Georgian authorities report today that a bomb planted in the car of an employee of the Israeli embassy was defused by police. The employee was, according to Georgian TV news station Rustavi 2, a Georgian citizen by the name of Roman Khachaturian, a driver for the embassy and the luckiest man in Tbilisi. Khachaturian told reporters how he spotted the explosive device and called police, who successfully defused it. Meanwhile, another car bomb, reportedly attached to an Israeli embassy vehicle, exploded today in New Delhi.
This may be a coordinated series of attempted attacks against Israeli embassy assets, and the speculation from some sources is that the explosion in India and the bomb in Georgia are tied to the fourth anniversary of the assassination of Hezbollah deputy leader Imad Mughniyah, for which Hezbollah blames Israel.
Last year at this time, the Israeli Counterterrorism Bureau warned against travel to all three South Caucasus countries as well as a number of other states.
However, Isabel Kershner and Michael Schwirtz in the International Herald Tribune imply that the incidents could “represent Iran’s first confirmed retaliation for a series of recent attacks in Iran aimed at killing Iranian atomic scientists and sabotaging Iran’s nuclear disputed program, the source of rising tensions between Iran and the West.”
I don’t know what their source is, but it seems unlikely that these attacks—random in their nature and not targeted against specific individuals—are linked to Israel’s efforts to undermine Iran’s nuclear program.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu seems to subscribe to the Hezbollah hypothesis himself (at least publicly), and the Israeli press likewise is focusing on the anniversary of Mughniyah’s death rather than a tit-for-tat strategy tied to the deaths of Iranian nuclear scientists.
Israel’s foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman told the press today that “We know exactly who is responsible for the attack and who planned it, and we’re not going to take it lying down.”
For its part, the Iranian Foreign Ministry announced that the explosion in New Dehli (which injured the wife of an Israeli diplomat) and the similar bomb in Tbilisi were the work of Israel, in an effort to “tarnish Iran’s friendly relations” with India and Georgia.
Georgia and Iran enjoy cordial relations, and in May of 2010, the Iranian government announced its intention to build a hydroelectric plant in Georgia, despite the reservations expressed by the US Department of State in a confidential message to the US embassy in Tbilisi in December of the previous year.
A few months ago, I wrote about the early stages of the conflict in Ukraine through the lens of Sun Tzu’s The Art of War. While it appears likely that the war will carry on into the foreseeable future, enough time has passed for us to make an honest assessment of each side’s relative […]
The Ukrainian Army has made dramatic strides in the last few weeks. Ukraine’s tactical commanders have outfoxed their Russian counterparts, and by issuing a feint towards the south the UA has been able to earn substantial gains in the north of their country. The impact of these efforts have been compounded by the steady stream […]
In mid-May the Irish political party, Sinn Féin, won the plurality of seats in the Northern Ireland Assembly. Many American readers might not fully understand the significance of Sinn Féin’s political victory- but rest assured that subjects of the United Kingdom and a wide range of political movements the world over have heard the message […]
The first wave of the Russian offensive in Ukraine has fallen short of Russian autocrat Vladmir Putin’s ambitions. Most analysts deduced that Putin had hoped to achieve a decapitation strike of the Ukrainian government- taking Kiev and replacing Ukrainian President Vladimir Zolinski with a pro-Kremlin voice. Kiev has been threatened repeatedly through the course of […]
On the weekend of March 26th, the notorious MS-13 gang went on a massive killing spree in El Salvador which left more than 70 people dead by Sunday. Even for a country where powerful gangs hold massive sway, this recent tragedy stands out considering that it was the bloodiest day on record since the civil […]
