NEW DELHI — A magnetic car bomb attached to an Israeli Embassy vehicle exploded Monday in New Delhi, seriously injuring a female diplomat and three others in an attack that Israel blamed on Iran.
Israeli officials also accused Iran of a similar but foiled attack in Tblisi, where Georgian police defused a car bomb on an Israeli diplomatic vehicle.
“Iran is behind the attacks on Israeli embassies, it is the largest exporter of terrorism in the world,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wrote on Israeli Foreign Ministry’s Twitter feed.
There were no immediate claims of responsibility for the attacks.
Iranian officials dismissed Mr. Netanyahu’s accusation as unfounded, the Associated Press reported.
“This accusation is within the Zionist regime’s psychological war against Iran,” the official IRNA news agency quoted Foreign Ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast as saying. “The Zionist regime, due to repeated crimes against humanity, is the main party accused of terrorist activities.”
In New Delhi, an Israeli Embassy staffer identified as Tal Yeshova, 42, was seriously wounded in the 3 p.m. car bomb attack as she was on her way to pick up her children from school, police said.
Others wounded in the attack were identified as Manoj Sharma, the driver of the embassy car, and Arun Sharma and Manjeet Singh, who were in another car and sustained minor injuries.
The car exploded not far from the Israeli Embassy near a gasoline pump on Aurangzeb Road, which is near 7 Race Course Road, the address Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.
New Delhi Police Commissioner B.K. Gupta told reporters that a passing motorcyclist likely placed the the magnetic bomb on the car.
Indian External Affairs Minister Mr. S M Krishna said the attackers would be brought to justice.
“India very strongly condemns such incidents, and it is going to be fully investigated and the culprits will be brought to justice at the earliest,” Mr. Krishna said.
“I have reassured the Israeli Foreign Minister that the law of the land will take its course,” he said. “The investigation has already started and we will continue with it and then keep him posted as and when we get progress report of the investigation.”
The Israeli Embassy’s spokesman expressed confidence that India would take strong measures to track down the attackers.
“It was a difficult day for us. Iran was targeting us for the past few weeks, today they succeeded in New Delhi. But we are confident that we will investigate this together and bring the attacker to justice,” spokesman David Goldfarb told The Washington Times.
“We will keep on working in places like India. This country is very close to us,” he said.
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