BANGKOK -- The homemade "sticky" bombs discovered in a Bangkok house after an accidental blast were similar to devices used against Israeli Embassy targets in India and Georgia, Israel's ambassador said Wednesday, building on his country's claims the incidents are part of a covert terror campaign by Iran.
Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast called the allegations "baseless," saying Israel was trying to damage its relations with Thailand and fuel "conspiracy" theories.
Thailand's government was struggling to piece together what a trio of Iranian men were plotting when a cache of explosives detonated by mistake in their home in Bangkok's busy Sukhumvit Road area a day earlier. Bomb disposal teams searched the Iranians' house again Wednesday looking for more evidence, while security forces were searching for an Iranian woman they said had originally rented it.
Two of the men were detained, and Thai immigration police chief Lt. Gen. Wiboon Bangthamai said a third suspect who fled the destroyed house escaped to Malaysia after boarding a flight bound for Kuala Lumpur on Tuesday night. He identified the man as Masoud Sedaghatzadeh, but had no other details.
Israel has accused Iran of waging a campaign of state terror and has threatened military strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities. Iran has blamed the Jewish state for the recent killings of Iranian atomic scientists and has denied responsibility for all three plots this week.
On Monday in New Delhi, an explosion tore through an Israeli diplomatic vehicle, wounding the driver and a diplomat's wife, according to Indian officials. On the same day in the former Soviet republic of Georgia, authorities say attackers planted an explosive device on the car of a driver for the Israeli Embassy, but it was discovered and defused before it went off.
Israeli Ambassador to Thailand Itzhak Shoha told The Associated Press in an interview that after Tuesday's blasts Thai police found and defused two magnetic bombs that could be stuck on vehicles.
"They are similar to the ones used in Delhi and in Tbilisi," Shoham said. "From that we can assume that there is the same network of terror."
That and the arrest of the two Iranians in Thailand "again leaves not too much room to assume who was behind it," Shoham said.
Late Tuesday, Israel's Channel 10 TV quoted unidentified Thai authorities as saying the captured Iranians confessed to targeting Israeli interests.
Thai police have named the Iranian pair in custody as Saeid Moradi, who lost at least one leg in a self-inflicted grenade blast as he tried to flee police, and Mohummad Hazaei, who was detained Tuesday as he tried to board a flight to Malaysia.
Source: http://www.sunherald.com/2012/02/14/3751697/israel-points-finger-at-iran-in.html
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