Expert: Tehran commissioned the attack in Burgas, but Hezbollah did it solo without any logistical support.
By BENJAMIN WEINTHAL JERUSALEM POST CORRESPONDENTThe Burgas Airport in Bulgaria 390(photo credit: REUTERS)
GAZIANTEP, Turkey – Hezbollah acted alone in the July 2012 attack that killed five Israelis and a Belgian bus driver in Burgas, The New Yorker reported this week.Quoting an American defense official, the magazine reported that following the attack, Iranian Quds Forces commander Qassem Suleimani had “asked his subordinates, ‘Does anyone know about this?’ No one did.”Hezbollah acted on its own in that one, the US official said.In an email to The Jerusalem Post, Dr. Matthew Levitt, head of the Stein Program on Counter-terrorism and Intelligence at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, wrote that “Burgas was done at the behest of Iran, but Hezbollah appears to have carried out the plot solo, without Iranian logistical support.”Levitt is the author of the critically acclaimed Hezbollah: The Global Footprint of Lebanon’s Party of God.Israel and the United States both stated after the July 18 Hezbollah attack that the operation was a joint Iran and Hezbollah mission.Bulgaria’s government accused Hezbollah’s military wing of launching the attack.The Post reported that a Canadian-Iranian woman monitored the Sofia Chabad center last July. She was detained and deported.Iranians also attempted to access Bulgaria in the same month, but were refused entry. It is unclear if the Iranians and Hezbollah were coordinating attacks targeting the Chabad center and other locations.Jerusalem Post staff contributed to this report.
