A team of Foreign Ministry officials left here today for an inspection tour of Israeli Embassies and legations abroad to make sure that security regulations are strictly observed. The team, headed by the Ministry’s Deputy Director General Mordechai Kidron, departed as informed sources in Jerusalem revealed a general tightening of security at Israeli installations overseas as a precaution against new terrorist attacks.
The sources refused to discuss the new security measures. But it was clear that they were taken in the aftermath of the letter bomb wave that flooded Israeli diplomatic missions last week in Europe, North and South America and Canada, which took the life of Ami Shechori, the Agricultural Attache at the Israel Embassy in London. The sources said that in ordering stricter security measures, the government understood that its diplomats working abroad faced a continuing danger from terrorists.
“We are tightening not only the security on letter bombs but on all other forms of attack because it is obvious that we are in the middle of an offensive against Israeli Embassies,” one well-placed source said today. The inspection team that left today is expected to scrutinize the enforcement of security regulations dispatched by the Foreign Ministry some time ago. These rules include safeguards for Embassy personnel and methods to detect booby-trapped mail. There had been indications at the time of Shechori’s death of some laxity in observing the security regulations.
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