s scientific community killed in apparent targeted attacks in the past two years.

Iran blamed Israel. The official news agency IRNA said later it had “evidence” of alleged U.S. and British involvement in the Roshan killing.

In a signal that Iran could retaliate, Gen. Masoud Jazayeri, the spokesman for Iran’s Joint Armed Forces Staff, was quoted by ISNA last month as saying that Tehran was “reviewing the punishment” of “behind-the-scene elements” involved in the assassination.

“Iran’s response will be a tormenting one for supporters of state terrorism,” he said, without elaborating. “The enemies of the Iranian nation, especially the United States, Britain and the Zionist regime, or Israel, have to be held responsible for their activities.”

Iran also has blamed the U.S. and allies for a sophisticated computer virus, known as Stuxnet, that was programmed to disrupt the centrifuges used in uranium enrichment. Iran said the virus was detected in its systems, but claimed no serious setbacks occurred.

In January, a foreign suspect with alleged links to Hezbollah militants led Thai police to a warehouse filled with materials commonly used to make bombs. Police seized more than 8,800 pounds (4,000 kilograms) of urea fertilizer and several gallons of liquid ammonium nitrate at the warehouse in Samut Sakhon, on the western outskirts of Bangkok.

In January 2010, assailants detonated a roadside bomb near a convoy of cars carrying Israeli diplomats in Jordan. No one was hurt, and there was no claim of responsibility.

In 1992, a bombing attack at the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires killed 29 people. Two years later, a bombing at a Jewish community center in that city killed 85 people.

Argentines have long suspected high-level Iranian diplomats were involved in the 1994 bombing.

Activists: Syrian rebels repel attack on town – CBS News.

(AP)  BEIRUT — Syrian rebels repelled a push Monday by government tanks into a key central town held by forces fighting President Bashar Assad’s regime as the country’s 11-month-old uprising looked increasingly like a nascent civil war.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the attempt by regime forces to storm Rastan in the restive central province of Homs left at least three soldiers dead. Rastan has been held by the rebels since late January.

The town was taken by defectors twice in the past only to be retaken by Syrian troops. It is the hometown of former Defense Minister Mustapha Tlass, who held the post for more than three decades, mostly under Assad’s father and predecessor, the late Hafez Assad.

Calls to town’s residents could not get through on Monday and the telephone lines appeared to be cut, as they usually are during military operations.

“Troops maneuvered by moving on the northern edge of town then other forces attacked form the south,” said Rami Abdul-Rahman, who heads the Observatory. He added that hundreds of army defectors are in Rastan.

The Observatory also said that troops bombed the rebel-held Homs neighborhood of Baba Amr that has been under siege for more than a week. It reported clashes in the village of Busra al-Harir in the southern province of Daraa between troops and army defectors.

In the central city of Hama, a sniper shot dead a civilian, the group said.

The Syrian uprising began as mostly peaceful protests against Assad’s authoritarian regime, but it has turned increasingly militarized over the past few months in the face of a brutal military crackdown that has killed thousands of people.

Recently the conflict has taken on the dimensions of a civil war, with army defectors clashing almost daily with soldiers. The rebels have taken control of small swathes of territory in Homs and the northwestern province of Idlib that borders Turkey.

The Observatory, which has activists around Syria, said 45 vehicles, including tanks, arrived in the town of Jisr al-Shughour in Idlib region.

In Moscow, Russia’s foreign minister there must be a cease-fire in Syria before any peacekeeping mission could be sent to the country, rejecting calls for a joint Arab-U.N. force as premature.

Sergey Lavrov told reporters in Moscow that his country will study an Arab League proposal for a joint peacekeeping mission in Syria with the United Nations.

“We should first have peace, which would be supported,” Lavrov said at a news conference in Moscow with United Arab Emirates Foreign Minister Sheik Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan.

Russia, along with China, have given support to Assad’s regime at a time when Syria is facing broad international isolation over a crackdown that has killed more than 5,400 people. The two powerful nations upset the U.S., Europe and many Arab countries earlier this month when they delivered a double veto to block a U.N. resolution calling on Assad to leave power.

Moscow’s stance is motivated in part by its strategic and defense ties, including weapons sales, with Syria. Russia also rejects what it sees as a world order dominated by the U.S. Last month, Russia reportedly signed a $550 million deal to sell combat jets to Syria.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Weimin refused to directly answer repeated questions on whether Beijing would support the league’s call. He said China backs the Arab League’s “political mediation efforts.”

