The Tribune – On sticky turf, India treads cautiously

Ajay Banerjee, Tribune News Service

New Delhi, February 15. As Israel and Iran continued to play an intense blame game over Monday’s car bomb attack in Delhi, India for the second consecutive day today did the proverbial tightrope walk trying hard to manage its two important strategic partners.

Dubbing Iran as the world’s biggest exporter of terror, the Israeli government from Day 1 has been blaming Tehran for having perpetuated the attack.

On Wednesday, New Delhi reiterated that it has found no evidence to link the Israeli embassy car blast to Iran. Spokesperson for the Ministry of External Affairs Syed Akbaruddin said: “As of today, we have no evidence to find any individual, entity, organisation and country being involved in this incident.”

Sources indicated that India would want to tread carefully in the matter as it has valuable ties with both countries and cannot afford to be seen taking sides. While Tehran supplies a large chunk of crude oil, it also provides port facilities at Chabhar.

This gives New Delhi a land route access to oil, gas and mineral wealth of Central Asian countries located north of Iran. This port also facilitates movement into Afghanistan, a land route which is used extensively by India.

On the other hand, Israel is a major player in defence and security cooperation with India. Israeli Ambassador Alon Usphiz this evening called on External Affairs Minister SM Krishna and discussed the incident, including the progress in the investigations so far.

Usphiz also informed Krishna that his country wants to send a team, including forensic experts and others, to which the minister said India would welcome them. Emerging from the meeting, Usphiz said “The meeting was another example of support, friendship and intimacy (from India) that we have seen in the last 48 hours since this vicious terror attack”. Usphiz, who within hours of the attack, had blamed Iran, said: “We will continue to do whatever we can to promote the bilateral ties with India”.

On his part, Iranian Ambassador to India, Seyyed Mehdi Nabizadeh, virtually threw the ball back at the Israelis, pointing out that the Indian security agencies have so far not linked the blast to Iran. He refused to “accept” or “deny” his country’s role in the bomb attack. “We are not accepting or denying this. I don’t know how can we assume so quickly who has done this,” Nabizadeh told reporters on the sidelines of a function here. He added if India’s security agencies blame Iran for the attack, Tehran will have to verify the charges.

“The attack happened in India and if security agencies here say something (to blame Iranian nationals), we have to verify,” Nabizadeh said.

“Till now their (India’s) final reaction has not come. We hope it will come,” he said, promising full cooperation. “India and Iran have good relations. Both governments will cooperate,” he added.

http://www.tribuneindia.com/2012/20120216/main3.htm

The Asian Age – Bomb from outside, executed by local?

Rajnish Sharma

New Delhi, 15 February 2012. The Intelligence Bureau’s top brass have told Israel’s Mossad that terrorist groups operating in India like Lashkar-e-Tayyeba and Indian Mujahideen were not only sympathetic towards Hezbollah, but had targeted Jews and Israeli interests in the past.

A three-member Mossad team will arrive here Wednesday to assist Indian agencies, but home ministry sources clarified it will not join the investigations, but only provide their inputs.

IB director Nehchal Sandhu and his top aides gave Mossad officials, including its director Tamir Prado, two such examples during a conference call on Tuesday: Nariman House, home to a Chabad House, was attacked during the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks by the LeT; and Yasin Bhatkal, IM chief in India, had surveyed Pune’s Chabad House before the German Bakery blast, but dropped plans to target it due to heightened security there. But there was no direct evidence to suggest Hezbollah is operating here.

While Mossad agreed with the IB’s assessment, it provided a very crucial lead: it said the nature of explosive revealed an “extremely sophisticated switcher was used to trigger the magnetic explosive” — of a kind never used here in the past. The NSG’s Bomb Data Centre, in its report to the home ministry, also said “this kind of explosive has not been used in any urban centre in India in the last 10 years”. The NSG thus corroborated Mossad’s analysis.

“Mossad was of the view that both the hardware for the bomb and an expert to assemble it came from outside; while the execution was carried out by a local module. It is clear the bomb has not been assembled by an Indian terror group as they are not equipped to do so,” a senior intelligence official said.

The Israelis suggested this might explain why though the bomb was sophisticated, its execution went a bit haywire as the bomb planter attached the explosive on the right side of the Innova’s rear hatchback door instead of the left.

