investigators have told a court the men who bombed an Israeli woman in New Delhi were not just Iranian nationals but officers of the Pasdaran as well.
The dueling charges come as evidence mounts of Iranian involvement in bombing plots in Asia while the Islamic Republic tries harder to deflect the accusations.
The Times of India, citing a police investigative report filed in court, said five members of the Pasdaran (Revolutionary Guards) were involved in the February attack on the Israeli woman’s car. She was injured, but is recovering from the attack.
Owing to diplomatic niceties, Indian authorities had been very careful not to directly implicate any country during the investigations even though they were pursuing several Iranian nationals. But with this report to the court, India is directly implicating an Iranian state agency, the Pasdaran, in the New Delhi attack. The report also says the men were involved in planning similar bomb attacks in Thailand and the Republic of Georgia.
Houshang Afshar Irani, 39, believed to be the actual bomber, laid out the attack’s groundwork in India between April 24 and May 6, 2011. He returned to India on January 1 this year and, after conducting the bombing attack, flew out of the country immediately afterward on February 13.
He was identified from two incriminating pieces of evidence: A cellphone that he used while planning the attacks and traces of explosive materials found in a hiding place in the ceiling of his hotel room that matched the explosive used in the bomb that injured the Israeli woman, who is the wife of Israel’s defense attachÈ in New Delhi.
The Indian police said they have sent a letter to Iran seeking details on five Iranian citizens they have linked to the attack: Irani, who listed himself as a “builder” in his Indian visa application; Massoud Sedaghat-zadeh, listed as a sales employee for a Tehran company; Syed Ali Mahdiansadr, a shopkeeper selling cellphones in Tehran; Mohammad-Reza Abolghasemi, a finance clerk in Tehran’s water authority; and Ali-Akbar Norouzishayan, a retired accountant from Tehran.
A sixth person, a woman, Leila Rohani, has also been tied to plots in New Delhi, Bangkok, Thailand and Tbilisi, Georgia. The Indian police said details about her have also been requested from Iran.
Indian police have linked all these people to one another and to others arrested in bomb plots in Bangkok and Tbilisi chiefly through records of cellphone calls made to or from India. The police are now asking Iran for the call records of nine cellphones.
For example, the police report said that an Iranian arrested in Malaysia on suspicion of involvement with the bomb plot in Thailand applied for an Indian visa and listed his telephone number on the application. The police said the phone being used by Irani received calls from that telephone number.
Meanwhile, investigations are underway on the suicide bombing earlier this month in Bulgaria that left five Israeli tourists dead and dozens injured in the resort town of Burgas. Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has said the Iran-supported Lebanese Hezbollah was behind the attack that targeted the bus full of Israeli tourists.
Iran has rejected Netan-yahu’s accusations, and Iranian Ambassador to the UN Moham-mad Khazaee said, “We have never and will not engage in such despicable attempt on the lives of innocent people.”
But Khazaee went even further. In a statement to the UN Security Council, he accused Israel of bombing the busload of Israelis in an effort to lay blame on the Islamic Republic for terrorism. Some Iranians have made muttered accusations that Israel bombed the Israeli woman in New Delhi, but this was the first time a senior Iranian official has laid out such a scenario in an official report filed with an international body.
Khazaee presented no evidence for his charge. “It is amazing that just a few minutes after the terrorist attack, Israeli officials announced that Iran was behind it,” Khazaee said. “Such a terrorist operation could only be planned and carried out by the same regime whose short history is full of state terrorist operations and assassinations aimed at implicating others for narrow political gains.”
There was little reaction from the international community or even Israel to Khazaee’s charge. One analyst said, “The world seems to expect that Tehran will make bizarre and ludicrous remarks these days, and no longer reacts to them.”
American officials have not joined Israel in blaming Iran, but have said the Bulgaria attack bore “all the hallmarks” of a Hezbollah plot.
Bulgarian Prime Minister Boiko Borisov said in a news conference July 25 that an “exceptionally experienced” group of attackers were involved in the plot, though he did not mention any names or countries.
He said the team was very cautious to avoid detection. “They changed and changed and changed leased [cellphone] cards,” he said.
“They went to different cities so they wouldn’t be seen together,” he said, adding that they “never appeared on camera together.” His comments confirmed that the suicide bomber who was seen on security camera footage pacing around near the airport’s arrivals terminal did not act alone but had accomplices.
That man still has not been identified despite security camera footage, fingerprints and DNA.
Separately, a Swedish national of Lebanese descent is due to stand trial in Cyprus September 12 on charges of plotting to attack Israeli tourists on that island. The suspect, whose name has not been released, faces nine charges, including tracking the movements of Israelis and areas frequented by Israeli tourists.
Israel has maintained that the man was plotting to conduct an attack similar to the one in Bulgaria. Police, in hearings held behind closed doors, are reported by Cypriot media as saying the man is a member of Hezbollah. He was detained after a tip from British intelligence that he was flying from London to Cyprus, the Cypriot press has reported.
In Bangladesh, police have arrested four men in connection with the murder of a Saudi diplomat March 6.
“The arrestees have confessed their involvement in the killing during interrogation,” said police Deputy Commissioner Nazarul Islam.
Khalaf Ali, the diplomat, was the second Saudi diplomat killed in South Asia within the past year. The first was the Saudi ambassador to Pakistan, who was killed in May last year. Iran has not been blamed, however. The Saudi foreign minister said in a statement that the suspects appeared to be “bandits.”
A plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to the US was foiled last year and an Iranian-American is in jail awaiting trial in New York for that plot.