He reiterated China’s stance that it wanted to see Syrian authorities and opposition forces “properly solve their disputes through dialogue.”

On Sunday, the 22-member Arab League called for the Security Council to create a joint Arab-U.N. peacekeeping force for Syria and urged Arab states to sever all diplomatic contact with Damascus in the League’s latest effort to bring an end to the violence.

The League also said it wanted to provide Syrian opposition groups with political and material support. It called for a halt to all diplomatic contacts with Syria and for referring officials responsible for crimes against the Syrian people to international criminal tribunals. It urged a tightening of trade sanctions previously adopted by the League that have not been fully implemented.

It urged Syrian opposition groups to unite ahead of a Feb. 24 meeting in Tunisia of the “Friends of Syria” group, which includes the United States, its European allies and Arab nations working to end the uprising against Assad’s authoritarian rule.

Britain’s Foreign Secretary William Hague said Monday that Britain would discuss the possibility of a joint-African Union and United Nations peacekeeping force for Syria ahead of the Tunisia talks.

“We will discuss urgently with the Arab League and our international partners the proposals for a joint Arab League and U.N. peacekeeping force,” he said. “Such a mission could have an important role to play in saving lives.”

Syria rejected the calls with state-run news agency SANA quoting an unnamed official as saying that the Arab League’s decisions are “a flagrant interference in the internal affairs and an infringement upon national sovereignty.”

The official said the Arab League decision “wound not dissuade Syria from continuing its responsibilities in protecting civilians and maintaining security and stability for its people.”

Assad’s regime has long blamed terrorists for the revolt that began with peaceful calls for democratic change but is morphing into a bloody, armed insurgency.

On Saturday, al-Qaida chief Ayman al-Zawahri threw the terror network’s support behind Syrian rebels trying to topple Assad, raising fears that Islamic extremists are exploiting the uprising.

Haniyeh: No compromise, only armed resista… JPost – Middle East.

Netanyahu: Iran is behind attacks… JPost – Diplomacy & Politics.

By REUTERS/Parivartan Sharma

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said that Iran is behind the two seemingly coordinated attacks launched on Israeli embassies in India and Georgia Monday. Tehran, he said, is “the world’s top initiator of terror.”

Over the past few months, he added, “we have seen attempts to hurt Israelis in Azerbaijan and in Thailand. All of these incidents were stopped with the help of local [authorities].”

In all of the recent attempts, Netanyahu said, “Iran and its proxy Hezbollah was behind the attacks”

Israel, he added, “will continue to work with local security forces to stop attacks and will act with a strong hand” and systematically fight international terror, “which comes from Iran.”

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.

Analysis: An act of war? – JPost – Diplomacy & Politics.

Israeli embassy’s car hit by explosion near PM’s residence.

STAR News Bureau and agencies

New Delhi: A car belonging to the Israeli Embassy was gutted after it suddenly exploded in the VVIP area of Delhi on Monday.

The Innova SUV car bearing diplomatic number 109 CD 35 went up in flames after it exploded near a petrol pump, metres away from 7 Race Course Road – PM’s residence. Another car in the vicinity was also damaged.

Two persons are said to be injured and have been rushed to nearby hospitals.

The incident took place at about 500 meters away from the PM’s residence. The incident occurred at 3:15 pm.

Israel says bombs target embassies in India, Georgia
Bombers targeted staff at Israel’s embassies in India and Georgia on Monday, the Foreign Ministry of Israel said, with a bomb going off in New Delhi but a second device in Tbilisi defused.

In a first official response to the blast, foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman said there were two “attacks against Israeli embassies abroad.”

“This just means that the state of Israel and its citizens face a daily threat of terror, both physical and diplomatic. We know exactly whose responsible for the attack and who planned it and we’re not going to take it lying down,” Lieberman said.

“Today’s events remind us again how Israeli diplomats stand at the forefront of the fight which Israel is leading around the world, the minister added.

All of Monday’s incidents come a day following the fourth anniversary of the assasination of slain Hezbollah’s deputy leader Imad Mughniyah.

“There was an explosion in an Israeli diplomat’s car but we don’t know how it happened. We are in touch with the local authorities,” Israeli embassy spokesman David Goldfarb said.

