Six Israeli tourists were killed when a bus exploded in the southeastern European country of Bulgaria on Wednesday. Israeli officials have accused Iran of being behind the attack and have promised harsh retaliation.
The tourists had just arrived after a flight from Israel and were on the bus in the parking lot outside Burgas airport when the bus exploded, killing six and wounding at least 27 others.
Bulgarian Foreign Minister Nikolai Mladenov told Reuters that officials had confirmed that, “the explosion was caused by a bomb in the bus,” dismissing earlier questions of whether it was an attack at all, or just an accident.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu blamed Iran and issued a threat of retaliation. “All the signs lead to Iran,” Netanyahu said in a statement.
“Eighteen years exactly after the blast at the Jewish community centre in Argentina, murderous Iranian terror continues to hit innocent people. This is an Iranian terror attack that is spreading throughout the entire world. Israel will react powerfully against Iranian terror,” he said.
Netanyahu offered no hard evidence that this was an Iranian attack. But it is certainly possible, especially considering the successive terrorist attacks carried out by Israel on Iranian soil against Iranian civilian scientists.
This incident could have a dangerous escalatory effect on Iranian tensions with the US and Israel, after months of international negotiations have not yielded a viable settlement (thanks largely to US intransigence). Incidentally, this may have been intended by Israel.
“US officials have privately expressed concern that one of the purposes of Israeli attacks in Iran has been to generate an Iranian response that could serve as a casus belli for Israel,” writes Trita Parsi, President of the National Iranian American Council. “That way, Israel could target Iran’s nuclear facilities without paying the heavy political cost of starting a preventive war.”
Bulgarian Prime Minister Boyko Borisov visited Israel a few months ago and proposed to Netanyahu that Israel's air force should exercise in Bulgarian airspace. Rather unusually, Borisov also initiated a meeting with the chief of the Mossad at the time, Meir Dagan, and offered security and intelligence cooperation with Israel. The Bulgarian prime minister also invited Dagan to visit Sofia and allowed Bulgarian newspapers to publish photos of his meeting with the Mossad official.
Netenyahu: "Boyko, is Operation False Flag 604 ready to go?"
Borisov: "Yes, but after incident, quickly send team of Mossad agents bomb experts to determine who is responsible."
Netenyahu "All signs point to Iran."
The zionists need enemies to justify their evil behavior. If an enemy does not exist, they will create one. This is how it has been since the beginning of the zionist entity's illegitimate existence, and that is how it will be, unless the zionist entity is dissolved, permanently.
Benjamin Mileikowsky (aka Netanyahu) would blame Iran for
a fly landing in his matzo ball soup.
Bibi and his neocon minions are itching to start the next war.
This doesn't make much sense. What would Iran gain by doing this?
they gain the privilege of being accused of terrorism and subsequently bombed for this…
isnt that obvious?
And would Iran be wrong to target Israeli citizens in other countries in response to Israel killing several nuclear scientists in Iran? I don't think so. For those that live by the law of "an eye for an eye", the Israeli use of extrajudicial killings can only result in serious blowback for many years to come.
WW3 anyone?
That's what Iran wants.
We might as well admit it. They have felt threatened a long time and this is a chance for them to strut around and pretend they have balls.
You aint fooling anyone. “US officials have privately expressed concern that one of the purposes of Israeli attacks in Iran has been to generate an Iranian response that could serve as a casus belli for Israel,”
That's from the article. Israel wants WW3. Christian Zionists are PRAYING for WW3.
Or just to stop the military from developing nuclear devices.
You must know that they have mentioned 'erasing' Israel more than once.
What is wrong with erasing a cancerous tumor form the world stage? Go peddle your bull somewhere else, nobody buys megaphonie propaganda here.
You want Iran destroyed?
i believe the evil will be destroyed…the one that makes so many suffer…you don't need to look far, just look at the Palestinians in the West Bank.
James = Typical of the so called :"anti war movement"
Quote by James
"What is wrong with erasing a cancerous tumor form the world stage? Go peddle your bull somewhere else, nobody buys megaphonie propaganda here"
Ah antiwar.com
antiwar.com = Neo Nazi site
Your powers of deduction are amazing. But let me say it in other simpler words for you: Being Anti War is automatically being Anti Israel, they have directly or indirectly caused all the wars in the middle east for the last 6.5 decades. So the creation of this cancer is the cause of all that suffering.
