WarSclerotic

U.S.: Iran lashing out to ‘distract’ from impact of sanctions – Haaretz Daily Newspaper | Israel News.

Iran unveiled new nuclear advances on Wednesday, defying increasingly tough Western sanctions; U.S. says Iran’s leaders are under pressure.

By The Associated Press

The White House says Iran is lashing out at the world to “distract attention” from the damage that international sanctions are having at home.

Iran is claiming Wednesday that it has achieved two major advances in its program to master production of nuclear fuel, a defiant move in response to increasingly tough Western sanctions over its disputed nuclear program.

	U.S. President Barack Obama, February 3, 2012.
	Photo by: AFP

Iran state media also reports steps to cut oil exports to six European countries in retaliation for new European Union sanctions, including a ban on Iranian oil.

White House press secretary Jay Carney says such “defiant acts” show that Iran’s leaders are under pressure.

The sanctions are intended to persuade Iran to back down. Iran has refused, although it signaled Wednesday that it is willing to return to talks.

Public Takes Strong Stance Against Iran’s Nuclear Program | Pew Research Center for the People and the Press.

The public supports tough measures – including the possible use of military force – to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons. Nearly six-in-ten (58%) say it is more important to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons, even if it means taking military action. Just 30% say it is more important to avoid a military conflict with Iran, even if it means that country develops nuclear weapons. These opinions are little changed from October 2009.

There have been reports in recent weeks that Israel may soon attack Iran’s nuclear facilities. About half of Americans (51%) say the United States should remain neutral if Israel takes action to stop Iran’s nuclear program, but far more say the U.S. should support (39%) than oppose (5%) an Israeli attack.

The latest national survey by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press conducted Feb. 8-12, 2012, among 1,501 adults, finds substantial partisan differences over how to deal with Iran’s nuclear program.

Republicans are far more supportive of using military force to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons than are either Democrats or independents. Moreover, a majority of Republicans (62%) say the U.S. should support an Israeli attack to stop Iran’s nuclear program, compared with just a third of independents and Democrats.

There also is a wide partisan gap over President Obama’s plans for withdrawing U.S. forces from Afghanistan. Overall, 53% say Barack Obama is removing troops from Afghanistan at about the right pace. Just 20% say the president is withdrawing troops too quickly and 22% say he is not removing troops quickly enough.

Last June, 44% said they thought Obama would handle the troop withdrawal about right, and 50% expressed this view in March 2o11.

A plurality of Republicans (43%) now say that Obama is removing U.S. troops from Afghanistan too quickly; 30% say Obama is handling this about right while 21% say he is not removing the troops quickly enough. In June 2011, just 28% of Republicans thought Obama would remove the troops too quickly.

An overwhelming majority of Democrats (77%) continue to say Obama is handling the troop withdrawal about right, an increase of 11 points from June 2011.

Similarly, about half of independents (51%) think the president is handling the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan about right, up from 40% in June. About a quarter (28%) of independents say Obama is not removing troops quickly enough and 17% say he is removing them too quickly.

Women, Young People Want U.S. to Stay Neutral

About half of Americans (51%) say the U.S. should stay neutral if Israel attacks Iran. Nearly four-in-ten (39%) say the U.S. should support Israel’s military action while just 5% say the U.S. should oppose military’s action.

There are large demographic differences in views about what the U.S. should do if Israel attacks Iran. A majority of women (55%) say the U.S. should stay neutral. Men are more divided over whether the U.S. should stay neutral (47%) or support Israel (45%). Young people also are far more likely than older Americans to say the U.S. should stay neutral.

Fully 64% of white evangelical Protestants say that the U.S. should support Israel if it attacks Iran in an effort to stop their nuclear weapon program. That compares with 42% of white mainline Protestants and 41% of white Catholics.

There is a wide divide among Republicans on the issue of Iran. Fully 71% of conservative Republicans think the U.S. should support Israel’s military action if they attack Iran, compared with 43% of moderate and liberal Republicans. A majority of independents and Democrats (including both liberal and more moderate Democrats) think the U.S. should stay neutral.

