Blasts in Bangkok rented house, Iranian handler’s leg ripped off

Barely a day after an Israeli diplomat's wife was injured after a bomb was attached to her car in Delhi, an Iranian was seriously hurt after the bomb he was carrying exploded, blowing off his leg, in Bangkok.

Four other persons were injured after explosions occurred in a rented house in the Thai capital where the Iranian lived and had stored explosives. Authorities also arrested another compatriot, who was also living in the rented home, at Bangkok's international airport as he was leaving for Malaysia.

Israel promptly blamed Iran for the ''attempted terrorist attack'' in Bangkok, which came just a day after an explosive ripped through an Israeli diplomat's car in Delhi, seriously injuring his wife. On the same day, authorities in Georgia defused a bomb that was to be attached to another Israeli car in the capital.

''The attempted terrorist attack in Bangkok proves once again that Iran and its proxies continue to perpetrate terror,'' Ehud Barak, Israel's defence minister, said in Singapore. ''The recent terror attacks are yet another example of this.''

According to Barak, who was in Bangkok on Sunday, Iran and its Lebanese ally, Hezbollah, are ''unrelenting terror elements endangering the stability of the region and of the world.''

Iran has blamed Israel for the recent killings of some of its nuclear scientists, half a dozen of who have been assassinated or killed in explosions at its nuclear facilities in recent months. Last month, a motor-cyclist in Iran stuck a magnetic explosive on the rear of a government vehicle carrying a nuclear scientist, killing him.