Again, go peddle your megaphone bullshit somewhere else, here people are too intelligent and think independently, they will not fall for your childish crap.
"[Israel has] directly or indirectly caused all the wars in the middle east for the last 6.5 decades."
Bullshit. Israel was neither directly nor indirectly responsible for the Iran-Iraq war, or the wars on the Kurds waged by Iraq, Turkey, Iran and Syria.
james,
Thank you for detecting the Voice of Zion.
When one country's supremacists assassinate the scientists and citizens of other countries with impunity, be prepared once in awhile to receive the same treatment. Israeli gov't.is so unpopular and belligerent, maybe they keep their mouths shut for once, keep their own "civilians" safe.
You would react differently if your race was targeted in the shoah.
Not ony did Israel or the Jews suffer a holocaust. Cambodia did. And Armenia too. How about Rwanda? And they don't go around blackmailing other countries using this as a propaganda weapon. You mean that the world has to pay the price of Israel's vengefulness because they went thorough such a horrific experience?
http://www.holocaust-trc.org/uniqueness.htm
err sorry, but neither iran nor palestinians had anything to do with your shoah….
quite the contrary in fact. Iran and palestine were a refuge for european jews and slavs escaping the ss gas chambers
So is the way they pay good deeds, be very careful America, your payment time is due after all you did for those ingrates. But I believe Americans deserve what's coming.
“Obama vows to help ‘bring to justice' to authors of attack on Israelis in Bulgaria”
Did you see the above topic on abcnews.go.com? I used to think Obama was obsessed for the security of Israel. I didn’t know his reach goes out to protect Israeli citizens all over the world. How about protecting the American citizens’ rights before droning them to death?
I sense a false flag operation being birthed.
Why my suggestion that retribution for extrajudicial killing of Iranian nuclear scientists by Israeli is what should be expected from those that practice “and eye for an eye” (meaning Israel and Iran) should be a publishable comment. Antiwar.com is becoming an extreme sensorer of rational comments and is losing its effect in the “for peace” marketplace.
[moderator’s note: If we don’t provide you with your own dedicated 24/7 comment man-servant, we’re censors? Get a grip, dude – TLK]
I'm holding on as tight as I can.
Just because you might expect such a retaliation, you certainly cannot assume it is always the reason when Israelis are attacked. You have to look at the facts. If you are sure the nation of Iran is so vengeful, you must give some plausible reason in this instance and not simply your logical inferences. It also seems a weird stretch to say: Because we killed the nuclear scientists, they are killing our old people on a bus. Who would admit to that? Or is it somehow trying to get off more easily, sacrificing a few pawns when you took a knight? I mean if I did something so major and then someone ran over my grandmother, would I assume I could now breathe easily, the revenge having finally been taken? It just plain doesn't work that way in the real world, and probably not even in some miserable ghetto either. Therefore, I conclude the two crimes are unrelated. And yes, killing scientists is a crime in my book.
musings,
Well said.
Those dang Iranians. Must have been Iranians that brought down the Hindenberg too. Yeah and, the Iranians shot Cock Robin, the Iranians were Jack the Ripper, shot JFK, sunk the market in 1929, fire bombed Dresden, AND nuked Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Proof baby, where is the FACTUAL proof?
Proof? Proof? We don't need no stinkin' proof. We're Jewish Supremicists.
You don't know what you're talking about, the Bush family did all those things. We don't need proof, we have Obama's word, and that is the gospel truth. (sarc)
Their proof is the words of a habitual liar.
And don't forget that the Iranians also bombed the USS Liberty
dont forget that iran stole christmas in the years 1923, 1987, 2008 and helped lex luthor acquire kroptonite to fight superman…..
will those evildoers never learn????
If the explosion came from inside the bus, the device had to be either in the luggage or on the body of one of the passengers. Either way it had to pass through the much-vaunted Israeli airport security in order to arrive at its destination. And judging from the size of the explosion it had to be a load of material even a TSA luggage inspector couldn't miss. Unless he was under orders to miss it.
And why did the incident take place in a quiet uninvolved locale like Bulgaria? Is Bulgaria applying for NATO membership and has to prove its manhood, like Georgia did by invading South Ossetia? Or did any interested banksters offer the country a juicy loan in these difficult times? Or maybe its security service promised to write the report exactly the way one of the parties in the Iran-Israeli conflict wants it?
Bulgaria is member of NATO since 2004.
1) The American passport ("fake") on the worst-mangled body was a nice touch.
