The Intelligence Bureau’s top brass have told Israel’s Mossad that terrorist groups operating in India like Lashkar-e-Tayyeba and Indian Mujahideen were not only sympathetic towards Hezbollah, but had targeted Jews and Israeli interests in the past.
A three-member Mossad team will arrive here Wednesday to assist Indian agencies, but home ministry sources clarified it will not join the investigations, but only provide their inputs.
IB director Nehchal Sandhu and his top aides gave Mossad officials, including its director Tamir Prado, two such examples during a conference call on Tuesday: Nariman House, home to a Chabad House, was attacked during the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks by the LeT; and Yasin Bhatkal, IM chief in India, had surveyed Pune’s Chabad House before the German Bakery blast, but dropped plans to target it due to heightened security there. But there was no direct evidence to suggest Hezbollah is operating here.
While Mossad agreed with the IB’s assessment, it provided a very crucial lead: it said the nature of explosive revealed an “extremely sophisticated switcher was used to trigger the magnetic explosive” — of a kind never used here in the past. The NSG’s Bomb Data Centre, in its report to the home ministry, also said “this kind of explosive has not been used in any urban centre in India in the last 10 years”. The NSG thus corroborated Mossad’s analysis.
“Mossad was of the view that both the hardware for the bomb and an expert to assemble it came from outside; while the execution was carried out by a local module. It is clear the bomb has not been assembled by an Indian terror group as they are not equipped to do so,” a senior intelligence official said.
The Israelis suggested this might explain why though the bomb was sophisticated, its execution went a bit haywire as the bomb planter attached the explosive on the right side of the Innova’s rear hatchback door instead of the left.
The Innova’s fuel tank is on the left side, and its explosion would have caused havoc. The plan was possibly to blow up the fuel tank, which might explain why the bomb was of low intensity, as the fuel tank’s explosion would have multiplied the effect manifold.