“There was one attempted attack, and one successful, as it were,” said Paul Hirschson, a spokesman for Israel’s foreign ministry. “In both cases, the people concerned worked with the Israeli embassies.”

He also confirmed that a bomb had been found in a car belonging to a staffer at the embassy in the Georgian capital Tbilisi, which was defused by local police. Hirschson said the Israeli ambassador to India was not hurt in the New Delhi attack.

Israel had put its foreign missions on especially high alert ahead of the February 12 anniversary of the assassination, in 2008, of the military mastermind of Lebanon’s Hezbollah guerrillas, linked to the Shi’ite Islamist group Hezbollah, Imad Moughniyeh.

Iranian-backed Hezbollah had vowed to avenge Moughniyeh’s death in a Damascus car-bombing, blaming it on Israel.

Israelis had also warned of possible reprisals ordered by Tehran for the assassination of several scientists involved in Iran’s controversial nuclear program. No-one has claimed responsibility for the Iran killings.

– with agency inputs

Wife of Israeli diplomat wounded in car blast near New Delhi embassy – Haaretz Daily Newspaper | Israel News.

Suspected attack comes with 2 other reports suspected attacks in Amsterdam, Georgian capital of Tbilisi; both incidents come one day after 4-year anniversary of Hezbollah’s deputy leader’s assassination.

By Barak Ravid and Amos Harel

The wife of an Israeli diplomat was moderately wounded on Monday when a car bomb exploded outside of Israel’s embassy in the Indian capital of New Delhi, Haaretz has learned.

The incident came one day after the fourth anniversary marking the assassination of Hezbollah’s deputy leader, Imad Mughniyah, which the Islamist organization blames on Israel.

	Car of Israeli official catching fire in New Delhi following a bomb attack.
	Photo by: Indian media

Also on Monday, a Georgian worker employed by the Israeli embassy in Tbilisi alerted police after noticing a strange object attached to a car assigned to the Israeli enboy to the country.

A Georgian television channel reported that the explosive device neutralized in Tbilisi was attached to the car of Israeli ambassador to the country Yitzhak Gerber.

Israeli embassies have been put on high alert around the time of the anniversary of Mughniyah’s assassination in 2008, fearing Hezbollah retribution over the Damascus attack against the group’s the military leader they attribute to Israeli.

According to the report by Real TV, Gerber’s driver Roman Khachaturian discovered a black plastic bag attached to the car’s bottom. He then notified police, with local officers dismantling the bag and finding an explosive device comprised of a hand-grenade.

Indian security officials examining Israel Embassy car after a bomb attack in New Delhi, India, Monday, Feb. 13, 2012AP

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The charge was then neutralized, with the car transferred to closer examinations by Israeli security officials.

Israel’s Foreign Ministry has in response to the events instructed all of its diplomats to stop using their vehicles until they are checked by security officials.

Foreign Minister Avigdor said immediately following the incidents that Israel would not toleratean attack on its officials abroad, adding that Monday’s incidents show Israel and its citizens face a daily threat of terror, both “physical and diplomatic.”

In February 2011, Israeli embassies throughout the world received several suspected terror threats that coincided with the third anniversary of Mughniyah’s death. The threat was believed to be directed at embassies in Africa, Southeast Asia and Caucasus

Israel’s Counterterrorism Bureau cautioned the Israeli public at the time that because of the increased threat of terror attacks against Israelis abroad, travels certain destinations should be avoided, including Egypt, Turkey, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Armenia, Côte d’Ivoire, Mauritania and Venezuela.

Just ahead of the anniversary this year, there were indications of a threat against Israeli diplomats and tourists in Bulgaria, Last month,however, the head of the Counterterrorism Bureau said it has no concrete information regarding a possible terrorist attack on Israeli tourists in Bulgaria.

The bureau emphasized that the initial warning from the head of security at the Transportation Ministry regarding increased security in European countries took place more than three weeks ago.

The Transportation Ministry continues to insist that the threats are credible and that Israeli tourists in Europe should be vigilant.

Danny Shenar, head of security at the Transportation Ministry, told Haaretz that he asked European security services “to tighten security around groups of Israelis in various resorts like ski resorts and hotels.” According to Shenar, “I asked to formally tighten security because I am worried about a security-related incident.”

Shenar added: “I’ve asked security services in Europe to escort groups of Israelis and conduct searches with police dogs.”