2) According to an Israeli onlooker (from another bus?) who tried to put out the flames on the living body of one of the victims, without any help, there were Israeli security standing around doing nothing, but a lot of them.
3) At the moment information will of course trickle out in dribs and drabs. There will of course be persons in the US agencies who don't want to use this to go to war with Iran. Perhaps they will be the most helpful in putting the lie to Netanyahu's charges – say the FBI who in the run-up to the Iraq war took the blame off Saddam and put it onto the American source(s) in the anthrax killings – even so, the propaganda worked.
4) Unfortunately, even though it can be shown improbable that Iran had anything to do with this attack on ordinary Israelis who would pick Bulgaria as a cheap vacation spot and thus became pawns of someone's obvious propaganda (even if the real killer was a fanatic or even some extortionist), the meme is out there and will hang in the minds of people as war with Iran is ginned up. Truth will be no bar to the supposition that Iran would do such a stupid and counter-productive thing to itself. Because of course, they are believed to be so irrational that they would invite an attack which would plunge their country into a civil war worse than Syria's.
The latest piece of information from someone's intelligence forces is that the alleged bomber is a veteran of Gitmo and so unlikely to be associated with the government of Iran that it is laughable. If he's the one who did this, he's a rambling, roving al-Qaeda type who was taken at ToraBora and then tried to learn more tricks in Pakistan. But a Shi'ite Muslem – bull.
What this tells me is that there is push-back within intelligence by people who do not want to go to war with Iran – not that Iran would ever have done this penny-ante bombing in the first place. We may now be seeing the equivalent of the anthrax guy (presented by forces opposed to attacking Saddam as the perp). But this one is already supposedly dead.
Nevertheless, Netanyahu will (like many in the Bush administration) continue to promote the idea of Iran with al-qaeda, as they did Saddam with al-qaeda.
In the world of reality, it's the oil, stupid. And Iran has light, sweet crude to burn.
musings,
There won't be a civil war in Iran as overwhelming majority like the government. Some may not approve of all things the government does or does not, but that does not rise to the level of going to war for it.
How long will it be before there are reports of an undamaged Iranian passport found near site of explosion?
Actually, there is a passport, but it is said to be a fake American one.
we are making pretty good passports these days if they can withstand the same heat and fire that melts the metal skeleton of a bus….i wonder if we learned these passport making techniques from Saudi and Egypt, since their passports are strong enough to resist burning jet fuel as we witness in 9/11
Within hours of the attack, with no investigative input, the Israeli PM can pinpoint the killers. Sounds like foreknowledge to me. In the late 40s Zionists bombed synagogues in Baghdad and killed Jews to terrorize Iraqi Jews into migrating to Israel. The more things change, the more they remain the same. The greater good of a war with Iran, fought with American treasure and blood is more important than a half dozen kids.
These people killed 24 Americans aboard the USS Liberty to provoke a war.
My tentative analysis is not fact, but it is no less factual than Bibi's waving of the bloody shirt, though mine does have a better pedigree.
For the death of me, the shitty little state goes around bombing people and threatening everybody in the region with impunity because of the support of it's surrogate, the USA. Then they start bitching and crying when they get a tiny amount of payback. One more fact to everyone, in the shitty little state there are no civilians, all these guys and gals are iDF and legitimate targets.
This event reminds me of something important:
About 6 months ago, there were several attacks or attempted attacks by bomb in Thailand, India and Georgia. Some of the perpetrators, who had miserably bungled their coup, were either killed or arrested.
The whole "community of nations", with Israel and the USA at the helm, at that time accused Iran to have been behind these terrorist actions. It was claimed that there were proofs that the arrested terrorists were Iranians, and that they were getting their orders from Tehran.
Since then, not a word. Nothing. Zilch. The mainstream press never dealt with the topic again. The official representatives of the Western countries never mentioned it again, despite the fact it would, if proven, give them plenty of ammunition to tighten the screw on Iran. Even in alternative Internet sites, I never found any follow-up information about those events or about what happened about the arrested terrorists.
Now, the Bulgarian attack.
Would that not be a subject for analysis by the perspicacious writers of antiwar.com?
Very interesting. You just can't get good help these days, it seems.
dont forget, we still have not heard a word about the infamous saudi embassy bomb plotter and alcoholic/ failed used car salesman Mansour Arbabsiar since the initial media blitz……
Where was the outrage when the Iranian nuclear scientists were murdered?
