Aljazeera, 19
Jul 2012
Iran's
state TV is rejecting accusations of Tehran's involvement in an apparent
suicide attack against Israeli tourists in Bulgaria that killed at least eight people.
On the TV
website, Iran questions the claims by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
and others as "ridiculous" and "sensational."
The website
described the Israeli charges as attempts to discredit Iran and its allies such
as Syria.
There have
been no official statements by Iranian authorities since the Wednesday attack
in the Black Sea city of Burgas. Israeli officials and media say the death toll
includes six Israelis and one Bulgarians.
The bombing
is the latest in a string of attacks and plots around the world that Israel has
blamed on Iran. Iran has denied involvement.
Bulgarian
Prime Minister Boiko Borisov says that a Michigan license carried by the
suspected suicide attacker in the bombing of the bus carrying Israeli tourists
was a fake.
Borisov
said on Thursday "we worked on this with colleagues from the FBI and CIA.
They said that there is no such person in their database." He did not
release a name.
Borisov
says he has asked for the release of a photo of the suspect taken from a security
camera from the area before the attack, which gutted the bus at the airport in
the Black Sea resort city of Burgas on Wednesday.
Earlier,
officials lowered the death toll to seven, including the suspected bomber,
after mistakenly reporting that someone had died overnight.
The Israeli
Defence Minister Ehud Barack called the attacks as part of the global wave on
terror.
"The
attack in Burgas was led by members of Hezbollah and sponsored by Iran, The
Al-Qaeda and Islamic Jihad networks also operate globally," he added,
citing a long list of recent attacks or attempted attacks on Israelis around
the world including in Thailand, India, Georgia, Kenya and Cyprus.
US
President Barack Obama condemned the attacks in a call with Netanyahu.
"The
United States will stand with our allies, and provide whatever assistance is
necessary to identify and bring to justice the perpetrators of this
attack," said Obama.
In flames
The Israeli
foreign ministry said the bus was carrying tourists from a charter flight that
arrived from Israel.
Israeli
officials said passengers from a Tel Aviv-Burgas flight boarded the bus shortly
after 17:00 local time (14:00 GMT) on Wednesday.
"I was
on the bus and we had just sat down when after a few seconds we heard a really
loud explosion," Gal Malka told Israel's army radio.
"The
whole bus went up in flames," she said, adding that the explosion took
place near the front of the bus.
Israeli
forensic teams who arrived during the night are helping to identify the bodies.
A Hercules
jet carrying senior Israeli army officers and trauma surgeons had landed in
Bulgaria to help transfer the wounded to the airport for evacuation.
It is
expected to land in Tel Aviv on Thursday afternoon, where the wounded will be
taken to nearby hospitals.
Images
shown on Israeli and Bulgarian media showed smoke billowing from the scene, a
parking lot at the local airport, where the Israeli tourists had apparently
just landed.
Several
buses and cars were on fire near the carcass of the targeted vehicle.
Burgas
mayor Dimitar Nikolov, who was at the airport at the time, said the blast
ripped through the bus as the tourists who had flown in from Israel were
boarding and placing their bags in the luggage compartment, where he suspects
the explosives might have been.
"I
cannot say if it was an act of terrorism. The blast was very strong and in my
view was triggered by a device which was deliberately set," Nikolov said.
Trita
Parsi, of the National Iranian-American Counsel, speaking to Al Jazeera from
Washington, says so far Tel Aviv has not produced any evidence proving Iranian
involvement.
"Only
a half hour after the actual incident, Netanyahu went out and accused the
Iranians", a time-frame which Parsi says does not leave a lot of time to
gather evidence.
Bulgaria,
an eastern European nation bordering Greece and Turkey, is a popular tourist
destination for Israelis.
In January,
Israeli public television reported that Bulgarian authorities had foiled a bomb
attack when they found an explosive device on a bus chartered to take Israeli
tourists to a ski resort.
Mehdi Ghezali
(AFP Photo/Bertil Ericson)
|
Suspect:
CCTV footage taken at Bulgaria's Burgas Airport
shows the man believed to have
carried out a suicide attack
which killed eight Israeli tourists (Daily Mail)
|
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