Indian police suspect local terror groups outsourced for embassy attacks
Indian officials say they’re close to busting the perpetrators; forensic evidence and intelligence sources hint at Middle East links
Ilan Ben Zion is an AFP reporter and a former news editor at The Times of Israel.
Indian police said Tuesday they suspect Indian cells of the terror group SIMI or Lakshar E-Taiba are responsible for a bombing in New Delhi Monday that injured the wife of a consular official.
A top government official told Indian News 24 that the investigating agencies are close to nabbing those responsible.
Police in New Delhi are reportedly using CCTV footage from private homes and raiding homes and hotel rooms of foreign nationals to find the perpetrators of Monday’s attack, according to Indian media reports.
An Israeli investigate team arrived early Tuesday to assist in the investigation and Israel passed along the name of two suspects to Indian officials, according to Indian news site DNA.
According to News Bullet.in, the police reportedly suspect that the terror calls may have been outsourced by Iranian or Palestinian sympathizers.
On Monday Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu placed the blame on Iran for the attack.
“Iran is behind these attacks and it is the largest terror exporter in the world,” he said.
Anonymous sources in Indian intelligence also suspect Iranian involvement in the attack, The Times of India reported.
The Times of India also quoted senior police officials saying: “We have done the first analysis. We have found explosives too. Such bombs have never been used in India, but are extensively triggered in Syria, Egypt and east European countries.”
Police investigators found “scraps of wet cotton cloth and glass pieces which did not appear to have come from the vehicle,” and may have been part of the bomb, the Indian Express reported.
According to NDTV, the motorcycling assailant attached the bomb to the back of the Israeli embassy’s Toyota with a magnetic device and detonated it via remote control, rather than a timer.
The suspected bomber, in brown jacket, can be seen in CCTV footage at 3:10 PM — moments before the blast — trailing a few seconds behind the consular vehicle.
The registration number of the motorcycle could not, however, be discerned.
