First anniversary of Bourgas terrorist attack: ‘clear traces’ in link to Hezbollah, Interior Minister says
Bulgarian Interior Minister Tsvetlin Yovchev, speaking on the July 18 2013 first anniversary of the terrorist attack at Bourgas Airport that caused the deaths of five Israelis and a Bulgarian, said that there were “clear traces” showing that Hezbollah was behind the attack.
In early 2013, Bulgaria had announced that its investigation, in which there was international co-operation, had established links between the terrorist attack and the military wing of the Lebanon-based Hezbollah.
Soon after the July 2012 attack, Israel blamed Hezbollah, citing its own intelligence sources, and in turn soon after that there were reports that United States intelligence services had reached a similar conclusion.
Bulgaria, however, was extremely cautious about pointing fingers, doing so only after a number of months of the investigation that it led.
A year on from the attack, the identity of the bearer of the bomb is still not known and the two accomplices identified, Lebanese residents but holders, respectively, of Australian and Canadian passports, have not been taken into custody.