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Bulgaria Implicates Hezbollah in July Attack on Israelis
Bulgaria Implicates Hezbollah in July Attack on Israelis
(about 4 hours later)
SOFIA, Bulgaria — The Bulgarian government said on Tuesday that two of the people behind a deadly bombing attack that targeted an Israeli tour bus six months ago were believed to be members of the military wing of the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah.
SOFIA, Bulgaria — The clues to a fatal bomb attack on Israeli vacationers in Bulgaria included a charred tour bus, a decapitated head and a fake driver’s license.
The announcement could force the European Union to reconsider whether to designate the group as a terrorist organization and crack down on its extensive fund-raising operations across the continent. That could have wide-reaching repercussions for Europe’s uneasy détente with the group, which is an influential force in Middle East politics, considers Israel an enemy and has extensive links with Iran.
With help from the United States and Israel, investigators here broke the case — and linked it to Hezbollah — using a tip from a secret source and a some old-fashioned detective work, tracing the printer that had produced two forged licenses back to Lebanon.
Bulgaria’s interior minister, Tsvetan Tsvetanov, said at a news conference that the investigation into the bombing in Burgas in July 2012 found that a man with an Australian passport and a man with a Canadian passport were two of the three conspirators involved in the attack, which claimed the lives of five Israeli tourists and a Bulgarian bus driver.
On Tuesday, Bulgaria’s interior minister, Tsvetan Tsvetanov, announced that two of the people behind the July 18 bombing, which killed five Israeli tourists, a Bulgarian bus driver and the bomber, were believed to be members of the military wing of Hezbollah.
Bulgarian investigators had “a well-founded assumption that they belonged to the military formation of Hezbollah,” Mr. Tsvetanov said.
Though investigators did not release names, they identified two of the plotters as a man with an Australian passport, believed to be the bombmaker, and a man with a Canadian passport, both of whom lived in Lebanon.
Bulgarian officials have found themselves under pressure from Israel and the United States, which consider Hezbollah a terrorist organization, to blame it for the bus attack. But the Bulgarians also have been facing pressure from European allies like Germany and France, which regard Hezbollah as a legitimate political organization, to temper any finding on the sensitive issue.
“We have followed their entire activities in Australia and Canada, so we have information about financing and their membership in Hezbollah,” Mr. Tsvetanov said at a news conference.
The United States welcomed the finding. “We call on our European partners as well as other members of the international community to take proactive action to uncover Hizballah’s infrastructure and disrupt the group’s financing schemes and operational networks in order to prevent future attacks,” said John O. Brennan, President Obama’s chief counterterrorism adviser and his nominee to run the Central Intelligence Agency, in a statement Tuesday.
Hezbollah has denied responsibility for the bombing.
But Catherine Ashton, the European Union’s high representative for foreign policy, responded with caution. “The implications of the investigation need to be assessed seriously as they relate to a terrorist attack on E.U. soil, which resulted in the killing and injury of innocent civilians,” she said in a statement.
The announcement could force the European Union to reconsider designating the Lebanon-based group as a terrorist organization and cracking down on its fund-raising. That would upend Europe’s policy of quiet tolerance of the group, which, in addition to operating schools and social services, is an influential force in Middle East politics, considers Israel an enemy and has extensive links with Iran.
The new secretary of state, John Kerry, released a statement urging “governments around the world – and particularly our partners in Europe – to take immediate action to crack down” on Hezbollah, and made a phone call to Ms. Ashton. Asked if he had pressed for Hezbollah to be blacklisted, the State Department spokeswoman, Victoria Nuland, said that Ms. Ashton "knows where we want to go."
Mr. Tsvetanov did not mention Iran, but the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said in a statement on Tuesday, “This is yet a further corroboration of what we have already known, that Hezbollah and its Iranian patrons are orchestrating a worldwide campaign of terror that is spanning countries and continents.”
An E.U. official, speaking on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the issue, said that the question of listing Hezbollah as a terrorist organization would have to be a unanimous decision by all 27 member states.
The United States, too, urged the European Union to condemn Hezbollah. John O. Brennan, President Obama’s chief counterterrorism adviser and his nominee to run the C.I.A., responded in a statement Tuesday: “We call on our European partners as well as other members of the international community to take proactive action to uncover Hezbollah’s infrastructure and disrupt the group’s financing schemes and operational networks in order to prevent future attacks.”
Mr. Tsvetanov spoke to reporters here after briefing top government officials and security personnel about the state of the investigation.
But countries including France and Germany have been wary of taking that step, which could force confrontations with large numbers of Hezbollah supporters living within their borders.