Overall, there has been modest attention to the dispute over Iran’s nuclear program; 38% say they have heard a lot while 39% have heard a little and 23% have heard nothing at all. That is comparable to attention paid to Iran’s nuclear program last month and in October 2009.

Republicans (47%) are more likely than independents (38%) and Democrats (31%) to say they have heard a lot about the dispute over Iran’s nuclear program. And two-thirds (67%) of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents who agree with the Tea Party say they have heard a lot about Iran’s nuclear program.

Most See Tougher Sanctions as Ineffective

Despite the recent push for tougher economic sanctions against Iran by the U.S. and its allies, 64% of the public thinks that tougher economic sanctions will not work in getting Iran to give up its nuclear program. Just 21% think they will work. In October 2009, 56% thought tougher economic sanctions would not work in stopping Iran’s nuclear weapons program.

There is wide consensus across party lines that tougher economic sanctions on Iran will be ineffective. Most Republicans (72%) and independents (67%), as well as 56% of Democrats, say that Iran will not give up its nuclear program even with tougher economic sanctions.

Tea Party Republicans Back Tough Approach

An overwhelming majority of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents who agree with the Tea Party (84%) say that the U.S. should prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons, even if it means taking military action. That compares with a smaller majority (64%) of Republicans who disagree with or have no opinion of the Tea Party.

The gap among Republicans is even larger on what the U.S. should do if Israel attacks Iran to stop its nuclear weapons program. Fully 81% of Tea Party Republicans say the U.S. should support Israel’s military action, compared with just 43% of non-Tea Party Republicans.

There also are differences among Republicans about how Obama is handling troop withdrawal from Afghanistan. A majority of Tea Party Republicans (61%) now say that Obama is removing troops too quickly. A year ago, when asked if Obama will remove U.S. troops too quickly, just 33% of Tea Party Republicans said he would remove troops too quickly and 35% said he would handle it about right.

Far fewer non-Tea Party Republicans (27%) say Obama is removing troops too quickly. More say Obama is handling the troop withdrawal about right (38%). Views among non-Tea Party Republicans have changed little since last year.

About the Survey

The analysis in this report is based on telephone interviews conducted Feb. 8-12, 2012, among a national sample of 1,501 adults, 18 years of age or older, living in all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia (900 respondents were interviewed on a landline telephone, and 601 were interviewed on a cell phone, including 284 who had no landline telephone). The survey was conducted by interviewers at Princeton Data Source under the direction of Princeton Survey Research Associates International. A combination of landline and cell phone random digit dial samples were used; both samples were provided by Survey Sampling International. Interviews were conducted in English and Spanish. Respondents in the landline sample were selected by randomly asking for the youngest adult male or female who is now at home. Interviews in the cell sample were conducted with the person who answered the phone, if that person was an adult 18 years of age or older. For detailed information about our survey methodology, see http://people-press.org/methodology/

The combined landline and cell phone sample are weighted using an iterative technique that matches gender, age, education, race, Hispanic origin and nativity and region to parameters from the March 2011 Census Bureau’s Current Population Survey and population density to parameters from the Decennial Census. The sample also is weighted to match current patterns of telephone status and relative usage of landline and cell phones (for those with both), based on extrapolations from the 2011 National Health Interview Survey. The weighting procedure also accounts for the fact that respondents with both landline and cell phones have a greater probability of being included in the combined sample and adjusts for household size within the landline sample. Sampling errors and statistical tests of significance take into account the effect of weighting. The following table shows the sample sizes and the error attributable to sampling that would be expected at the 95% level of confidence for different groups in the survey:

Sample sizes and sampling errors for other subgroups are available upon request.

In addition to sampling error, one should bear in mind that question wording and practical difficulties in conducting surveys can introduce error or bias into the findings of opinion polls.

DEBKAfile, Political Analysis, Espionage, Terrorism, Security.

