Bulgaria accused Lebanese militant movement Hizbullah yesterday of carrying out a bomb attack on a bus in the Black Sea city of Burgas that killed five Israeli tourists last year.
The conclusions of the Bulgarian investigation, citing a clear connection to an attack on European Union soil, might open the way for the EU to join the United States in branding the Iranian-backed Hizbullah a terrorist organisation.
Three people were involved in the attack, two of whom had genuine passports from Australia and Canada, Bulgarian interior minister Tsvetan Tsvetanov said after Sofia’s national security council discussed the investigation.
“There is data showing the financing and connection between Hizbullah and the two suspects,” Mr Tsvetanov said.
“What can be established as a well-grounded assumption is that the two persons whose real identity has been determined belonged to the military wing of Hizbullah.”
Israel blamed the attack in Burgas, which killed five Israeli tourists, their Bulgarian driver and the bomber, on Iran and Hizbullah, a powerful Shia Islamist militia that is part of the Lebanese government and waged a brief war with Israel in 2006.
Iran has denied responsibility and accused arch-enemy Israel of plotting and carrying out the bus bombing last July.
Hizbullah, which was designated by the United States as a terrorist organisation in the 1990s, had no immediate reaction to yesterday’s announcement.
Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu accused Hizbullah and Iran of waging a “global terror campaign”, saying the Burgas bomb was among a series of such attacks carried out in Thailand, Kenya, Turkey, India, Azerbaijan, Cyprus and Georgia.
“The attack in Burgas was an attack on European soil against a member of the European Union. We hope the Europeans will draw the necessary conclusions about the true character of Hizbullah,” Mr Netanyahu said.
The United States urged Europe and others on Tuesday to work on uncovering the Hizbullah’s infrastructure and disrupt its financing schemes and networks to prevent future attacks. Hizbullah poses a growing threat to Europe and the rest of the world, a senior US official said.
A spokesman for EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton said there was a need to reflect on the outcome of the investigation and the bloc and its member states would discuss an appropriate response based on the investigation.