The Innova’s fuel tank is on the left side, and its explosion would have caused havoc. The plan was possibly to blow up the fuel tank, which might explain why the bomb was of low intensity, as the fuel tank’s explosion would have multiplied the effect manifold.

http://www.asianage.com/india/bomb-outside-executed-local-671

The Tribune – Israeli embassies in India, Georgia targeted

Diplomat among 4 hurt in Delhi car blast; Bomb defused in time by Georgian police in Tbilisi

Jerusalem/New Delhi, February 13. Bombers targeted staff of Israel’s embassies in New Delhi and Georgia on Monday, wounding four persons. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accused Iran and its Lebanese ally Hezbollah of involvement.

In Delhi, an Israeli embassy car exploded when a magnetic bomb stuck to it went off in a high-security area here, critically injuring a woman diplomat besides three others. The injured woman, Talyesshova, is the wife of the Defence Attache of Israel posted at New Delhi. The incident in Delhi occurred hours after a car bomb was defused near Israel’s mission in Georgian capital Tbilisi.

The Delhi blast took place around 500 m away from the official residence of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. According to initial investigations, two motorcycle-borne youths tailed the Israeli Embassy vehicle on the Aurangzeb road and allegedly attached a device to the rear of the car when it stopped at a traffic signal.

Minutes later, there was an explosion and Toyota Innova (109-CD-35) vehicle was engulfed in flames. Delhi Police spokesperson Rajan Bhagat said two Israeli Embassy employees were injured in the incident. An eyewitness Ravir Singh said he heard a loud noise following which he rushed to the spot.

“I was at my petrol pump. I heard a loud noise. I rushed to the spot and found a car in flames. A fire tender from nearby Air Force station reached the site to douse the blaze,” he said. The police said four cars were damaged in the incident.

Sources in the Ministry of External Affairs said Israel’s allegations against Iran were not being taken on the “face value”.

New Delhi would opt to wait for its investigators to send reports and track down motorcyclists.

External Affairs Minister SM Krishna called up his counterpart in Tel Aviv and assured him that “the law of the land will take its course”. The case would be fully investigated, Krishna told reporters here. Delhi Police Commissioner BK Gupta refused to comment on the nature of the explosive saying the forensic laboratory was studying it and they would give a report on that.

(with inputs from Ajay Banerjee, Shaurya Karanbir Gurung & agencies)

http://www.tribuneindia.com/2012/20120214/main1.htm

362.The Man in Blue – Two Claims, One Country

The recent conflict in the Gaza made me think about approaches that might  lead to a better understanding of the position of the ‘others’. I decided to have a look at the arguments of the hard-liners on both sides.

The hard-line Israeli argument runs like this : This land is ours, it was given to Abraham (Ibrahim) and this was reaffirmed in the time when the Jews under Moses (Musa) returned to Israel after their stay in Egypt. Not only did God reaffirm that Israel was the land of the Jews, but also encouraged the Jews to chase out and even kill the non-Jews living there.

The same applies to the present situation, the Jews have returned to their land and the Palestinians (hard-line Israelis do not recognise a Palestinian identity) either can live in the Jewish state of Israel, which in the hard-line view includes the West Bank and Gaza, or if they are not willing to accept this they should move to one of the thirty odd Arab states.

The Palestinians simply say that this was their land before the United Nations gave it away to the Zionists/Jews/Israelis and they want it back. Just having the Gaza and the West Bank is not good enough because all of Palestine belongs to the Palestinians.

Hard-line Israelis want to chuck out all Palestinians from all of Israel, Hard-line Palestinians want to chuck out all Israelis from all of Palestine.

Most Palestinians insist on the right of all Palestinians living in exile to return to Palestine, many Palestinians think that all Palestinians should have the right to return to those parts of Palestine/Israel where they originally came from. Most Israelis insist on the right of return of all Jews to Israel, for hard-line Israelis that includes Judah and Samaria, historical regions of Israel that roughly coincide with the present West Bank.

For the hard-line Israelis the present Israel is not big enough to allow all Jews outside Israel to return, which is the practical reason why they claim Judah, Samaria and Gaza. For the Palestinians, hard-line or otherwise, the West Bank and Gaza, even without Jewish settlements and with the parts of Jerusalem that are part of the West Bank given back to them, will not accommodate the return of Palestinians living in exile.  

The arguments on both sides are mostly secular, and make sense within the frame of mind of each party in the conflict. If each party could bring itself to recognise the validity of the argument of the other side, we might end up with peace in the Middle East. This kind of conflicting claims on the same area of land is not unique. Northern Ireland is another example and if we do not strictly follow Guru’s teachings of seeing God in all, we might end up with a similar conflict in a future Khalistan.