Israel fingers Iran for bomb attack on Israeli tour bus in Bulgaria- promises to ‘respond with force to Iranian terror’
July 18, 2012 – BULGARIA – A deadly explosion on a bus carrying Israeli tourists in Bulgaria is “clearly a terrorist attack,” Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak said Wednesday. “We have several people killed and dozens of wounded people,” Barak said. He said the attack was probably initiated by a group under the auspices of “either Iran or other radical Muslim groups,” and named Hezbollah and Hamas as likely suspects. “We are in a continued fight against them. We are determined to identify who sent them, who executed and to settle the account,” Barak said. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pointed the finger at Iran, saying it has been behind a string of recent attempted attacks on Israelis in Thailand, India and Georgia, among others. “All the signs (are) leading to Iran,” he said, according to a statement from his office. Netanyahu said his country “would respond with force to Iranian terror.” Venelin Petkov, a reporter for bTV in Bulgaria, said more than 30 people were taken to the hospital, three in a critical condition. Vania Valkova, director of the Bulgarian interior ministry press office, earlier confirmed at least three people were in the blast on a bus outside Burgas Airport, on Bulgaria’s Black Sea coast. She was not able to confirm the nationalities of those killed but said the flight came from Tel Aviv. Deputy Israeli Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon also said there were three dead in the explosion. He told Israel Radio, “We cannot confirm yet that this is a terrorist incident, but Iran and Hezbollah have been responsible for incidents like this in the past.” The incident comes on the 18th anniversary of the attack on a Jewish community center in the Argentine capital, Buenos Aires, in which 85 people were killed. The tourists’ plane landed in Bulgaria at 5 p.m., the Israeli Foreign Ministry said. Valkova said the bus was in the parking zone when the blast occurred. -CNN
