Mossad chief Tamir Pardo visited New Delhi just days before an attack on Israeli officials in the Indian capital this week, the Times of India reported yesterday. But the Mossad chief's talks with local intelligence heads did not deal with a possible terror attack in India, and Pardo is cited as saying Israelis were safer in India than in Turkey, countries in East Asia or South America.

On Monday, the wife of an Israeli diplomat was moderately wounded when a car bomb exploded in New Delhi. The attack was one of three this week that targeted Israeli officials abroad, with failed attempts to strike at diplomats reported the same day in Tbilisi and on the following day in Bangkok.

None of the attacks was preceded by a specific intelligence alert.

Pardo reportedly arrived at the head of a high-level Mossad team for meetings with the heads of local Indian intelligence. They discussed the possibility of an Iranian counterattack against Israeli targets, but the possibility of an attack taking place in New Delhi did not even come up. The attack "appears to have come as a surprise to Mossad," the newspaper said.


Comment: Oh, really? And we think, Mossad probably planned a little encouragement and demonstation for its Indian "friends" in case they wouldn't be cooperative enough regarding Iran issue.


The newspaper reported that Israel's deputy envoy to India, Yahel Vilan, and the embassy's security officer, Shahar Gal Nero, sent a letter on February 1 to the New Delhi police warning of the possibility of attacks targeting Israeli citizens ahead of the anniversary of Hezbollah's Imad Mughniyeh's death, and following attacks against Iranian nuclear scientists.

However, the letter did not detail any specific intelligence regarding the possibility of an attack taking place on Indian soil.

One source told the newspaper that an Indian intelligence agency had intercepted a phone call mentioning that Pakistani terrorists could make use of explosive devices.

A report of the phone call was passed on to all Indian security agencies shortly prior to the attack on Monday, which was the first time such explosives were apparently used in India.

Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah denied Israeli accusations yesterday that his group was behind bombers who targeted Israeli missions in India and Georgia this week. "I assure you that Hezbollah has nothing to do with this," he told supporters.

Israel accused Iran and Hezbollah of being behind twin bomb attacks that targeted Israeli embassy staff in India and Georgia on Monday, wounding four people.

Malaysia is set to extradite an Iranian national arrested over suspected links to the attempted bomb attack in Bangkok earlier this week, a report stated yesterday. The report came after, on Wednesday, Israeli Ambassador to Thailand Itzhak Shoham said the bombs discovered in a Bangkok house after a series of blasts in the Thai capital were similar to those used in attacks on Israeli diplomats in India and Georgia, adding that "we can assume from the other experiences that we were the target."