DEBKAfile Special Report February 15, 2012, 5:17 PM (GMT+02:00)

Iranian Bangkok blast suspect

Shrugging off Western sanctions and Israeli recriminations, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad played a starring role in a widely televised spectacle by inserting his country’s first domestically-made fuel rod into the Tehran Research Reactor Wednesday, Feb. 15. The scene came after the announced cutoff of Iranian oil exports to six European countries – Netherlands, Spain, Italy, France, Greece and Portugal. Two hours later, the Iranian oil ministry challenged the announcement, spoiling the show by attesting to differences in high regime ranks.

By this show, Tehran thumbed its nose at Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s call on the world Wednesday to set red lines for Iran’s nuclear program and denounce its terrorist activity. “If Iran’s aggression is not halted, it will ultimately spread to other countries,” he told the Knesset.
Tehran paused only briefly in its multi-pronged offensive to deny Israeli charges of an Iranian hand behind the bombing attacks on its diplomats in New Delhi, Bangkok and the Georgian capital of Tbilisi this week, in which an Israeli woman was injured.

Tuesday, Feb. 14, the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier crossed the Strait of Hormuz into the Sea of Oman for the second time. Unlike the first, an Iranian flotilla shadowed its passage made up of an explosive speedboat, warships with missiles poised ready for launching, a spy plane, a drone and several assault helicopters. Tehran was flexing muscle in the face of US naval might.
The incident passed without a US response.
Wednesday, a white-coated Ahmadinejad was on hand at the Tehran Research Reactor to flaunt Iran’s mastery of the manufacture of 20 percent enriched nuclear fuel rods, so bringing its nuclear program substantially closer to the 90 percent threshold for the fissile core of a nuclear warhead.

Then, by unveiling “the fourth generation” of home-made centrifuges with a higher speed and production capacity at Natanz, Tehran made the point that it was not hiding the production of 20 percent enriched uranium in underground bunkers as Israel has claimed. From now on, Iran would carry out the advanced process of enrichment and complete the nuclear cycle in front of the whole world, despite Western penalties and sanctions.

By announcing the cutoff of oil exports to six European countries, Tehran sought to turn the European Union’s oil sanctions against the alliance itself.  Only this week, US and Israeli officials claimed that the latest round of stiffer sanctions against Iran were working and is economy was on the point of collapse.
The Iranians were anxious to show that they can afford to pick and choose the customers for their oil and mean to do so. And maybe they can. debkafile’s energy sources note that China, India, Russia, Turkey and South Korea, which buy 65 percent of Iran’s exported crude, have all refused to join the US and European boycott and cut back on their purchases from the Islamic Republic. None have so far taken up the Saudi offer of supplies to replace Iranian oil.

Britain has meanwhile taken advantage of the hue and cry against Iranian terrorist attacks on Israeli diplomats to start a hare of its own, claiming that Iran and al Qaeda have struck a deal for a combined major terror offensive against Israeli targets. British sources report that the al Qaeda strategic brain, Abu Mus’ab al-Suria (nom de guerre of Aleppo Mustafa Abdul-QAdir Mustafa al-Set Mariam), who fought the Assads for three decades and whom Syrian President set free in December, has moved to Tehran.

They say he is the kingpin of the new terror offensive. Therefore, those British sources strongly doubt that Israeli ministers and officials will be able to make good on their pledges to reach the sources of terror.

Israel won’t blink first – Israel Opinion, Ynetnews.

(This article lays out in straight simple language the truth, as all Israelis see it, about Iran getting nuclear weapons.  Bottom line, the only way they’ll get them is if they destroy the state of Israel first. Period. – JW )

Op-ed: Global assumption that Israel will blink first in nuclear showdown with Iran is false

A friend recently told me that he was surprised by my support for an Israeli strike in Iran. Why do you think I support it? I asked. The friend said he based it on my recent column where I wrote that a war against Iranis unavoidable and is at our doorstep.

