By Marsha B. Cohen and Jim Lobe
MIAMI/WASHINGTON, Feb 13 2012 (IPS)

While Israel and its allies here blamed Iran for Monday’s two nearly simultaneous car bomb incidents in the capitals of India and Georgia, the administration of U.S. President Barack Obama echoed local authorities in both countries who said they were not sure who the perpetrators were.

“I don’t have an assessment to give you of what the Israeli government is saying,” White House spokesman Jay Carney told reporters in Washington.

“We have no information yet to share with you about who was behind those attacks, but we’re obviously working and discussing with the Israelis and others to ascertain exactly that,” he added.

Independent analysts in Washington also professed uncertainty about responsibility for the bombings.

Some said Iran, which had vowed last month to retaliate for the assassination, reportedly by Israel’s spy agency, Mossad, of an Iranian nuclear scientist in Tehran, was the most likely candidate.

Others suggested that Laskar-e Taiba (LeT), a Pakistani terrorist group which carried out the 2008 bombings in Mumbai, India, also had to be considered a major suspect for the attack in New Delhi, which sent the wife of the Israeli Embassy’s military attaché to the hospital. After surgery to remove bits of shrapnel from the bomb, she was released late Monday, according to news reports.

The Indian government has promised Israel a thorough investigation of the blast that injured the woman and several other people. According to reports, an explosive device was placed on her car by a motorcyclist while it was stopped at a red light close to the Israeli embassy.

At nearly the same time, in the Georgian capital of Tbilisi, a similar device, described by some reports as a grenade, was found attached to a car owned by one of the Israeli embassy’s local drivers and dismantled before it could be detonated.

A spokesman for the Georgian Interior Ministry, Shota Khizanishvili told reporters that the incident may have been linked to the driver’s personal life, rather than his work at the embassy, according to the Russian news agency Interfax.

Coming so soon after the Jan 11 killing – also by a bomb attached by a motorcyclist to a car – of the Iranian nuclear scientist, Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan, the two attacks appeared to many both here and in Israel that Tehran was trying to take the revenge it had promised.

Roshan was the fourth Iranian scientist to be killed in this way in the last two years. NBC News quoted senior U.S. officials last week as confirming that the assassination campaign has been organised by Israel’s Mossad working with the Mojahedin-e-Khalq, an Iraq-based Iranian group that the U.S. lists as a terrorist organisation.

“In recent months we have witnessed several attempts to attack Israeli citizens and Jews in several countries, including Azerbaijan, Thailand and others,” Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu charged Monday. “…Iran and its proxy, Hezbollah, were behind all of these attempted attacks,” he said.

Tehran called Israel’s charges “sheer lies” and suggested that Israel itself may have been responsible as part of its “psychological warfare” against Iran.

Israeli officials noted that Sunday marked the fourth anniversary of the assassination, also reportedly by Mossad, of Imad Mughiniyeh, one of the founders of Hezbollah, which, with Iran’s help, began as a resistance movement against the Israeli occupation of Lebanon during the 1980s and 1990s. Mughniyah had been accused of planning and carrying out terrorist attacks on Jewish and Israeli targets at Iran’s behest throughout the Middle East and even in Argentina.

Indian officials, meanwhile, did not rule out involvement of the LeT, which has been linked to Al-Qaeda and Pakistan’s military intelligence. Among the 164 people killed in its Mumbai attack were six people at Nariman House, a Chabad religious centre that catered to Israelis and visiting Jews from Western countries. Investigators concluded that the centre was a specific target of the LeT attack.

Since the fall of 2009, Israel has issued travel warning to its citizens visiting India, a popular destination with Israelis: “The terror group that carried out the 2008 Mumbai attack can conduct a number of attacks across India, including on the concentration of Western tourists and Israelis and may also attack Chabad houses.”

Early reports on several Indian news sites said that “low grade explosive material, including sulphur and potassium chlorate with sulphuric acid,” had been used to detonate Monday’s explosion. These early reports also noted that Abdul Karim Tunda, said to be affiliated with the LeT, used this method in late 1990s and early 2000s to set off explosions in various parts of India.

As of Monday night, however, the explosives used in the attack had not been positively identified, according to Delhi Police Commissioner B. K. Gupta.

The Times of India reported early Tuesday morning that the bomb attached to the Israeli embassy vehicle by a magnet was the type that has been used in past terrorist operations in Iran, Israel, Georgia, Turkey and Armenia. The newspaper also reported that its manufacture was of a sophistication that had not been seen in India to date.

U.S. experts on Iran and South Asia Monday said they were uncertain about who was responsible.

