Feb. 15 (Agencies): Israel and Iran ratcheted up tension with Tel Aviv, seeking to link the Delhi and Bangkok attacks and Tehran publicly taking another step in its nuclear programme.

Israeli officials said sticky bombs found in a Thai house rented by Iranians were similar to devices used against Israeli diplomats in India and Georgia.

Thai officials said similar magnets appeared to have been used in the explosive devices found in Bangkok and Delhi, but they did not directly tie Iran to the attacks.

In Delhi, Tehran displayed its discomfiture at public relations. The Iranian ambassador first said Tehran was “neither accepting nor denying” the Israeli allegations, only to issue a statement later that he did not say so as he had already condemned the attack and refuted Israel’s “mischievous claims”.

In Tehran, Iran began loading domestically made nuclear fuel rods into its Tehran research reactor, a defiant move in response to toughening western sanctions over its controversial nuclear programme.

The official IRNA news agency said Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad inserted the first Iranian-made rod into the reactor in northern Tehran, and state TV broadcast live images from the ceremony with Iranian nuclear experts briefing Ahmadinejad on the process.

Iran touted the development as an incremental step in the country’s efforts to master the complete nuclear fuel cycle, despite western penalties and UN sanctions.

The West suspects that Iran’s nuclear programme aims to produce atomic weapons, a charge Tehran denies, insisting it is geared for peaceful purposes only, such as energy production.

The Tehran reactor, for example, produces nuclear isotopes for treating cancer patients.

Referring to the blasts in Delhi and Bangkok, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in Israel’s parliament today: “If this aggression isn’t halted, ultimately it will spread to many other countries.”

Thailand’s government was trying to determine what three Iranian men were plotting when a cache of explosives detonated accidentally in their home in Bangkok’s busy Sukhumvit Road area a day earlier.

Bomb disposal teams combed the Iranians’ house again today, looking for more evidence, while security forces were searching for an Iranian woman they said had originally rented it.

Two of the men were detained in Bangkok yesterday after fleeing the destroyed house, while a third was arrested today in neighbouring Malaysia after boarding a flight from Bangkok to Kuala Lumpur overnight.

Israeli ambassador to Thailand Itzhak Shoham said that after Tuesday’s blasts, Thai police found and defused two magnetic bombs that could be stuck on vehicles.

“They are similar to the ones used in Delhi and in Tbilisi (Georgia’s capital),” Shoham said. “From that we can assume that there is the same network of terror.”

That and the arrest of the two Iranians in Thailand “again leaves not too much room to assume who was behind it”, Shoham said.

Yesterday, Israel’s Channel 10 TV quoted unidentified Thai authorities as saying the captured Iranians confessed to targeting Israeli interests.

However, Thai security officials told a news conference that they had little information about who the alleged attackers were or their possible targets.

National Security Council chief Wichean Potephosree said the government had not yet determined if there was any link among the events in Bangkok, New Delhi and Tbilisi.

“We haven’t found any links, but we are still investigating,” Wichean said.

“We admit there was a magnetic component, aiming at individuals, but the origin of the magnets still has to be investigated.”

Thai police have named the Iranians in custody here as Saeid Moradi, who lost at least one leg in a self-inflicted grenade blast as he tried to flee police, and Mohammad Kharzei, who was detained yesterday as he tried to board a flight to Malaysia.

Both men are now facing four criminal charges, including possession of explosives, attempted murder, attempted murder of a policeman and causing explosions that damaged property.

Thai officials identified the third suspect as Masoud Sedaghatzadeh, and officials in Malaysia said he was arrested there on Wednesday.

The type of explosives suggested they would have been used to target individuals, Wichean said. Police were tracing the materials to try to learn their origin. “Based on the equipment and materials we found, they were aimed at individuals and the destruction capacity was not intended for large crowds or big buildings,” Wichean said.

National police chief Prewpan Dhamapong also said the target was “individuals. Like what happened in India”. He declined to speculate on what the targets were, but said they were “foreigners, not Thais”.