To my regret, other readers took my column to mean that I crave an Israeli strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities, even though I did not write that. So in the interest of clarifying my remarks I hereby state that the purpose of my article was not to call for or oppose a strike on Iran. I only wanted to describe the conditions where a war between Israel and Iran would be unavoidable, and remind my readers that at this time most if not all of these conditions have been met.

However, there was no deterministic approach here: Even now it would be easy to avert what seems inevitable. Should the government in Tehran open up all his nuclear facilities, including the secret ones, to IAEA inspectors and freeze its military nuclear program, it would avert a clash with Israel.

Renouncing nuclear weapons will not be undermining the regime’s credibility in the eyes of Iranian citizens: The regime will in fact gain credibility by proving its international pledges to develop nuclear capabilities for peaceful purposes only.

However, given a failure to change Iran’s nuclear policy and Tehran’s desire to quickly acquire nuclear arms, soon development shall reach the red line; beyond it, Israel only has one option left: A wide-ranging military operation. Not because someone wants it, but rather, because there is no other choice.

In an international forum on the subject I was once asked whether there is an Israeli prime minister who would assume the historic national responsibility to send bombers and missiles to attack Iran’s nuclear program. I responded by saying that there is no Israeli PM who would assume the terrible responsibility of failing to use the bombers and missiles under such circumstances.

No middle ground

There is some kind of hidden assumption in global diplomacy that Israel will be blinking at the last moment. But it will not. Those who doubt Israel’s determination shall be losing their wager. The State of Israel, as the national home of the Jews, has decided to prevent Iran from possessing nuclear weapons. It would be better to do so via brains, but if there is no other choice, it will be done by using force.

In addition to the clock of diplomacy and secret war, there is another clock ticking on the Israeli prime minister’s desk, one that gauges Iran’s progress towards a bomb. The moment this clock approaches zero hour, a military operation will do the same. No begging will stop Israel at that point. There will be a war.

The international community can go ahead and offer numerous plans for a situation where Iran acquires military nuclear capabilities and aim to create a new balance of terror between Tehran and Tel Aviv: All these plans and attempts are a waste of computer space. There is no point in discussing the state of the Middle East in an era of a nuclear Iran, for the simple reason that Israel would simply not accept Iranian nukes.

Israel will only bomb Iran’s nuclear military industry as a last resort – and as a last resort, Israel will indeed go ahead and bomb.

On this principled issue, Israel has nowhere to retreat to. The concessions and compromises will therefore have to come from the Iranian side.

The situation is similar to the state of affairs that prevailed on the eve of the first Gulf War. The US Administration and American public opinion were united in the approach that should Saddam Hussein not withdraw from Kuwait under diplomatic-economic pressure, the US military will remove him from there by force.

Meanwhile, Saddam Hussein was certain that the Americans are bluffing and that they would not dare get entangled in a war against an Arab state located thousands of kilometers away from home. To his misfortune, America did dare – twice.

Israel will also dare. Either Iran doesn’t possess nuclear arms, or we’ll see a war. There’s no middle ground.

Ahmadinejad loads nuclear fuel r… JPost – Iranian Threat – News.

By Ho New / Reuters

PM: World must set red lines on I… JPost – Diplomacy & Politics.

By Marc Israel Sellem/The Jerusalem Post

The world must set red lines on the Iranian nuclear program, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said Wednesday, urging the world to unequivocally condemn Iran for its attacks on Israeli diplomats abroad.

“The world must denounce Iran’s terrorist activity and mark red lines on the Iranian nuclear program,” Netanyahu told a Knesset meeting in honor of visiting Croatian president Ivo Josipović.

“Iran is the largest exporter of terrorism in the world,” he continued, adding that “Iran’s terrorist activities are currently evident to everyone.”

“Iran is undermining the stability of the world. It is attacking innocent diplomats around the world. The countries of the world must condemn these acts and draw a red line against Iranian aggression. This aggression, if not stopped, will eventually spread.”

Netanyahu’s comments came as Iranian state television announced it will unveil a new generation of its domestically made uranium enrichment centrifuges and load locally made nuclear fuel rods into its Tehran Research Reactor on Wednesday for the first time, according to Iranian state media.

