Car bombs 'target Israel envoys' in India and Georgia

Bombers have targeted staff at Israeli embassies in India and Georgia, officials say, with Israel accusing Iran of masterminding the attacks.

Witnesses said a motorcyclist placed a device on an embassy car in Delhi, causing a blast that hurt four people - one seriously. A bomb underneath a diplomat's car in Tbilisi was defused.

Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu said Iran was behind both incidents.

But Iranian officials denied the claims as "sheer lies".

'Terror exporter'

One of the victims of the Delhi bombing, the wife of a defence ministry official, was in a "critical but stable" condition, according to AFP news agency. It quoted a doctor as saying she had undergone spinal surgery.

Mr Netanyahu told a meeting of his Likud party MPs that there had been "two attempts of terrorism against innocent civilians".

"Iran is behind these attacks and it is the largest terror exporter in the world," he said.

He also blamed Iran for recent plots to attack Israeli targets in Thailand and Azerbaijan that were prevented.

And he suggested that the militant Islamist Hezbollah movement was also involved.

Israel's foreign ministry said the country had the ability to track down those who carried out the attacks.

But Iran's state news agency Irna quoted the country's ambassador in India as denying involvement.

"Any terrorist attack is condemned and we strongly reject the untrue comments by an Israeli official," said Mehdi Nabizadeh in comments translated by Reuters news agency.

International condemnation

"These accusations are untrue and sheer lies, like previous times." 

In a statement, India's Foreign Minister SM Krishna pledged a full investigation, adding: "The culprits will be brought to justice at the earliest.

AFP quoted US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton as condemning the attacks, adding the US "stands ready to assist with any investigations of these cowardly actions". UK Foreign Secretary William Hague said he was "shocked and appalled" by the bombings.

The BBC's Rupert Wingfield-Hayes, in Jerusalem, says security at Israeli embassies has been tightened in recent months following warnings of potential attacks, after Iran accused Israel of a series of attacks on its nuclear scientists.

BBC security correspondent Gordon Corera said one of them, Mostafa Ahmadi-Roshan, died last month when motorcyclists placed a "sticky bomb" on his car - a technique similar to that used in previous attacks attributed to the work of Israel's Mossad.

Similarities seen in the Delhi blast could be an indication of the aggressors sending a message that attacks in Tehran will be repaid in kind, he added.

After the explosion in Delhi, Indian TV showed pictures of a burning car near the embassy. 

Bomb squad

The area around the vehicle was later cordoned off and forensic experts and the bomb squad were examining the burnt out remains.

The embassy is guarded by several layers of security and is in a well-defended area of central Delhi, close to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's official residence.

David Goldfarb, the spokesman for Israel's Delhi embassy, said the diplomat's car was close to the building on Aurangzeb Road when the explosion went off.

He said they had no details as to who was behind the attack.

Officials in Georgia said an explosive device was attached to the bottom of a diplomat's car in the capital, Tbilisi, but was found and defused before it detonated.

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Mossad chief travelled to Washington to gauge US reaction to Iran strike

The head of the Mossad, Tamir Pardo, made a secret trip to Washington earlier this month to gauge the likely US reaction to an independent Israeli strike on Iran's nuclear facilities.

The highly sensitive content of Mr Pardo's discussion with his American counterparts has been revealed in a Newsweek article entitled 'Obama's Dangerous Game With Iran'.

Unnamed US officials claim the Israeli security chief's line of questioning to CIA chief David Petraeus ran: "What is our posture on Iran? Are we ready to bomb? Would we [do so later]? What does it mean if [Israel] does it anyway?"

Mr Petraeus told a Senate Select Committee in a public hearing broadcast live on US television last month that he had met with Mr Pardo to discuss Israel's growing concern over Iran's nuclear aspirations.

When asked in the same briefing if Israel intends to strike, James Clapper, director of US national intelligence, told the committee chair that he would prefer to answer her question behind closed doors.

