The pro-Iranian terrorist group Jaish-Ul-Hind has taken responsibility for Friday’s blast outside the Israeli embassy in New Delhi, Indian newspapers report. No-one was injured when an IED exploded outside the Israeli mission in New Delhi’s diplomatic quarter.
“An organisation named Jaish-Ul-Hind has claimed the responsibility of the blast near the Israel Embassy in Delhi,” the Indian TV network Times Now reported Sunday.
An online message reportedly posted by the jihadi group said: “By the grace and help of Almighty Allah, soldiers of Jaish-Ul-Hind were able to infiltrate a high-security area in Delhi and carry out an IED attack. This Allah willing is the beginning of a series of attacks that would target major Indian cities and payback in kind to the atrocities committed by the Indian state.”
Indian investigators also recovered a letter at the scene claiming the blast to be a revenge for the death of Qassem Soleimani, the top Iranian terrorist mastermind who was killed in a January 2020 U.S. drone strike outside Baghdad. The note also mentions Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, the man known as “the father of the Iranian bomb,” who was gunned down last November near Tehran. Fakhrizadeh was a high-ranking member of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), a U.S. designated terrorist group.
The “letter found near the scene of the explosion spoke of the deaths of “martyrs” Qassem Soleimani (…) and Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, the architect of Iran’s nuclear program, killed in a November 2020 attack Tehran has blamed on Israel,” The Times of Israel reported on Saturday citing Indian newspaper reports.
While the drone strike on Soleimani was ordered by President Donald Trump, no one has claimed responsibility for Fakhrizadeh’s death. The Iranian regime has issued repeated death threats against President Trump and other members of his administration over the killings.
Indian news magazine The Week reported the details of the Israeli embassy attack:
A team of Delhi Police’s Special Cell on Saturday morning visited the spot near the Israeli Embassy where an IED blast took place on Friday, officials said.The Special Cell is probing the blast that occurred on Friday evening in the heart of the national capital and collecting evidence as part of the investigation, they said.ANI [news agency] reported that the Special Cell has obtained CCTV footage showing a cab dropping off two persons who were seen walking towards the spot near the Israeli Embassy where the explosion occurred. The driver had been contacted and sketches were being prepared. A probe is under way to ascertain their role.Police told mediapersons the explosive was likely planted in a flowerpot on the road.An envelope addressed to the Israeli Embassy and containing a note was found at the site of the blast, sources had said on Friday. They said the envelope was addressed to embassy officials. Multiple media reports claimed the note referred to the assassinations of two key Iranian figures—Revolutionary Guard general Qasem Soleimani and nuclear scientist Dr Mohsen Fakhrizadeh—in 2020. Soleimani was killed in a US drone attack when he was visiting Iraq in January 2020, while Fakhrizadeh was assassinated in Iran in November. Iran had vowed revenge against the US over the killing of Soleimani. Tehran had accused Israel of being behind the killing of Fakhrizadeh. (…)The blast took place when President Ram Nath Kovind, Vice President M. Venkaiah Naidu and Prime Minister Narendra Modi were present a few kilometres away at the Beating Retreat ceremony at the culmination of the Republic Day celebrations.
Israeli authorities are treating the blast as a terrorist incident. The Israeli intelligence agency Mossad is assisting Indian authorities in their investigation, Israeli media reports confirm.
If Iranian involvement is proven in the blast, this won’t be the first time Tehran directed a terrorist attack against Israeli diplomats serving in India. “In 2012 the wife of Israel’s defense attaché to India was moderately injured after a motorcyclist attached a bomb to her car near Israel’s New Delhi embassy. Iran was suspected in the attack,” The Times of Israel reported.
The terrorist attack came as both countries marked the 29th anniversary of their bilateral diplomatic relations. “We believe it’s not a coincidence that the attack happened on January 29, the anniversary of our full diplomatic relations,” Israel’s Ambassador to India Ron Malka said. “This could have ended differently in other circumstances, so we were fortunate,” he added.
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