“The fourth generation of domestically made centrifuges have higher speed and production capacity … it will be unveiled on Wednesday,” state TV said.

Netanyahu’s comments come during a week in which terrorists successfully attacked the Israeli embassy in New Delhi, and botched operations intended to hit Israeli targets in Georgia and Thailand. Israel believes Iran is behind the plots.

Thai investigators believe they have found a link between this week’s bomb blasts in Bangkok and New Delhi, a senior security official said on Wednesday.

Reuters contributed to this report.

Tehran Triangle: Why Israel-Iran-US standoff may be sliding toward war | Firstpost.

It’s the Middle East’s million-dollar question: will Israel attack Iran? For several weeks, Israeli leaders have been saying there’s very little time left: in 9 or 10 months from now, the Islamic Republic will have finished burying its nuclear facilities. Israeli bombs will thus not be able to reach them. Something has to be done beforehand.

Iran’s answer? A defiant “we’re not scared!” as it advances with its nuclear project. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the country’s supreme leader, says that any attack would be “ten times worse” for the West than it would be for Iran. Both the Americans and the Europeans are urging patience. Like the Israelis, they too are convinced that Iran wants to build the capacity to make a nuclear warhead.

They have just levied a new series of unprecedented sanctions on Tehran. As complete a boycott as possible of Iranian oil — the country’s only natural resource — is underway, and the United States and European Union want to give the embargo time to take effect. Speaking to students at Sciences Po, a Paris university, French Foreign Minister Alain Juppé said last week that “a military solution with unpredictable consequences must be avoided.”

Keeping an eye on Washington

The Israeli agenda is not only technical. It’s also political — and for the time being, at least, it is taking into account US President Barack Obama’s opposition to bombing Iranian nuclear targets.

It’s no mere coincidence that the Israeli press always mentions spring as the timeframe for a possible bombing of the sites. That’s because many assume the raid is supposed to take place before the American presidential election on 6 November — while Obama is still under pressure from Republican candidates who openly defend the principle of attacking Iran.

Obama is still under pressure from Republican candidates who openly defend the principle of attacking Iran. Reuters

Republicans have been assuring Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of their support while denouncing the Democratic president’s use of “soft power” with the Islamic Republic. Mitt Romney, the favourite of the Republican candidates, warns that “If we re-elect Barack Obama, Iran will get a nuclear weapon.”

“Bibi” Netanyahu’s alleged strategy, in other words, is that Israel better strike now while Obama is still president, since he won’t be able to oppose Israel if he’s defied and put under pressure by his opponents.

Signs that sanctions are working

As the diplomatic head of a major European country told Le Monde: “The coming weeks will be crucial.” He too asked that the sanctions be given time to work, particularly as there are already indications that they are starting to, and in ways that really hurt. Since October, Iran’s currency, the rial, has lost half its value. And the country’s economy is in deeper and deeper trouble.

One of France’s top experts on nuclear issues, Bruno Tertrais of the Paris-based Foundation for Strategic Research, is saying that the sanctions “have already had an effect.” On a website called Réalité EU, he explains that they have “slowed the nuclear programme down,” made “importing materials and technologies more difficult,” and “increased the amount of time Iran needs to make a bomb.” Tertrais goes on to say that “the sanctions are meant to change the Iranian government’s calculations” by making the economic and political cost of their nuclear strategy exorbitant.

The idea is to weaken the Islamic Republic to the point that its leaders have to ask themselves the question: do we save the bomb or the regime?

The Iranian regime, more than ever, is on the defensive. It is not popular at home. It is isolated abroad. And it is in the process of losing its most important ally in the Arab world: Syria. The support that Tehran continues to give Damascus has earned it hostility from most Arabs — particularly the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and Tunisia — and growing hostility from Turkey. The Sunni world intends to isolate Shi’ite Iran and prevent its old Persian enemy from getting the influence that having a nuclear weapon would confer on it.
In line with the malaise and divisions within the Islamic Republic, Ayatollah Khamenei’s reaction has been to increase anti-Israeli rhetoric in an attempt to tighten the ranks. At Friday prayers at the University of Tehran on 4 February, he issued this threat to Israel: “The Zionist regime is the real cancer in the region. It must be annihilated, and it will be.”

