Bombers target Israeli diplomats
2012-02-13 15:02
Jerusalem - Israel's Foreign Ministry has confirmed a pair of attempted car bombings against Israeli diplomats in India and Georgia.
Ministry spokesperson Yigal Palmor says one Israeli was wounded in the New Delhi attack near the Israeli Embassy. He would not identify the person or give details on the extent of the injuries.
AFP reported that an Israeli embassy car blew up on Monday in the Indian capital. An Israeli diplomat and one other person were hurt, but it was not immediately known whether the explosion was caused by a bomb, officials said.
The car, which was parked down the street from the Israeli embassy in a high security area of central Delhi, was badly burnt.
Two people were injured when the car exploded, police spokesperson Rajan Bhagat, told AFP, adding there were no details about their condition.
Israeli embassy spokesperson David Goldfarb said that one of the occupants in the car was an Israeli diplomat but declined to identify him.
Series of blasts
A photograph on NDTV television showed the Toyota station wagon engulfed in flames in the middle of the road. Later television footage showed the vehicle burnt out and the area cordoned off by police.
"There was an explosion in an Israeli diplomat's car but we don't know how it happened, Goldfarb said.
"We are in constant contact with the local authorities," he said.
The last militant strike in New Delhi was last September when a bomb outside the High Court killed 14 people - the latest in a series of blasts that has shaken public confidence in the Indian government's counter-terror capabilities.
Experts say Indian security agencies, and in particular the police, suffer from underfunding, a lack of training and poor intelligence gathering and sharing.
The ministry said Israel thwarted a similar attack on an Israeli Embassy vehicle in Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia. The bomb was discovered before it went off.
- SAPA