US sources quoted in the Newsweek report added that Israel has refused to share with the US a "significant" amount of intelligence regarding its military preparations.

sraeli officials refused to respond to the article on Monday, which goes on to question how much influence the US president has over Israel and how far the Obama administration will be willing to go to prevent Iran's nuclear armament.

According to Yehuda Ben Meir, a former Israeli deputy minister of foreign affairs and expert on Israel-US relations, full US backing is by no means a prerequisite for an Israeli strike.

"It's a matter of degrees of grey – will the US apply strong pressure on Israel to hold off on attack or will it say, 'we don't think this is the right time to act but it's your decision'. The outcome depends on a very nuanced exchange at the highest possible level," Mr Ben Meir said.

"The situation is developing day by day. More and more, the US position is going out on a limb and making it clear that it sees a nuclear Iran as an unacceptable danger to the world and if they decide to, they can prevent it."

Washington has so far held a clear line on the issue of Iran, asking for time and space for sanctions to work. But while the Iranian economy has suffered a major dint as a result of combined US and EU economic isolation, news that India has emerged as the largest customer of Iranian oil, flouting an international trade embargo, will undoubtedly lessen the crippling effect of sanctions that the US is hoping for.

On Monday, Vice Admiral Mark, who leads the US naval fleet in the Gulf, added muscle to Washington's repeated assertions that it has not ruled out a military solution to the Iranian nuclear threat should sanctions fail

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The Washington Post: Threats of war cloud hopes for Middle East

Fears of an as-yet-undefined Middle Eastern war are darkening the horizons of a Middle East that only a year ago was celebrating the fall of dictators, the ascent of people power and the promise of a new era of democracy.
Iranian threats to mine the Strait of Hormuz raise the specter of conflict between the United States and Iran in the Persian Gulf. Warnings from Israel that it may strike Iran’s nuclear facilities open up the possibility of a region-wide conflict.
Most worryingly of all, as shells rain down on the Syrian city of Homs and TV screens across the region replay gory scenes of casualties captured on videos posted on YouTube, there is now little doubt that Syria is in the early stages of a civil war, one whose potentially profound ramifications provoke jitters far beyond its borders.
Although a wider war is by no means inevitable, 2012 is already proving a dark sequel to the hope and possibility of 2011, as the demands of ordinary people for greater freedoms collide with the competing agendas of big powers in the region’s most volatile heart.
“There are two different trajectories in the Middle East,” said Paul Salem, director of the Carnegie Middle East Center in Beirut. While “North Africa is moving toward more democracy,” he said, the Levant region — including Israel, Lebanon, Syria and Iraq — is “moving toward confrontation and sectarian conflict. It is a much darker, gloomier trajectory.”
Despite chaos in Cairo and confusion in Tripoli, the three North African nations ofTunisia, Egypt and Libya are getting on with the task, however messily, of building new democracies after a year in which authoritarian leaders in each country were deposed.
But in the Arab heartlands stretched between Israel and Iran, the awakening of democratic aspirations has stirred also ancient rivalries and more recent grudges across a network of crisscrossing fault lines, any one of which could crack and trigger all the rest.
“It feels like anywhere could explode, without knowing why, at any time,” said Umm Haya, a Syrian living in Baghdad, reflecting the widespread sense of unease among many living beyond Syria’s borders. “The whole region is inflammable.”
At the center of it all is Syria, whose nearly year-long revolt began as an overwhelmingly peaceful popular uprising against the rule of President Bashar al-Assad but now is being reshaped into a far wider struggle for influence.
‘Syria will explode’
Unlike Libya, Tunisia and Egypt, whose relatively limited regional reach ensured their revolts were contained within their borders, Syria lies at the nexus of a web of strategic alliances, geopolitical interests and religious jealousies that would be upended were the regime there to fall.
“Libya imploded. Syria will explode,” said a diplomat from a non-Western country interviewed in Damascus. “And it will explode across the whole region.”
It is not only that Syria’s religious and ethnic makeup complicates an essentially grass-roots uprising against decades of tyranny. Assad’s minority Alawite clan, an offshoot of Shiite Islam, controls most key positions in the security forces spearheading the effort to suppress the unrest, lending a sectarian dimension to a revolt dominated by the country’s Sunni majority

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Independent: Aleppo bears the brunt in another day of carnage and defiance

At least 28 people were killed when two explosions ripped through state security buildings in Aleppo yesterday, widening Syria's conflict to a regime stronghold which has so far escaped major unrest.