“The Israelis have been very quick and categorical in blaming the Iranians; it’s not an unreasonable charge,” said Bruce Riedel, a former top CIA analyst on the Near East and South Asia, now at the Brookings Institution.

“Israel and Iran have been engaged in a Spy vs. Spy war for years. This war has been getting hotter and hotter, with Israel’s deep concern about Iran’s nuclear programme,” he told IPS. “What we’re seeing now is a very dangerous game, getting more and more dangerous all the time.”

“It’s not a cold war anymore,” Riedel, who has advised the Obama administration on South Asia policy, went on, noting the assassinations of the Iranian scientists, as well as other efforts to sabotage Tehran’s nuclear and missile programmes. “Iran and Hezbollah are fighting back, and want to show their ability to carry out simultaneous attacks.”

At the same time, he stressed, “There are a host of people who would like to see a war between Iran and Israel, particularly Al-Qaeda” with which LeT has been linked.

Stephen Tankel, an expert on LeT at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, agreed that the perpetrators could be Iran, Hezbollah, or LeT.

“Does Lashkar have an interest in targeting Israelis? Yes. Do Hezbollah (and Iran) have an interest in targeting Israelis? Yes and arguably more so,” he told IPS. “Do both groups have transnational networks? Yes.

Neither Hezbollah nor Lashker-e-Taiba is previously known to have operated in Georgia. Tankel said, “I’ve not heard of Lashkar folks in Georgia, but that does not mean they’re not there.”

“Gun to my head, I’d be more inclined to believe it was Hezbollah, but I wouldn’t be shocked if it turned out I picked the wrong horse,” says Tankel. “Remember, we’re talking about two state-sponsored organisations that are pretty good at covering their tracks.”

Monday’s incidents also coincided with the opening of the trial of Umar Patek in Jakarta, Indonesia. Patek, who is believed to be a member of another Al-Qaeda-linked Islamist group, Jemaah Islamiah, is accused of masterminding the explosions that killed 202 people, most of them foreigners, at a night club and bar in Bali on 2002.

*Jim Lobe’s blog on U.S. foreign policy can be read at http://www.lobelog.com.

Excerpt:

Iran’s light water nuclear power plant at Bushehr is preparing to go “live” – again.

Iranian and Russian nuclear scientists and officials have announced Bushehr’s reactor will soon be receiving its first shipment of nuclear fuel 36 years after construction first began on the project.

This claim may be quietly fueling speculation that a military strike on Iran by Israel – or the U.S. – may be imminent.

The Persian-language news site Mardom Salari reported on Aug. 3 that members of Iranian armed forces had been transferred to Bushehr to evaluate the security of the air space above the site. Three drones were said to have been shot down over Bushehr the previous day, as part of an exercise to test Iranian readiness for an aerial attack, intercepted by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) defence system.

Mohammad Hoseyn Shanbodi, a political security deputy, told Khalij-e Fars television news that local officials had no advance warning of an impending readiness test. Because they hadn’t been briefed about the drones entering Bushehr’s air space, no details were available about what happened to the drones after they were shot down.

The test came as a surprise even to Amir Salahian, said to be in charge of Bushehr’s defence system. After the incident, Salahian was quoted as saying, “I believe it would have been better if some of the officials in the province would have known about the drill to avoid tension.”

The prospect of Bushehr becoming operational coincides with the proliferation of public statements that claim an attack on Iran by Israel or the U.S. is impending and inevitable. Bushehr is strategically located in southwestern Iran on the Gulf coast, directly across from Kuwait.

An aerial assault on Bushehr would have to take place before any nuclear fuel arrives at the site. Beyond that point, an attack on the nuclear reactor would release deadly radioactive fallout into the entire Persian Gulf region and beyond. Besides the catastrophic human and environmental toll of such an attack, the sea lanes through which much of the world’s oil supplies pass would be endangered.

Iranians know this. In 1980, Iran bombed Iraq’s Osirak nuclear power plant before it contained any radioactive material. Osirak was quickly repaired by the French contractors who built it. Eight months later Osirak was partially destroyed by Israeli jets, aided by Iranian intelligence.

Nothing about Bushehr violates any international agreements to which Iran is a party. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) was created to promote the use of “atoms for peace”. The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), which Iran signed in 1968 and ratified two years later obligates the five nuclear-weapon states (the U.S., Britain, France, Russia and China) to assist non-nuclear weapon states that signed the NPT in acquiring and utilising nuclear technology for energy production and other peaceful purposes.

