Mustafa Quraishi/Associated PressIndian security and forensic officials examine a car belonging to the Israeli Embassy after an explosion tore through it in New Delhi, Feb. 13, 2012.Post updated 10:28 P.M. IST/ 11:58 A.M. EST
Unidentified bombers attacked staff at Israeli embassies far apart in India and Georgia on Monday, reporters from The New York Times write.
In New Delhi, an explosion shook the car of an Israeli diplomat as it was driven on a tree-lined New Delhi street on Monday afternoon, near the Israeli embassy and ministerial bungalows. The car’s driver and the diplomat’s wife were injured, Indian officials said, as well as two men in a passing car.
The diplomat was identified in India as the defense attache to India, and his wife as Tal Yehoshua Koren, who also works at the embassy. She was being operated on for spinal injuries at a New Delhi private hospital Monday evening. “She has shrapnel injuries due to the blast,” said Deep Makkar, head of international patients at Primus Super Specialty Hospital in a telephone interview. Shrapnel “has penetrated her spine and her liver,” he said.
Three other people injured in the blast, the car’s driver, Manoj Sharma, 42, and Arun Shukla and Manjit Singh, two occupants of a nearby car, were also being treated for injuries, at different hospitals.
In a press conference Monday night, Delhi police commissioner B. K. Gupta said an eyewitness “saw a person on a motorcycle sticking some kind of device on the back of the car.” As the motorcycle moved away, “a mild blast took place in the back of the car,” he said.
The car, a Toyota Innova, was blackened on all sides, and left where it stopped in the middle of Aurangzed Road after the explosion, close to the Prime Minister’s house. Indian forensic experts were examining it late in the afternoon.
Dr. Makkar said he could not determine by the patient’s injuries at this time what sort of bomb, if any, was used, or if the shrapnel came from the car itself or from an explosive device.
Ms. Yehoshua Koren was on the way to the American School, a private fortress-like school run by the American Embassy, to pick up her children when the blast happened. The injuries could have long-term repercussions. She “may have some neurological injuries, because her nerves are involved,” Dr. Makkar said.
There were several people nearby when the blast occurred. Ravi Singh, a nearby petrol pump owner, said he heard a loud blast and came running towards the car. When he arrived, he saw it in flames. Several people who were in the car behind it stopped and took the driver and a woman from the car.
The car burst into flames in front of a reporter from The Economic Times, who posted pictures of the explosion on Twitter.
Meanwhile, in Georgia, Shota Utiashvili, a spokesman for the Georgian Interior Ministry, confirmed to The New York Times Monday that a bomb was affixed to the car of an employee of the Israeli embassy in Tbilisi.
“The car of a Georgian national working for the Israeli embassy was mined,” he said. “The embassy employee noticed a suspicious object and he called the police, and the police successfully defused it before it went off.”
He said the car was not parked close to the embassy at the time. He said this was the first attempted attack on an employee of the Israeli embassy in Tbilisi. Police have not yet identified any suspects, he said.