The Israeli interest: to expose the Iranian connection

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Israel estimates that Iran is responsible for a terrorist attack near the Israeli embassy in India on Tuesday. It is believed that the attack was carried out through emissaries, in retaliation for the assassination last November of the nuclear projector, Muhsin Fahrizadeh.

The scene of the explosion in New Delhi

In Israel and India, the incident is being treated as an attack. This was despite the fact that the incident was very amateurish: the bomb was placed relatively far from the embassy, ​​and exploded on Friday at five o’clock in the afternoon – after Shabbat, and long after the workers had left the embassy (except for drives inside the building and far from the blast site).

Assuming that this is an attack, this indicates the low level of the perpetrators. The first step in any such operation is to gather intelligence on the target. On normal weekdays, workers do leave the embassy around five o’clock, but Saturday procedures are basic and trivial items of information that have escaped the eyes of the operators and indicate a lack of professionalism. The charge itself was also improvised, and appeared to have been hastily prepared and activated.

Iran has an impressive operational capability around the world. Those responsible for it are the Revolutionary Guards, through a Quds force whose commander, Qassem Suleimani, was assassinated last year in Iraq. At the beginning of the last decade, Suleimani led a large-scale and world-wide Iranian effort, in an attempt to avenge a series of assassinations of Iranian nuclear scientists, attributed to the institution. Attempted attacks were thwarted at the time in Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan, Georgia and Thailand, where Iranian agents arresting explosives in a home laboratory they set up were arrested. Their arrest was made a day after the wife of the Defense Ministry envoy was injured by an explosive device near the embassy in Delhi. A few months later, the Iranians managed to carry out a deadly attack, in which six civilians were killed in Burgas, Bulgaria.
Revenge for his elimination? Mohsin Fahrizadeh // Photo: Reuters

However, Hezbollah, Iran’s most talented and dangerous protégé (who was also responsible for the terrorist attacks in Argentina in 1992 and 1994) was responsible for the attack in Bulgaria. The person responsible for yesterday’s attack is an unidentified organization called Jish al-Hind, which will now be at the center of a joint investigation conducted by India and Israel. The Indians have already undertaken to share with Israel all the details of the investigation, and from past experience it can be assumed that Israeli security officials have already gone to India to assist in the investigation.

Israel has a key interest in proving that Iran is linked to the incident. This is a dramatic issue, at a dramatic time: when the US is about to resume talks with Tehran on the nuclear issue. Israel believes that a return to the original 2015 agreement would be a “disaster”, and current information that Iran is involved in terrorist attacks could serve well to persuade the new administration. To pursue a more aggressive policy towards Iran.

The Iranian logic – assuming that Tehran is indeed responsible for the attack – is less clear. The winds in Iran are indeed stormy around the series of assassinations and actions attributed to Israel, and yet – leading retaliatory efforts at this time seems like a very dangerous gamble for them. Unlike in the past, following the years of ISIS terrorist attacks, the world today shows zero tolerance for terrorism; An attack that will lead to many casualties and cause widespread international repercussions, will yield them local benefit in the form of revenge and the restoration of the damaged national pride, but may harm them strategically.

In the past, the Iranians erred in these calculations. It is possible that this time too there were those who assumed in Tehran that it would be possible to evade clear responsibility through the use of seemingly anonymous sponsors. This will be the crux of the investigative effort now: to find out who is responsible for the attack, and subsequently – who sent it. For Israel, this is a matter of great importance, worth every effort, in an attempt (which it is not certain will succeed) to tear the mask off Iran’s face.

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