Under the NPT, Iran has the right to produce its own nuclear fuel for civilian projects such as Bushehr. However, suspicions have been raised for nearly two decades that Iran might try to convert low enriched uranium for electricity generation into highly enriched uranium.

IAEA approval of Iran’s nuclear energy programme is contingent upon Iran buying its fuel from approved suppliers abroad, and exporting its nuclear waste back to its source so that the radioactive material it contains can’t be diverted for use in weapons of mass destruction or fall into the wrong hands. Russia qualifies as an approved supplier.

Sergei Kiriyenko, the head of the Russian Federal Atomic Energy Agency (Rosatom), also told the Russian news wire service Interfax on Jul. 27 that Bushehr won’t be affected by U.N. Security Council sanctions against Iran.

He said, “No one is against the development of Iran’s civilian nuclear programme; the construction of the Bushehr nuclear power plant is being carried out under the control of the International Atomic Energy Agency.”

Russia has guaranteed that it will supply all the nuclear fuel needed by Bushehr, and that its nuclear waste will be reprocessed in Russia.

Israeli military and politicians usually equate Iranian access to nuclear fuel for electrical generation with Iran’s acquisition of a nuclear weapon. A light water reactor, Bushehr won’t be capable of producing weapons grade plutonium (unlike Israel’s heavy water reactor at Dimona).

However, Bushehr’s becoming operational will affirm Iran’s right to develop and utilise nuclear technology, and give Iran the status and prestige of a nuclear power. Israelis claim this would pose an “existential threat” to the Jewish state.

Once Bushehr’s nuclear fuel arrives from Russia, whatever military options against Iran that may be “on the table” that include Bushehr will have to come off. Israel and the U.S. have only a few weeks to launch an attack on Iran before Bushehr has the means to begin generating electricity.

Israeli sources have often hinted that a strike against Iran might be conducted with precision-guided drones, in order to minimise casualties among Israeli soldiers. It’s a possibility for which Iranians feel they need to prepare, which may explain the report of drones over Bushehr as the nuclear facility prepares to come online.

Both the IRNA and Interfax have quoted Rosatom’s Kiriyenko as saying, “Everything is going according to plan.” But nothing about Bushehr has ever gone according to plan, since Siemens began its construction in1974.

After Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini denounced the project as “un-Islamic”. Siemens’s work stopped during the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war, when Bushehr was targeted by Iraqi aerial attacks. Siemens declined to resume work on Bushehr after the war, partly in response to U.S. pressure.

When Iran signed an agreement with Russia to resume Bushehr’s construction in 1995, the power plant had to be totally redesigned to Russian specifications. The contract called for completing the reactor by1999, but technical, political and financial issues arose. The inauguration of the facility has been pushed back at least half a dozen times, most recently from the spring of 2010 to less than a month from now.

Kiriyenko told journalists, “Questions regarding the exact dates should be referred to the Iranian side. The oversight services…are negotiating the final dates with the Iranian customer. The preparations are continuing according to plan, plus or minus a few days, which will not make any serious difference.”

This may be a hint that Bushehr’s going live is about to be postponed yet again, leaving the window of opportunity for an “inevitable” attack on Iran open a little longer. Iran’s political leaders and defence officials are keeping their eyes on the skies. The next drones shot down may not be a test.

As Israeli Defence Forces munitions experts sorted through 300 tonnes of weapons found on a German-owned, Cypriot-operated cargo ship flying the Antiguan flag, Israeli politicians were sifting through the various talking points that could be offloaded from the vessel.

Israeli officials charged that the weapons, seized on Wednesday, were supplied by Iran and destined for Hezbollah militants.

The Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported that the Israeli Foreign Ministry officials almost immediately began “consultations to determine Israel’s public relations stance in explaining the operation and its ramifications to diplomats and the foreign press”.

Under waning pressure from the Barack Obama administration to curtail settlement activity in the occupied territories, but nonetheless urged to “seriously” work toward a two-state solution to the festering Israeli- Palestinian conflict, vilified by the Goldstone Report and more determined than ever to marshal opposition to Iran’s nuclear programme, Israeli defence officials and politicians agreed that the Francop incident was another “Karine A”.

On Jan. 3, 2002, Israeli naval commandos intercepted a 50-tonne shipment of weapons, valued at 15 million dollars, in the Red Sea, 480 kilometres south of Eilat. Israeli officials claimed the weapons were en route from Iran to the Palestinian Authority.

Then, as now, Israel was being criticised for its harsh treatment of the Palestinians.

Then, as now, Israeli leaders were engaged in defending Israel’s nuclear monopoly in the Middle East, urging the U.S. to either destroy Iran’s nuclear capability and potential or to acquiesce to Israel’s doing so in a preemptive strike.

