Iran guided the explosion outside the Israeli embassy in New Delhi, India, on January 29, utilizing local elements, Indian officials told The Hindustan Times on Thursday.
More than a month after the explosive device went off outside the Israel embassy, India’s counterterrorism agencies have concluded that the Iranian Quds force was behind the plot, but the device was planted by a local Indian Shia sect—although it is not yet clear if the people who planted the bomb had also prepared it.
A low-intensity explosion happened near the Israel Embassy in Delhi, nature of explosion being ascertained. Some broken glasses at spot. No injuries reported; further investigation underway pic.twitter.com/xqIllrCZOQ
— ANI (@ANI)
The Hindustan Times quoted Indian security officials who suggest “the bomb was not of high intensity, with no human targets in mind,” which they attribute to the possibility that Iran did not want to antagonize India, one of the last remaining importers of Iranian oil. “But the message was clear and the threat is real,” said one of the counterterrorism experts.
The Indian counterterrorism agencies discovered that the explosive device was not so crude, in contrast to earlier reports. It was a remote-controlled device triggered by a bomber who maintained a line of sight. The same experts believe the device was either an ammonium nitrate-fuel oil explosive with an electric detonator or a more sophisticated pentaerythritol tetranitrate device. It was loaded with ammonium powder and ball bearings that crashed through the windows of three parked cars.
The Indian agencies recovered a letter addressed to Israeli ambassador Ron Malka at the site of the explosion, accusing him of being a terrorist and a devil representing a terrorist nation.
An analysis of the writing style and the spelling of names in the letter suggests it was written by an Iranian, according to the investigators speaking to The Hindustan Times. The author of the letter swore revenge for Qassem Soleimani and Abu Mehdi Al Muhandis who were killed in Baghdad in January 2020 in an American drone attack, as well as Iranian nuclear physicist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, who was killed in his car in November 2020.
On February 13, 2012, a motorcyclist attached a sticky bomb to a car belonging to Tal Yehoshua Koren, the wife of the Israeli defense attaché to India, while she was on her way to pick up her children from school. The Israeli woman sustained moderate injuries that required surgery to remove shrapnel. Her driver and two bystanders suffered minor injuries. In July 2012, Delhi Police concluded that terrorists belonging to the Iranian Revolutionary Guards were responsible for the attack.