Sanction as a prelude to war

Not everyone shares Bruno Tertrais’s view that “history confirms that the sanctions against Iran could be the solution to this nuclear crisis.” American political scientist Robert Pape of the University of Chicago has compiled research on years of international sanctions, and says: “Presented as an alternative to war, they are often just the prelude.”

To succeed, sanctions have to contain the seed of possible negotiation. The whole art is to understand what could be qualified as success or failure – in other words, what are the proverbial lines in the sand of everyone involved. The Islamic Republic is not going to budge as regards its right to enrich uranium for civil purposes – the only purposes it admits to pursuing. It is too committed to this line, and the issue has become one of political survival.
According to the United Nations, Iran is violating its international obligations by refusing to grant the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) access to certain elements of its nuclear programme. In the view of the IAEA, part of the programme can only be explained by Tehran’s will to be in a position to make a warhead although the agency says it does not know if the decision to actually make one has been taken or not.

For Israel, the line in the sand has in many ways already been crossed – by simple virtue of the progress the Iranian programme has made. For the United States, that line isn’t crossed until Iran is actually building a bomb.

It’s a three-way poker game, and things are tense. Very tense.

The article originally appeared in French daily Le Monde and the translated version was published on worldcrunch.com

The paths to war with Iran.

Pictured: The bungling Iranian bomber before he blew off his own legs… as Thai police link Bangkok blasts with New Delhi attacks on Israeli diplomats | Mail Online.

• Wounded Saeid Moradi arrested and charged after Thai blasts
• Mohammad Hazaei detained trying to flee through Bangkok airport
  
• Third man on the run, believed to be in Malaysia
  

By Lee Moran

CCTV footage of three Iranian men believed to have been preparing a series of attacks in Bangkok has emerged – including the bungling bomber who blew his own legs off by accident.

The three men are pictured separately, dressed casually in jeans and t-shirts, walking down the road in the run-up to yesterday’s blasts.

Release of the image comes as it was revealed one of the trio has fled to Malaysia.

Thai investigators have also said there is a link between the blasts and Monday’s attacks on Israeli diplomats in New Delhi, India, and a botched attempt in Tblisi, Georgia.

 

Marked men: CCTV of the three Iranians, before they were caught with explosives in their Bangkok home

Mistake: Iranian Saeid Moradi, who is still alive, had his legs blown off after a grenade he hurled bounced back onto him, as police closed in on him outside a Bangkok school

They say the explosives used in the three incidents used ‘the same magnetic sheets’. The fugitive, who has not yet been named, went on the run after a bizarre sequence of blasts in the Thai capital.

It started when a stash of explosives accidentally blew off the roof of a house occupied by three Iranians. Two ran away while wounded Saeid Moradi staggered out and tried to wave down a taxi.

Covered in blood, the driver refused to take him, and so he hurled a grenade at the vehicle. And when police arrived he then tried to throw another at officers – but it bounced off a tree, landed at his feet, and blew off his legs.

Moradi has been charged with illegal possession of explosives, causing explosions, attempted murder and assaulting a police officer. Four people were injured in the events.

Detained: Mohammad Hazaei (centre) speaks to police after he was arrested at Suvarnabhumi Airport in Bangkok last night

Explosion: Bomb disposal experts work on the Bangkok house rented by three Iranian men, which was blown up yesterday

One of his accomplices, 42-year-old Mohammad Hazaei, was arrested at Bangkok’s international airport yesterday, but the third slipped past security and fled to Malaysia.

Deputy National Police Commander Pansiri Prapawat said: ‘Our latest intelligence is that the suspect has escaped from Thailand … to Malaysia already.’