Yes, you would think that their colleagues at universities all over the world would be up in arms. It reminds me that physicians at Guantanamo, actively helping the torture, were not censured by their own profession. The idea that there is some international cooperation among scientists and national regulation among doctors is fading fast with all the beliefs of the Enlightenment about the progress of Mankind.
…”All the signs lead to Iran"…
Said as the debris is still falling from the sky…Anyone care to speculate on a false flag op – you know, something to provide Netanyahoo the opening to nuke Iran – you know that's what he wants to do. But, with his governing coalition crumbling around him and elections looming, I'm suspecting he is going to stick to fanning the flames until his precarious position of power has been resolved – assuming he retains power, of course.
Sorry can't bring myself to care that much when terrorists from the terrorist state of Israel are killed, especially since the Mossad probably did it themselves. Anyone who knows anything knows this is the Israeli M.O. They have no problem bumping off their own when they need their justification for abusing people in surrounding countries.
Look at how many civilians they killed in Lebanon. People who cry over dead Israelis cry over dead Nazis.
That's a little strong, don't you think? The poor shlubs on the bus, who were off on a cheap vacation to Bulgaria, were innocent victims of power politics like all of us. If you cannot see that, you miss the point.
Sorry Musings, there are no innocents there if you are over 18. All are IDF terrorists on a trip to have fun after daunting, killing, torturing and evicting Palestinians.
Bulgaria's Borissov (like Georgia and Sakasvilli) is a vile right wing mobster "me-too" western lackey state. Ever since 1997 the Bulgarian foreign ministry security services have been infested with zionist/CIA trained foreign minsters: Mihailova, Passy Mladenov
These countries are so stupid they buy enemies with their stupids actions. When the shit hit the fan they will be left to fend for themselves and they will suffer beyond their belief.
Stupidity of Israels leaders is limitless…Global warming would be also good reason to attack Iran.
All this nonsence, while Israels policy of assasinations all over world goes on with US support and protection. Official Israels policy to kill innocent Iranian sientists just for start??….We can go on and on….
But maybe "people of the world " start to give Israel to same medicine it has been serving to others….
Killing of innocent is horrible crime, but as we see in Syria it si just US and Israel state sponsored policy.
Result will be won by those owning "media propaganda machine"…peter czech
Bibi has all the proof he needs via his own brand of circular logic, e.g. – When asked "Who would do such a vile deed ?" Bibi answers, "Me, if I were an Iranian!"
Is that really true? please lets know the SOURCE.
it is unusual for AIPAC not to answer their phones…..until i read this news!
So it turns out this was the work of al-CIA-da? I don't suppose any retractions will be forthcoming…
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John Glaser is good but he should study further the 20th century history of Iran in order to come up with more sound and deductive explanations.
On Bulgarian bombing before expressing his views he should have examined the history of “Iran killing foreign civilians on foreign lands.
I don’t know of a single credible case of such retaliation.
He writes: "….Netanyahu offered no hard evidence that this was an Iranian attack. But it is Certainly possible, especially considering the successive terrorist attacks carried out by Israel on Iranian soil against Iranian civilian scientists."
Certainly possible? In dictionary.com ‘Certain’ is described as ‘Free from Doubt or Reservation, Sure, Destined, Sure to happen, Inevitable….”. I don’t think Iran’s lose/lose nonsensical retaliative action of killing Israeli tourists in a country that has a potential of becoming its friend is ‘certainly possible’.
In my view it was certainly not possible .
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continued
Here is why:
I remember reading Hillary Mann Leverett’s arguing something like “….Iran in its 8 year war with Iraq faced effective and unrelenting support of Arab countries for Saddam Housain, yet Iran never tried to retaliate using any kind of terror or assassination against Arabs (Egypt, Jordan, Saudis of Gulf Kingdoms)”.
Just recently in Antiwar.com Gareth Porter rebuffed the allegation of Iran plotting the assassination of the Israelis in India.
Iran, as Hillary believes and as a UN report shows, in its war with Iraq didn’t retaliate similarly the use of chemical weapons by Iraqis. That is enormously more momentous than this episode. The gruesome, slow and agonizing death of tens of thousands of Iranians then didn’t bring about a single assassination attempt of any kind by Iran.
For me, that above WMD case alone drags down the probability of ‘Iranians plotting to kill Israeli civilians in Bulgaria’ towards zero, not blasting it so high deserving the qualification of ‘certain possibility’.
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The US claim is as credible as Israeli claim, over the left.