“We have followed their entire activities in Australia and Canada so we have information about financing and their membership in Hezbollah,” he said.
Catherine Ashton, the European Union’s high representative for foreign policy, responded with caution. “The implications of the investigation need to be assessed seriously as they relate to a terrorist attack on E.U. soil, which resulted in the killing and injury of innocent civilians,” she said in a statement.
Mr. Tsvetanov did not mention Iran, however, Hezbollah’s ally and chief backer.
Secretary of State John Kerry called Ms. Ashton to discuss the danger presented by Hezbollah, among other issues, including his statement on Tuesday urging governments around the world, particularly in Europe, “to take immediate action to crack down on Hezbollah.” Asked if Mr. Kerry had pressed the European Union to blacklist Hezbollah, Victoria Nuland, a State Department spokeswoman, said Ms. Ashton “knows where we want to go.”
The Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, however, drew a direct link. “This is yet a further corroboration of what we have already known, that Hezbollah and its Iranian patrons are orchestrating a worldwide campaign of terror that is spanning countries and continents,” Mr. Netanyahu said, according to a statement released by his office.
New details continued to emerge about the bombing, which analysts have called an episode in a shadow war pitting Israel against Iran and Hezbollah. Israel is believed to be behind the killings of Iranian nuclear scientists. Operatives of the Iranian Quds Force, an elite international operations unit within the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, in turn were blamed in plots against Israeli targets in Thailand, India, Georgia and elsewhere.
A senior Israeli official, speaking on condition of anonymity in advance of Mr. Netanyahu’s statement, said Jerusalem was pleased with the Bulgarian report, which he said would “make it much more difficult” for European countries “to circumvent debate about the true nature of Hezbollah.”
Amin Hotait, a retired general in the Lebanese Army who is close to Hezbollah, said the Bulgarian decision “lacks unequivocal evidence.”
The Israeli official, along with an Israeli counter-terrorism expert, said that it was not surprising that Iran was not mentioned, because Bulgaria’s investigation did not extend beyond its own borders, and was focused on what happened on the ground, not the larger question of who approved or financed the operation.
“The party doesn’t usually retaliate against Israeli attacks by killing civilians,” Mr. Hotait said. “This decision is political in nature, since Bulgaria is not an independent country, but politically dependent on the West.”
“The fact that they didn’t put their finger in front of Iran and leading to the responsibility of Iran, one cannot blame them,” said Boaz Ganor, head of the Institute for Counter-Terrorism at the Interdisciplinary Center in Herzilya, Israel. “You need a different level of intelligence, a different level of facts in your hands, to prove the next level, which is that Hezbollah was conducting that under the initiation or the approval of Iran. That they probably don’t have right now.”
After the attack, Mr. Netanyahu immediately blamed Hezbollah and Iran. United States officials privately supported that view, based on intercepted communications.
Hezbollah has denied responsibility for the bombing. Amin Hotait, a retired general in the Lebanese army close to Hezbollah, said the decision “Lacks the unequivocal evidence.”
Bulgarian officials, wary about jumping to conclusions and concerned about alienating European Union allies, needed more proof before they would determine that the attack had been the work of Hezbollah.
“The party doesn’t usually retaliate against Israeli attacks by killing civilians,” Mr. Hotait said. “This decision is political in nature, since Bulgaria is not independent country, but politically dependent on the West.”
Indeed, Mr. Tsvetanov chose his words carefully on Tuesday, leaving room for uncertainty. “A reasonable assumption, I repeat a reasonable assumption, can be made that the two of them were members of the militant wing of Hezbollah,” he said.
But analysts said the bombing was one chapter in a shadow war pitting Israel against Iran and Hezbollah. Israel is believed to be behind the killings of Iranian nuclear scientists. Operatives of the Iranian Quds Force, an elite international operations unit within Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, were believed to be behind a series of plots against Israeli targets in Thailand, India, Georgia and elsewhere. Israeli officials said the Burgas attack bore the hallmarks of a Hezbollah operation.
Bulgaria was chosen as a target not only because of the Black Sea’s popularity with Israeli tourists, but also because security there was more lax than in other European countries, said a former senior American official who followed the investigation closely and spoke on the condition of anonymity.
The European calculation all along has been that whatever its activities in the Middle East, Hezbollah does not pose a threat on the Continent. Thousands of Hezbollah members and supporters operate in Europe essentially unrestricted, raising money that is funneled back to the group in Lebanon.
The European Commission, the union’s main administrative arm, has long slammed Bulgaria for its corrupt and inefficient judiciary. For years, the majority of contract killings in public places in Bulgaria, more than 150 since 2000, have gone unsolved. Mark Grey, a spokesman for the commission, was quoted by Bulgarian national radio on Tuesday as saying the commission expects “fundamental reform of the judicial system” here.
