Nearly seven months after the bus bombing in Bulgaria that killed six Israeli tourists, the Bulgarian government is set to announce that "all roads lead to Lebanon" in the strongest sign yet that Hezbollah was the key perpetrator behind the attack.WSJ largely corroborates this:
The Commentator has exclusively learned that today, the Bulgarian government will implicate, though likely not name the terrorist group Hezbollah in its report on the 2012 bus bombing that has been the subject of much speculation over the past six months.
The Commentator has learned that both the German and French governments have both piled pressure on the Bulgarians to "use nuanced language" in the report, for fear that Bulgaria may be the focus of future attacks if Hezbollah is openly named.
The Bulgarian government, it has been stated by leading sources, has been informed through ‘back channels’ that there will be serious repercussions from Hezbollah if it is to publically and overtly name the group. This information comes despite strong pressure from the US government to make clear that the bombing was indeed the work of the Lebanese terrorist outfit.
To date, Hezbollah in its entirety is not proscribed by the United Kingdom, nor by the European Union, a move that it still not thought to be forthcoming despite the latest revelations.
The report was signed off by Bulgaria's National Security Council last night and then sealed by the President. The timing of its official release is said to be "mid morning" GMT. Sources claim the report may also point to Iranian involvement in the attack, though it is unclear yet as to whether this is simply funding related or otherwise.
Bulgaria's government is expected to release an investigative report this week blaming the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah and its ally Iran for a terrorist bombing last summer that killed five Israeli tourists, said U.S. and Middle East officials briefed on the findings.France and Germany evidently think that by not naming Hezbollah in the report, the Iran-backed terrorist organization will attack them last. The Commentator article seems to imply that Bulgaria was willing to be more forthcoming, even in the face of Hezbollah terror threats, than Germany and France.
After the bombing, Israel charged that Hezbollah, on orders from Tehran, carried out the July 18 assault on Israeli vacationers as they boarded buses outside an airport in the Black Sea resort city of Burgas. A Bulgarian bus driver was also killed in the attack, the deadliest on Israelis abroad since 2004.
But the report by Bulgaria's government, which is seen as an independent actor on Mideast affairs, could lend weight to an Israeli push to get the European Union to designate Hezbollah as a terrorist organization, said European officials. {EoZ: The Americans are pushing it too, as seen in the Commentator article.]
The U.S. and European governments also are expected to cite the study in their efforts to tighten economic sanctions against Iran, both because of its nuclear program and Tehran's alleged support of international terrorist groups.
Bulgarian Interior Minister Tsvetan Tsvetanov is scheduled to brief senior members of the Bulgarian government on the investigation's findings on Tuesday, a spokeswoman for the ministry said. She declined to comment on the contents of the report.
A U.S. official said the White House will issue a statement following Bulgaria's release of the report.
The U.S. and Israel have accused Iran's elite military unit, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, of ordering a string of overseas terrorist attacks aimed at American and Israeli targets over the past two years, including in India, Thailand and Georgia.
Iran and Hezbollah have denied involvement in any of the international attacks. Tehran also has accused Israel of assassinating leading Iranian nuclear scientists, something the Jewish state has never confirmed nor denied.
Evidence of a Hezbollah-directed strike on EU territory could shift the perception of the Lebanese-Shiite group in Europe, which has resisted following Washington's decision to label it a terrorist organization.
If the Bulgarian report reaches a clear conclusion, a senior European diplomat said on Monday, "We will have to look very seriously at the options we have."
It is proof positive, as if we needed any, that fear of terrorism is a large part of the decision making in European capitals - which explains, among other things, their reluctance to back Israel wholeheartedly in public and at the UN.
In other words, in much of the EU, terrorism simply works.
UPDATE: They did name Hezbollah:
Hezbollah bombed a bus filled with Israeli tourists in Bulgaria last year, investigators said Tuesday, describing a sophisticated bombing carried out by a terrorist cell that included Canadian and Australian citizens.
Bulgarian Interior Minister Tsvetan Tsvetanov, in the first major announcement in the investigation into the July 18 bombing that killed five Israelis and their Bulgarian driver, said one of the suspects entered the country with a Canadian passport, and another with one from Australia.
“We have well-grounded reasons to suggest that the two were members of the militant wing of Hezbollah,” Tsvetanov said after a meeting of Bulgaria’s National Security Council. “We expect the government of Lebanon to assist in the further investigation.”
In an interview with The Associated Press, Europol Director Rob Wainwright said the bomb was detonated remotely using a circuit board that a Europol expert has analyzed. Although it was initially believed to be a suicide bombing, Wainwright said investigators believe the bomber never intended to die.
Two counterfeit U.S. driver’s licenses that were found near the bombing scene were traced back to Lebanon, where they were made, Wainwright said.
He said forensic evidence, intelligence sources and patterns in past attacks all point to Hezbollah’s involvement in the blast.
“The Bulgarian authorities are making quite a strong assumption that this is the work of Hezbollah,” Wainwright said. “From what I’ve seen of the case — from the very strong, obvious links to Lebanon, from the modus operandi of the terrorist attack and from other intelligence that we see — I think that is a reasonable assumption.”