One of the blasts tore through a street outside the city's Military Intelligence Directorate. Footage broadcast by state television showed rubble strewn over the road and five corpses lying under blankets to one side of the street.

According to a state TV presenter, who was filmed crying as the footage was beamed back, a number of children playing in a nearby park were killed in the attack. It was not possible to confirm the account.

The second blast hit a police headquarters in another part of the city. State media said at least 175 people were injured in the explosion.

The government blamed the blasts, the first since three similar attacks hit Damascus in December and January, killing dozens, on "terrorists". Opposition figures, however, accused the Baathist regime of staging the incidents to try to undermine the opposition.

The activists from the Local Coordinating Committees, who have been working to spread word of the uprising against the government of President Bashar al-Assad, claimed that security forces opened fire and killed seven people after the blasts.

The claim was repeated by the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

Yesterday's carnage in Aleppo came as the Syrian army continued to pound the besieged city of Homs with rocket and tank fire. Activists described the scenes of bloodshed and mayhem as President Assad's generals maintained their operation against rebel-held neighbourhoods in the city.

One man, who called himself Yusef, told The Independent he had been sick after visiting one of the makeshift field hospitals which doctors and volunteers are using to treat the wounded. "There was a woman there with no head," he said. "It had been blown off her shoulders. I couldn't look at her."

Another, who said his name was Basel Fouad, claimed there were still families trapped under the collapsed masonry of battered apartment blocks. "When they attack a house, they don't just hit it with one rocket. They hit the same house three or four times until it is destroyed," he said.

Activists and rights groups say many hundreds of people have been killed in Homs since the Syrian army launched its latest offensive last week.

According to Syria expert Joshua Landis, the ferocity of the Homs siege is a result of the anger being voiced among some regime supporters – many of whom are drawn from the same Alawite sect as President Assad – who feel the ruling elite's response to the anti-government uprising has been ineffective. "His supporters are saying he needs to smash the opposition," he said.

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Telegraph: Protests planned for anniversary of Mubarak's downfall

Strikes and demonstrations are planned to protest against the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, a committee of generals which took over the reins of power when Mr Mubarak was forced to resign on

11 Feb last year.

Chaired by Field Marshal Mohammed Hussein Tantawi - an old ally of the former president - the council has been accused of being as repressive as the regime it replaced.

Hundreds demonstrated outside the defence ministry in Cairo after Friday prayers yesterday, chanting: "Down with military rule".

Last January, Asmaa Mahfouz, a young opposition activist, recorded a Youtube video that helped inspire Egyptians to rise up against Mr Mubarak.

"Maybe we can have freedom, justice, honour and human dignity," she said. "I, a girl, am going down to Tahrir Square and I will stand alone and I'll hold up a banner."

She urged other Egyptians to join her and "demand our human rights, our fundamental human rights", adding: "This entire government is corrupt - a corrupt president and corrupt security forces."

Less than a month after Ms Mahfouz posted this video on 18 Jan, mass protests had swept away Mr Mubarak.

Yesterday, however, Ms Mahfouz, now 27, was marching again, this time against the ruling generals.

The April 6 youth movement, which first emerged in opposition to Mr Mubarak, issued a statement calling for strikes against the military regime. The group urged Egyptians "to support these strikes in order to end the unjust rule and build a nation in which justice, freedom and dignity prevail".

The generals oversaw parliamentary elections last year, which were won by hardline Islamist parties. They have promised to hand over power when a new president is chosen.

However, there is no clear timetable laying down when this will happen. Before presidential elections can be held, a new constitution must first be drafted and approved by a referendum. In the meantime, demonstrations against the generals have frequently been suppressed by security forces.

