India’s central counterterrorism agencies concluded that a local Shiite terror cell supported by Iran’s IRGC Quds Force was behind the attack that targeted the Israeli Embassy in New Delhi in late January. Hindustan Times reported on Monday. Evidence collected at the site of the explosion pointed to Iran’s involvement in the initiation of the investigation. A handwritten note in English found at the site of the explosion was addressed to Israel’s Ambassador to India, Ron Malka, alerting Israel of revenge for the assassinations of Iran’s Quds Force Commander. Qasem Soleimani in January 2020 and Iranian nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh in November 2020. CTV footage of the blast site revealed that a taxi dropped two people near the embassy shortly before the bomb went off. According to India’s counterterrorism experts who led the investigation, the attack was part of Iran’s asymmetric war campaign against Israel, the Hindustan Times reported. “The fact that the bomb was not a high-intensity bomb, with no human targets in mind, was perhaps because the Iranians did not want to conflict with a friendly nation like India. But the message was clear and the threat is real, ”an expert involved in the investigation told the Hindustan Times. This explosion is not the first against Israeli targets in India: on February 13, 2012, two bombs were planted on Israeli diplomatic cars in New Delhi and Tbilisi, Georgia.Udi Shaham contributed to this report.
