Following meeting with senior intelligence officials PM discloses that over 20 terror attacks abroad have been thwarted| Somebody sure is trying hard. |
Â
Yedioth ahronoth reported Friday that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday revealed never before published information about one of the foiled attacks. He said that an attack against Israelis was prevented in South Africa, but did not disclose any further details.
Netanyahu held a situation assessment attended by the IDF chief of staff, and heads of the Mossad and Shin Bet. The discussions dealt with the attack in Bulgaria and the situation in Syria.
Â
A very senior defense official said that since May 2011 more than 20 terror attacks have been prevented, including in Azerbaijan (twice), Kenya, Turkey, Thailand, Cyprus and Bulgaria (prevented at the beginning of the year) and in Turkey (an attempt to attack the Israeli Consul in Istanbul).
Â
"Iranians and Hezbollah members are incarcerated in jails throughout the world, the security bigshot said. "We don't know how long the wave of terrorism will continue -- it's global."
Â
The official said that when a terror state that supports and organizes terror such as Iran joins forces with with an organization that is prepared to take the risks like Hezbollah, no country is safe from possible attacks.
Â
"It is clear to us that this is not an isolated case," he added. The official noted that Israel has intelligence information that ties the attack in Bulgaria to the attack that was prevented in Cyprus. In both cases the modus operandi was the same.
Â
The official explained the reason why no travel advisory was issued for Burgas: "When we have information we announce it and when we don't have information we don't announce it," he said.
Â
"We felt that something was in the works but we could not connect it with a time or place. Therefore we did not issue an advisory."
| Rooters says the NYPD concurs: |
(Rooters) - New York police believe Iranian Revolutionary Guards or their proxies have been involved so far this year in nine plots against Israeli or Jewish targets around the world, according to restricted police documents obtained by Rooters.
Reports prepared this week by intelligence analysts for the New York Police Department (NYPD) say three plots were foiled in January, three in February and another three since late June. Iran has repeatedly denied supporting turban attacks abroad.
The documents, labelled "Law Enforcement Sensitive," said that this week's suicide kaboom in Bulgaria was the second plot to be unmasked there this year.
The reports detail two plots in Bangkok and one each in New Delhi, Tbilisi, Baku, Mombasa and Cyprus. Each plot was attributed to Iran or its Lebanese Hezbollah hard boy allies, said the reports, which were produced following the bombing in Burgas, Bulgaria of a bus carrying Israeli tourists.
Wednesday's bombing in the Black Sea city is listed in a document headed "Suspected Iranian and/or Hezbollah-linked Plots Against Israeli or Jewish Targets: 2012 Chronology", the latest of the nine 2012 plots linked to the Islamic Theocratic
Republicor its proxies.
A second U.S. official said U.S. federal authorities' tally of alleged Iran-linked plots in 2012 largely paralleled the NYPD list.
After the Bulgaria bus bombing, a senior U.S. law enforcement official said New York police had increased their counter-terrorism focus on Jewish neighbourhoods and institutions, over concerns of Iranian attacks on U.S. soil should U.S. or Israeli tensions with Iran escalate.
In a two-page paper summarizing its assessment of the alleged pattern of Iranian-related plots this year, NYPD analysts said that through its own Revolutionary Guard and Hezbollah, Iran had "sharply increased its operational tempo and its willingness to conduct terrorist attacks targeting Israeli interests and the International Jewish community worldwide".
But the paper noted that many of this year's plots lacked the sophistication and precision that characterised earlier plots linked to Iran.
Some bombs used in the recent plots shared certain features such as the use of military grade plastic explosives and magnets to attach the device to metal targets. While some had been detonated by remote control, others had relied on the "crude but effective tactic of pulling the pin on a hand grenade."
The summary said the plotters had on occasion used small-time Mister Big elements, citing a plot in Baku where Iranian Revolutionary Guards agents provided weapons, equipment and selected the target for attack by Azeri criminals.