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Guardian: Egypt's politicians are still under the spell of the military

The protests over Egypt's recent football tragedy are symptomatic of daily life in the ongoing Egyptian revolution. Even now, hardly a month, week or day goes by without someone else losing their life for freedom

, or being wounded in the struggle. In essence the revolution is a struggle for legitimacy between the Egyptian parliament, the army and the establishment, and the people in Tahrir Square.

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FINANCIAL TIMES : Raucous start for Egypt first free parliament

  Egypt’s first freely elected parliament got off to a raucous start at its inaugural session in Cairo on Monday, held just two days ahead of the anniversary of the January 25 revolution which toppled Hosni Mubarak, the former leader.

 

 

 

 

The previous parliament did little more than rubber stamp legislation presented by Mr Mubarak’s ministers. The new assembly is unlikely to be as pliant.

 

Dozens of new parliamentarians attended the first session wearing bright yellow sashes printed with the message “No to Military Trials for Civilians.”, referring to the thousands of Egyptians who have been tried in military courts by the country’s interim military rulers.

 

The inauguration began with a prayer to the hundreds of Egyptians who died during the revolution.

 

“I invite the distinguished assembly to stand and read the fatiha (Muslim prayer) in memory of the martyrs of the January 25 revolution ... because the blood of the martyrs is what brought this day,” said Mahmoud al-Saqa, 81, a member of the liberal Wafd party, who as oldest member of the house acted as speaker.

 

One by one members of the new assembly, answering a roll call, took the microphone to vow to protect the republican system, the interests of the people and “to respect the constitution and the law.”

 

However, controversy erupted when Mamdouh Ismail, an Islamist deputy from a small Salafi party, added the qualifying phrase “in whatever does not contradict God’s law”, prompting a rebuke from the speaker who asked him to stick to the original text.

 

Numerous Salafi deputies tried to add similar phrases to their vows, but with almost perfect timing the speaker’s assistant cut them off before they could add the phrase.

 

Those still determined to slip the phrase in began their vow with it.

The assembly is dominated by Islamists who, after decades of repression by the country’s former rulers, captured almost two-thirds of the seats in elections late last year.

 

Deputies from Freedom and Justice, the political arm of the Muslim Brotherhood, form the largest bloc in the new parliament with 46 per cent of the seats. Nour, a party formed last year by ultraconservative Salafi Islamists, has a quarter of the seats.

 

The Salafi’s electoral gains were the biggest surprise of the Egyptian election. Their strong showing has discomfited the Muslim Brotherhood, which fears they will try to out flank them on Islamic grounds, dragging them into hardline positions that could rattle Egypt’s foreign partners or the army.

 

Unlike the Brotherhood, the Salafis want Egypt’s new constitution – to be drafted by a committee selected by parliament – to stipulate the full implementation of Islamic law.

 

Once the parliamentarians were sworn in, the session degenerated into a shouting match over procedures to choose the speaker of the house.

 

The FJP had agreed with other main political forces ahead of the inaugural session to appoint Saad al-Katatni, one of its senior officials, to the post.

 

However, other candidates noisily insisted on the right to address the parliament and present themselves to the assembly.

 

Mr Katatni was duly elected speaker and in his acceptance speech thanked the military council for keeping its promise to hold elections. He vowed “the revolution continues” – a reference to the slogan of protesters determined to unleash another wave of demonstrations against the ruling military council.

 

“We will not be content until all the aims of the revolution have been realised,” he said. “We will avenge the martyrs [killed during the uprising against Mr Mubarak] through fair, effective and fast trials and we will rebuild Egypt as a national, democratic, constitutional and modern state.”

 

The country’s military rulers had brought forward by more than a month the date of the opening session in a bid to sideline activists organising anniversary protests on January 25 aimed at pressing the generals to hand over power to civilians immediately.

 

About 200 protesters demonstrated in front of parliament chanting “we want bread, freedom and social justice” and “down with military rule, down with Mubarak; we are back to the days of Mubarak”.

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