Changing the designation to a terrorist entity raises the prospect of unsettling questions for Europe — how to deal with those supporters, for example — and the sort of confrontation governments have sought to avoid.
But Bulgarians living along the scenic Black Sea coast did not fear for their safety, or expect a terrorist attack. After the explosion ripped through the bus at the airport in Burgas, officials had to walk a diplomatic tightrope while investigating. Israeli forensic experts descended on the scene. American investigators joined in as well.
“There’s the overall fear if we’re too noisy about this, Hezbollah might strike again, and it might not be Israeli tourists this time,” said Sylke Tempel, editor in chief of the German foreign affairs magazine Internationale Politik.
At first the authorities believed that the attack had been a suicide bombing. The bomb fragments told a different story. Experts from the European Union’s joint law enforcement agency, Europol, found that “the device had been remotely detonated,” the agency said Tuesday.
Bulgarian officials would like to maintain strong ties with Israel and the United States, and European allies like France and Germany. They had maintained a studied silence for more than six months since the attack.
Europol determined that a fake Michigan driver’s license recovered at the scene had come from Lebanon. Police combed the beach-side towns and found an agency where another man with a similar fake license had tried to rent a car.
“If you factor in the suspicion that there are political implications beyond Bulgaria’s borders, it’s completely understandable that they’ve been playing for time,” said Dimitar Bechev, head of the Sofia office of the European Council on Foreign Relations.
The identity of the Australian was the second major breakthrough. In September, a European intelligence service tipped off the Bulgarians about an Australian bombmaker of Lebanese descent, the former senior American official said. The intelligence service said he had moved to Lebanon to join Hezbollah’s military wing. Mr. Tsvetanov said Tuesday that the Australian and the Canadian moved to Lebanon, one in 2006 and one in 2010.
Mr. Tsvetanov spoke after the meeting of the president’s council for national security, which includes the prime minister, top cabinet members and military and security personnel.
“It’s time for Europeans to recognize that they can’t look the other way when a terrorist organization is using their territory with impunity for fund-raising and logistics,” said Daniel Benjamin, who until December was the top counterterrorism official at the State Department and is now a scholar at Dartmouth College.
Bulgarian officials are acutely aware of the consequences of their findings even though larger European Union members did not exert blatant pressure on them regarding the Hezbollah question. “It was not a campaign,” said Philipp Missfelder, a leading member of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats and the foreign policy spokesman for the party in Parliament. “Some German officials dropped a few words.”
Nicholas
Kulish and Matthew Brunwasser reported from Sofia, and Eric Schmitt from Washington. Jodi Rudoren contributed reporting from Jerusalem; Hwaida Saad from Beirut, Lebanon; and Michael R. Gordon from Washington.
But Mr. Missfelder said that attitudes toward Hezbollah were gradually shifting. “It’s clear that they are steered from Iran and they are destabilizing the region,” Mr. Missfelder said. “The group that thinks Hezbollah is a stabilizing factor is getting smaller.”
Hezbollah’s dual nature as what Western intelligence agencies call a terrorist organization and a political party with significant social projects, including schools and health clinics, make it more difficult to dismiss. Hezbollah is a significant political actor in Lebanon, and many European officials are particularly wary of upsetting the status quo as the civil war drags on in Syria.
A sort of modus vivendi exists where Hezbollah keeps a low profile for its fund-raising and other activities and Europeans do not crack down. In Germany alone, 950 people have been identified as being associated with the organization as of 2011. The group has always been treated as a benign force, even if assessments of the danger it presented vary greatly.
The senior Israeli official said Jerusalem was pleased with the Bulgarian report, which he said would “make it much more difficult” for European countries “to circumvent debate about the true nature of Hezbollah.”
“We quickly came to the conclusion that Hezbollah was behind it,” the official said. “The Bulgarians wanted to dig deeper before they were willing to say in public what they found. And who that led to. They dug deeper and deeper, and the deeper they dug, the closer they got to Hezbollah.”
The official said that Israel had shared intelligence reports with the Bulgarian authorities and that the Bulgarian investigators had briefed Jerusalem about their findings, but that Israel purposely kept its distance because an independent report from a European country would be more powerful. “We didn’t know what they were going to say,” he said. “It was up to them to decide how they want to play this politically.”
Reporting was contributed by Jodi Rudoren from Jerusalem, Hwaida Saad from Beirut, and Eric Schmitt and Michael Gordon from Washington.
