When US officials last year revealed an alleged plot by the Iranian regime to assassinate the Saudi ambassador and blow up the Israeli embassy in Washington, I was one of the many skeptics.
Did agents of Iran’s fearsome and elite Quds Force really persuade an Iranian-American failed businessman living in Corpus Christi, Texas, to seek out Mexican drug traffickers and pay them $1.5 million to carry out these attacks?
What could possibly go wrong? I mean, aside from everything?
I’m somewhat less skeptical after the news of the botched attack in Bangkok apparently intended to target Israelis.
[O]n Tuesday, a man thought to be an Iranian national was seriously wounded in Bangkok when a bomb he was carrying exploded and blew his legs off. Shortly before, there had been an explosion in a house the man was renting in the Ekamai area of central Bangkok.
Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak said that the attempted bombing proves that Iran and its proxies continue operating using terror methods.
Five people were wounded as a result of Tuesday’s attack. A taxi driver told Thai television that the Iranian man had thrown a bomb in front of his car before running off, injuring him slightly.
Thitima said police had tried to move in and arrest the man after the blast by the taxi. According to the Bangkok Post, he threw another grenade at the police that hit a tree and bounced back toward him, exploding and causing him to lose both his legs.
Of course I’m sorry for the innocent people who were injured. But the folks at Looney Tunes foresaw the possibility of something like this decades ago:
Perhaps their big mistake was ordering their materials from the Acme Corporation.
Police later said they had apprehended another suspect at Bangkok’s main Suvarnabhumi airport, one of two men they were looking for who had been living at the house where the initial blast took place.
“We discovered the injured man’s passport. It’s an Iranian passport and he entered the country through Phuket and arrived at Suvarnabhumi Airport on the 8th of this month,” Police General Bansiri Prapapat told Reuters.
The blasts came a day after a twin bomb attack targeted Israeli embassy staff in India and Georgia. Israel accused arch-enemies Iran and its Lebanese ally Hezbollah of being behind those attacks.
And AP reports:
Israel’s Channel 10 TV quoted unidentified Thai authorities as saying the captured Iranians confessed to targeting Israeli interests. The site of the blast is just a few miles from the Israeli Embassy.
Yes, I know Iranian agents will no doubt continue to try to kill Israelis. And unfortunately there’s a chance that sooner or later they’ll succeed. But in the meantime, I hope I can be excused for finding some grim humor in their failures.
