Bulgarian Revelations Explode Hezbollah Bombing Hypothesis
Gareth Porter, IPS News, Feb 18 2013
But Karadzhova’s biggest revelation was that investigators had found a SIM card at the scene of the bombing and had hoped it would provide data on the suspect’s contacts before they had arrived at the scene of the bombing. But the telecom company in question was Maroc Telecom, and the Moroccan firm had not responded to requests for that information. That provenance of the SIM Card is damaging to the Hezbollah “hypothesis”, because Maroc Telecom sells its cards throughout North Africa,a region in which Hezbollah is not known to have any operational bases, but where al-Qaeda has a number of large organisations. Morocco is also considered a “staunch ally” of the US, so it is unlikely that the Moroccan government would have refused a request from the United States to get the necessary cooperation from Moroccan Telecom. Karadzhova was sacked as chief prosecutor shortly after the interview was published, ostensibly because the interview had not been approved. On Jan 17, the sister publication of “24 hours”, the weekly “168 Hours”, published an article by its editor Slavi Angelov, reporting that the Bulgarian investigators had failed to find any evidence of Hezbollah involvement. Angelov, one of the country’s premier investigative journalists, also wrote that one of the two suspects whose fake IDs were traced to Beirut had been linked by a “closely allied intelligence service” to a wing of al-Qaeda. The story, which is not available on the internet but was summarised on the “24 Hours” website, earned a brief reference in a Jan. 17 story in the JPost. That story referred to Angelov’s sources for the information about the al-Qaeda link as unnamed officials in the Interior Ministry. The Angelov story’s revelation that Bulgaria had no evidence linking Hezbollah to the bus bombing was also headlined by the JTA on the same day.By the time the investigation’s four-month extension was due to expire on Jan 18, there was no question among investigators that they needed much more time to reach any meaningful judgment on who was responsible for the bombing. Chief prosecutor Karadzhova told “24 Hours” there was “no obstacle to the deadline being extended repeatedly”. But by mid-January, international politics posed such an obstacle: USrael were already pointing to the Feb 18 meeting of EU foreign ministers as an opportunity to get action by the EU on listing Hezbollah as a terrorist organisation. Washington and Tel Aviv wanted a conclusion from the Bulgarians that could be used at that meeting to force the issue. A meeting of Bulgaria’s Consultative Council for National Security to consider extending the investigation, originally scheduled for Jan 17, was suddenly postponed. Instead, on that date Foreign Minister Mladenov was sent on an unannounced visit to Israel. Israel’s Channel 2 reported after the meetings with Netanyahu and his National Security Advisor Yaakov Amidror that Bulgaria had given Israel a report blaming Hezbollah for the bus bombing. The office of the Bulgarian foreign minister and Prime Minister Boyko Borissov both issued denials on Jan 18. Borissov said there would be no comment on the investigation until “indisputable evidence has been discovered”, implying that it did not have the needed evidence yet. Nevertheless, over the next three weeks, the Bulgarian government had to negotiate the wording of what it would say about the conclusion of its investigation. The decision to call the conclusion an “assumption” or even the weaker “hypothesis” about Hezbollah was obviously a compromise between the preference of the investigators themselves and the demands of USrael. The timing of that decision is a sensitive issue in Bulgaria. Prime Minister Borissov told reporters in Brussels on Feb 7 that he had decided to “name Hezbollah” after investigators had found the SIM card at the site of the bombing. That would put the decision well before Karadzhova gave her interview on Jan 1. And in any case, the discovery of the SIM card could not have caused the investigators to veer toward Hezbollah but would have called that hypothesis into question. Tsvetanov admitted that the Hezbollah “assumption” had been adopted only “after the middle of January”. That admission indicates that the decision was reached under pressure from Washington, not because of any new evidence.
Gareth Porter, IPS News, Feb 18 2013
But Karadzhova’s biggest revelation was that investigators had found a SIM card at the scene of the bombing and had hoped it would provide data on the suspect’s contacts before they had arrived at the scene of the bombing. But the telecom company in question was Maroc Telecom, and the Moroccan firm had not responded to requests for that information. That provenance of the SIM Card is damaging to the Hezbollah “hypothesis”, because Maroc Telecom sells its cards throughout North Africa,a region in which Hezbollah is not known to have any operational bases, but where al-Qaeda has a number of large organisations. Morocco is also considered a “staunch ally” of the US, so it is unlikely that the Moroccan government would have refused a request from the United States to get the necessary cooperation from Moroccan Telecom. Karadzhova was sacked as chief prosecutor shortly after the interview was published, ostensibly because the interview had not been approved. On Jan 17, the sister publication of “24 hours”, the weekly “168 Hours”, published an article by its editor Slavi Angelov, reporting that the Bulgarian investigators had failed to find any evidence of Hezbollah involvement. Angelov, one of the country’s premier investigative journalists, also wrote that one of the two suspects whose fake IDs were traced to Beirut had been linked by a “closely allied intelligence service” to a wing of al-Qaeda. The story, which is not available on the internet but was summarised on the “24 Hours” website, earned a brief reference in a Jan. 17 story in the JPost. That story referred to Angelov’s sources for the information about the al-Qaeda link as unnamed officials in the Interior Ministry. The Angelov story’s revelation that Bulgaria had no evidence linking Hezbollah to the bus bombing was also headlined by the JTA on the same day.By the time the investigation’s four-month extension was due to expire on Jan 18, there was no question among investigators that they needed much more time to reach any meaningful judgment on who was responsible for the bombing. Chief prosecutor Karadzhova told “24 Hours” there was “no obstacle to the deadline being extended repeatedly”. But by mid-January, international politics posed such an obstacle: USrael were already pointing to the Feb 18 meeting of EU foreign ministers as an opportunity to get action by the EU on listing Hezbollah as a terrorist organisation. Washington and Tel Aviv wanted a conclusion from the Bulgarians that could be used at that meeting to force the issue. A meeting of Bulgaria’s Consultative Council for National Security to consider extending the investigation, originally scheduled for Jan 17, was suddenly postponed. Instead, on that date Foreign Minister Mladenov was sent on an unannounced visit to Israel. Israel’s Channel 2 reported after the meetings with Netanyahu and his National Security Advisor Yaakov Amidror that Bulgaria had given Israel a report blaming Hezbollah for the bus bombing. The office of the Bulgarian foreign minister and Prime Minister Boyko Borissov both issued denials on Jan 18. Borissov said there would be no comment on the investigation until “indisputable evidence has been discovered”, implying that it did not have the needed evidence yet. Nevertheless, over the next three weeks, the Bulgarian government had to negotiate the wording of what it would say about the conclusion of its investigation. The decision to call the conclusion an “assumption” or even the weaker “hypothesis” about Hezbollah was obviously a compromise between the preference of the investigators themselves and the demands of USrael. The timing of that decision is a sensitive issue in Bulgaria. Prime Minister Borissov told reporters in Brussels on Feb 7 that he had decided to “name Hezbollah” after investigators had found the SIM card at the site of the bombing. That would put the decision well before Karadzhova gave her interview on Jan 1. And in any case, the discovery of the SIM card could not have caused the investigators to veer toward Hezbollah but would have called that hypothesis into question. Tsvetanov admitted that the Hezbollah “assumption” had been adopted only “after the middle of January”. That admission indicates that the decision was reached under pressure from Washington, not because of any new evidence.
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