BBC (UK) , NEW YORK TIMES (US), YEDIOTH AHRONOTH (Israel)
BURGAS – The deadly terrorist attack on an Israeli tourist bus in Bulgaria was carried out by a male suicide bomber with fake US identification, the BBC reported Thursday. At least seven people have been confirmed dead following the blast on Wednesday, including six Israelis and the 36 year-old Bulgarian bus driver.
Israel has sent planes to Burgas, on Bulgaria’s Black Sea coast, to bring back the bodies of the dead and 34 people who were wounded.
Working in conjunction with Bulgarian security forces, the FBI and the CIA, Israeli Interior Minister Tsvetan Tsvetanov said that the suicide bomber was carrying a fake Michigan driver’s license.
Tsvetanov told reporters: “He looked like anyone else – a normal person with Bermuda shorts and a backpack.”
There was no immediate claim of responsibility, but Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak blamed the Iranian-backed militant group Hezbollah, based in Lebanon. Iranian state TV denied any involvement in the attack, reported Israel’s daily Yedioth Ahronoth.
Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said: “All the signs lead to Iran. Only in the past few months we have seen Iranian attempts to attack Israelis in Thailand, India, Georgia, Kenya, Cyprus and other places,” according to the New York Times.
The attack in Bulgaria came on the 18th anniversary of a notorious attack on a Jewish community center in Argentina that killed 85 and wounded more than 600. In 2006, an Argentine court determined that Iran had masterminded the attack.