Bangkok Bombing: Is the Iranian Terror Threat Real?

Israeli Ambassador to Thailand Itzhak Shoham told reporters today that bombs found in a house in Bangkok on Tuesday were similar to those used against Israeli diplomats in India and Georgia, and that Israeli officials believe the incidents are linked. Thai officials said they captured two men carrying Iranian passports, and were seeking two others, but Iran denied the accusations.

Of the bombs found in Bangkok after an apparently accidental explosion, the ambassador told the New York Times, It's almost the same system that was used in Delhi and in Tblisi, which leads us to think that they are connected. He also connected the attacks to Iran, telling ABC that the arrest of three Iranians leaves not too much room to assume who was behind it.

Thai police, meanwhile, said that it was too early to draw any conclusions between the two events, and Indian police said they will check with authorities in Georgia and Thailand to see if explosive samples match.

The Jerusalem-based open source military intelligence site DEBKAfile, however, quoted anonymous senior Israeli military officials this morning saying the link is completely circumstantial, despite the loud and angry declarations by Israeli officials that the three incidents were part of a global Iranian terrorist scheme.

DEBKAfile, which has been accuse of having a hawkish bent, cited the disparity in professionalism of the attacks as the main reason to doubt the link, as well as the fact that there is so far no evidence that the Bangkok bombs were intended for Israelis.

After the explosion in Bangkok, the three involved took off, but were anything but discreet as they fled. According to DEBKAfile, One of the trio, identified by his Iranian passport as Saeib Morabi, kept the explosives with him. He threw one at a local cab driver who refused to pick him up and another device at a policeman who came to arrest him. The second bomb bounced back and blew off one of his legs.

Senior intelligence experts find this conduct incredible, DEBKAfile wrote. A terrorist on the run would above all keep his head down and avoid attracting attention. He would certainly not start throwing bombs on busy foreign streets.

They also mentioned the fact that the men involved were using their real identities (including one identified by his Iranian passport as Saeib Morabi) saying that this was not in line with the attack in India, which Indian Home Minister P. Chidambaram described as carried out by a very well trained person.

Haaretz also noted that the half-baked bombings were not as well-planned as the usual Iranian attacks, writing such haste is not typical of Tehran's previous decision-making, but stopped short of denying the connection, instead saying that it shows that the decision makers are under pressure and liable to be driven more by emotions than by cool calculation.