Then, as now, Israeli politicians were determined to prevent the normalisation, or even moderate improvement, in relations between the U.S. and Iran.

In the aftermath of the events of Sep. 11, 2001, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon was attempting to contain his right-wing coalition partners, who were insisting that he get tough on terrorists and reject once and for all the idea of a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza.

Their demands were on a collision course with U.S. efforts to launch a “war against terror” and to forge an international “coalition of the willing” to support a U.S.-led retaliation against Afghanistan, in which Muslim states would actively participate.

Pres. George W. Bush complained to Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres in mid-October that Israel’s harsh approach toward the Palestinians was “making it more difficult to keep the U.S.-led anti-terror coalition together” and impeding the U.S.-led war on terrorism.

Israeli politicians debated how to mollify Washington. Peres proposed that Israel affirm its support for U.S. aims in the “war on terror”. Several cabinet ministers agreed that from then on, the Palestinian Authority should be depicted in the U.S. as “Israel’s Taliban”.

During the same period, members of the Bush administration also met with over a dozen visiting Israeli government officials, envoys and senior military officers, all of whom warned about the progress being made in Iranian nuclear research. Israeli policymakers and military intelligence analysts presented what they argued was incontrovertible evidence of Russian complicity in Iran’s nuclear and missile programmes.

The Israeli visitors were assured that the U.S. would win its war against terrorism and that Israel would benefit from the new international order that would follow. Iran and Syria would be watched carefully, and Hezbollah and other groups fighting Israel would be added to the list of terrorist organisations.

But senior U.S. officials expressed concern that Israel might be trying to engineer the collapse of the Palestinian Authority. This not only could undermine regional stability but create friction between the U.S. and moderate Arab states, endangering the U.S. “war on terror”.

The fairly rapid routing of the Taliban in November by “Operation Enduring Freedom” was attributable in no small measure to factions of the Northern Alliance supported by Iran that enabled the U.S. coalition to expand its control of Afghanistan’s 250,000 square miles from a tenth to over a third in less than a week. Iran was among “six-plus-two” states that met in New York on Nov. 12, 2001, the day before the fall of Kabul, to decide Afghanistan’s future.

After the installation of Afghan President Hamid Karzai, with Iran’s assent, Sharon and Bush had a “working visit” on Dec. 3-4 to discuss “the international campaign against terrorism and the pursuit of peace in the Middle East”. Although analysts expected little from the meeting, what emerged at its conclusion, in the wake of a spate of suicide bombings in Israel, was Israel’s place, at long last, in the frontline of the “war on terror”.

Bush granted Sharon unprecedented affirmation of Israel’s right to act both defensively and proactively in dealing with terrorists. Furthermore, the Bush- Sharon meetings fused (and perhaps obfuscated) the issues of nuclear proliferation and terrorism, providing Israel with the opportunity to use the “war on terror” to perpetuate its nuclear monopoly in the Middle East.

It was the interception of the Karine A, however, that provided the link Israel needed between Iran and terrorism that would inspire Bush’s inclusion of Iran as a member of the “axis of evil” in his 2002 State of the Union address in late January, and Israel’s failure to achieve a peace agreement with the Palestinians.

As the Israeli narrative evolved, its focus soon shifted from demonstrating that the Palestinian Authority was stockpiling weapons to affirming Iran’s primary responsibility for the violence in the region. It was Iran that was responsible for Israel’s failure to achieve a peace accord with the Palestinians, or to subdue Hezbollah on its northern border.

During the Francop saga, Israeli talking points have shifted from the quantity of weapons – which varied from 60 to 1,200 tonnes) to Iranian violation of U.N. Security Council Resolutions 1747 and 1701 that strictly forbid Iran from exporting or trading any form of weapons. Defence Minister Ehud Barak hailed the seizure as “another success against the relentless attempts to smuggle weapons to bolster terrorist elements threatening Israel’s security”.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, however, is now claiming that Iran is guilty of a “war crime” in providing the weapons to Hezbollah. Hezbollah has denied they were the recipient, and the fractious Iranian government has not yet issued a coherent or convincing response to the charges.

Meanwhile, the U.N. General Assembly has accepted the U.N. Human Rights Committee’s Goldstone Report criticising Israel’s disproportionate use of force in Gaza, which the U.S. House of Representatives has denounced.

The Francop incident has already begun to fade from the headlines. The weapons found on it are being unloaded and securely stored. But like the Karine A, its most valuable cargo may be the ammunition for future battles in the war of words between Israel and Iran.