Thailand’s National Security Council secretary Wichian Podphosri said the explosives used in Monday’s and Tuesday’s attacks, which also included a bomb that failed to explode in the Georgian capital Tblisi, used the same ‘magnetic sheets’.

He said: ‘The individual was in possession of the same magnets and we are currently examining the source of the magnet’.

Iran, which has been accused of being behind the attacks, has strongly denied any involvement.

But Israeli ambassador Itzhak Shoham countered this, claiming Thai police had found and defused another two magnetic bombs that could be stuck on vehicles, after yesterday’s Bangkok blasts.

He said: ‘They are similar to the ones used in Delhi and in Tbilisi. From that we can assume that there is the same network of terror.

‘With the arrest of the two Iranians it leaves not too much room to assume who was behind it.’

Investigation: A Thai Explosive Ordnance Disposal team member analyses the damage following the blasts in Bangkok

Carnage: A bomb disposal expert checks out the damage, which also hit a police car

Warning: Israel and the U.S. have told their citizens to be alert in the capital, but Thai authorities said the country appeared to have been a staging ground but not the target of any attack

On Monday, a bomb wrecked a car in New Delhi taking an Israeli embassy official to pick up her children from school. She was in stable condition today after surgery to her spine and liver.

Her driver and two passers-by suffered lesser injuries in the attack which police believe was also a botched job.

The motorbike rider who stuck the bomb on to the car put it on the opposite side to the petrol tank – if it had been on the tank side it would have been a bigger blast and likely caused fatalities. Five people have been detained for questioning.

Israeli officials said an attempt to bomb an embassy car in Tbilisi failed and the device was defused. Delhi police spokesman Rajan Bhagat confirmed that the blast there was caused by a ‘sticky bomb’.

He said witnesses saw a lone motorbike rider attach the device to the right rear side of the car in which the Israeli diplomat’s wife was travelling.

Peace: Thailand has rarely been a target for foreign terrorists, although a domestic Muslim insurgency in the country’s south has involved bombings of civilian targets

The device was about the size of an iPad, would have exploded about three to five seconds after it was stuck to the vehicle and magnetic fragments were found at the scene.

Bhagat said: ‘This is the first time that this modus operandi has been seen in India. We don’t yet have the evidence to point the finger at anybody. We are exploring all possibilities.’

Indian media said investigators were scanning records of all Iranian nationals as well as Lebanese students who arrived in the country in recent months.

India also said yesterday it was still unsure who was behind the attack, remaining pointedly silent on Israel’s accusation that Tehran was the culprit.

Police were visiting the Israeli Embassy today, with two Israeli Mossad agents reportedly flying into New Delhi.

Fireball: The Bangkok blasts come the day after Israeli diplomats were targeted in simultaneous bomb plots which were also blamed on Iran. A bomb attached magnetically to a car in the Indian capital New Delhi exploded and injured the wife of an Israeli official and two bystanders

Closer examination: Indian security and forensic officials examine the car yesterday – Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu immediately blamed Iran for the attacks

New Delhi has good relations with both Iran and Israel, so the attack makes its diplomatic balancing act between the two countries all the more difficult and has thrust the mounting tension between the Middle East rivals on to its doorstep.

Israel is the second-largest supplier of arms to India. But India is Iran’s biggest oil buyer, relying on it for about 12 percent of its needs, and it is Tehran’s top supplier of rice.

On the diplomatic front, India regards Iran as an important partner to protect its regional interests when U.S. troops are withdrawn from Afghanistan.

India’s Economic Times questioned why Iran would take the risk.

‘The idea that Iran would want to make India a theatre in its rivalry with Israel is far-fetched and does not sit well with the track record of Tehran’s relationship with India,’ it said.

‘Iran is in a desperate position because of western financial sanctions to punish it for its nuclear programme but it is certainly not desperate enough to alienate New Delhi by ordering an attack on its soil.’

IMRA – Wednesday, February 15, 2012 Gallup Poll: Iranians support nukes for military use 40%:35%.