Israel Matzav

Multinational investigation concludes Iran did it

A multinational investigation has concluded that Iran was behind attempts on the lives of Israeli diplomats in Georgia, India and Thailand in February of this year.

In India, local agencies told ministers a bomb attack which badly injured the wife of the Israeli military attaché in New Delhi in February was the work of an Iranian "security entity". Their conclusions have not previously been made public and Indian officials have made significant efforts to avoid blaming Tehran, an ally and oil supplier.

The governments of Georgia and Thailand, which both uncovered bomb plots on the day of the Delhi attack, have also not officially blamed Iran.

European intelligence officials told the Guardian they now found it difficult to judge Tehran's "risk calculus".

"Until recently it was possible to see why they were doing what they have been doing," one intelligence official said. "Now it has become very unpredictable. It's very hard to see the logic behind [the February bombings], other than perhaps demonstrate an ability to cause problems in the event of war or a desire for revenge of some kind."

You mean Iran might not be a rational actor that can be trusted not to use nuclear weapons if they have them. What a shock!

Police evidence, witness statements and court documents seen by the Guardian, plus interviews with local and international law enforcement and security officials, indicate that the attempted triple-bombing on 13 and 14 February was conducted by a well co-ordinated network of about a dozen Iranians and prepared over at least 10 months.

The evidence includes the identification of at least 10 Iranians allegedly involved in the plots, money transfers to key individuals from Iran, the use of Iranian phone connections and the flight following the attacks of conspirators to Iran.

"The question is not was this Iran-backed or Iran-organised but who in Iran was running all this," said one western security official.

The first elements of the plot were put in place in April 2011 when at least five Iranians who have been implicated in the attacks travelled to Thailand and India, apparently on reconnaissance missions, investigators say. Their journeys came around four months after a spike in tension between Iran, Israel and the west following the killing in Tehran of Majid Shahriari, a nuclear scientist, by a bomb stuck to his vehicle by a motorcyclist.

Houshang Afshar Irani has been identified by Indian police as the man who attached a magnetic charge to the car of the wife of the Israeli defence attaché in Delhi. Copies of his passport show he first visited the city in April 2011 for 10 days before returning on 29 January this year. At 11.30pm on 13 February, almost seven hours after reaching the Indian capital's main airport 75 minutes after the bomb attack, he flew to Malaysia and then on to Tehran via Dubai.

Analysis by Indian investigators of the type of explosive used in Delhi reveal it to be a variant of TNT. The shell of the bomb was manufactured outside India and magnetic strips used to attach the device to the car in Delhi were identical to those recovered in Bangkok and Tbilisi.

The attack in Bangkok involved at least five people, all Iranians. One, a 31-year-old woman identified as Leila Rohani, visited Thailand twice in 2012 and rented the house off the central Sukhumvit Road that was partly destroyed when 28-year-old Saeed Moradi, also Iranian, appears to have prematurely detonated a device. Moradi, who suffered serious injuries, was arrested. From Bangkok, Rohani travelled to Kuala Lumpur and then on to Tehran, investigators have found.

A second alleged conspirator was detained at the airport, also en route for Tehran. This man, Sedaghatzadeh Masoud, 31, is believed to be the overall co-ordinator of the international operation. Masoud is in custody in Malaysia, pending possible extradition to Thailand.

As in Delhi, a reconnaissance trip also appears to have been conducted in Thailand in April 2011. Members of the cell were pictured with bar girls in the sleazy resort of Pattaya days before the blast.

Read the whole thing. The world is not safe from Iran. Will anyone wake up in time to do something about it?

Labels: Georgia, India, Iran, Islamic terrorism, Thailand

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 12:49 PM