Israeli forensic teams arrived in New Delhi on Tuesday to assist in the
investigation of the bombing attack against an Israeli embassy car a day
earlier, as India’s foreign minister said his country would cooperate fully with
Jerusalem.
“Whatever information we get, we pass it on to the Israeli
authorities, and whatever information they have, which could possibly be of
assistance to us in the context of the investigations, I am sure they will share
it with us,” Foreign Minister SM Krishna said in a television interview with
India’s CNN-IBN.
“We are in touch with the Israeli foreign minister,” he
said. “Any kind of cooperation that Israel wants, we will be happy to
help.”
Indian media outlets said Israel provided the Indian authorities
with information on two suspects in the attack connected with
Iran.
Israel’s envoy to India, Alon Ushpiz, told the Indian news program
Headlines Today that Israel had “no doubt” Iran was behind the
attack.
“We are grateful for the level of cooperation that we have gotten
from [India’s] intelligence agency,” he said.
Ushpiz said the Indian
leadership assured Jerusalem that those who planned the attack “will be dealt
with swiftly and promptly.” He added that it was “mind boggling” that Iran
carried out the attack in the heart of India.
Tali Yehoshua-Koren, the
wife of the Defense Ministry’s representative to India who was injured in the
bombing as she drove to pick up her children from school, was in stable
condition after surgery.
Defense officials said that shrapnel was removed
from near her spine and that the doctors would decide Wednesday whether she
could be flown back to Israel to continue her treatment. She is suffering from
partial paralysis in one of her legs.
India’s Union Home Minister
P. Chidambaram told reporters in New Delhi that a “very well-trained
person” carried out the bombing on Monday. The explosive device was attached to
Yehoshua-Koren’s car by a motorcyclist as her car stopped at a red light. The
attacker has not yet been apprehended.
Chidambaram confirmed that the
incident was a “terror attack.”
Indian media said that CCTV street
cameras showed a man in a brown jacket following the Israeli embassy car on a
red motorcycle. According to these reports, the license plate number was
unreadable.
The Israeli delegation sent to New Delhi included top Israel
police bomb sappers and, according to Indian media reports, representatives from
the Mossad who were interfacing with their Indian counterparts investigating the
bombing.
Speaking in Singapore, where he is attending the annual air
show, Defense Minister Ehud Barak said that Iran and Hezbollah were determined
to strike at Israelis throughout the world.
“They want to kill Israelis
and we will have to act against this terror front and continue to prepare for
the other challenges we are facing,” Barak said.
Meanwhile, Israel opened
its embassy in New Delhi on Tuesday, although it operated at a somewhat limited
capacity. Operations in the Israeli embassies in Tbilisi, the site of another
attack on diplomatic personnel on Monday, as well as Bangkok, and a number of
other unspecified sites around the globe were also scaled down a bit on Tuesday.