Bus with Israeli tourists on way to airport in Bulgaria bombed.

[Magda Hassan]

Update: Sofia News Agency reports that "The fake Michigan driver's license carried by the suicide bomber who killed five Israeli tourists and a Bulgarian driver last week in Burgas was first spotted in the country five years ago, according to a government official. According to the report, "The driver's license was spotted in the city of Plovdiv back in 2007, Interior Minister Tsvetan Tsvetanov has told lawmakers. It is unclear whether it was the same individual who used the document back then."


Two new computer generated photos of the perpetrator of the attack has been released.

[Magda Hassan]

Update: The Daily Mail reports that "British agents are examining the DNA of a suspected suicide bomber who blew up six people in a Bulgarian holiday resort to determine if he came from the UK."


The same report provides interesting details related to the suspected bomber seen in earlier CCTV footage.

CCTV footage initially released of the suspected bomber pictured moments before the explosion showed a casually dressed tall, white man carrying a large black backpack.

But Dr Kosyo Yankov who took part in the autopsy of the attacker said the body parts suggested a heavy man, weighing over 15 stone, who has nothing to do with the slim man caught by the security cameras at the Bourgas airport.'

The reassembled head of the bomber is also to be sent to the Bulgarian capital Sofia shortly to be examined by anthropologists, who hope to determine his nationality and origins from it.

In related news, Sofia News Agency reports that "Bivol.bg has published photos of the head of the alleged suicide bomber and perpetrator of the July 18 terrorist attack in Bulgaria's Burgas." The authenticity of the photos has not been verified.


WARNING: Graphic

[Magda Hassan]

Update: Sofia News Agency reports that "Stayko Manev, Police Chief in the Black Sea town of Nessebar has confirmed the authenticity of the photos of the head of the alleged suicide bomber and perpetrator of the July 18 terrorist attack in Bulgaria's Burgas."

Update: Sofia News Agency reports that eyewitnesses say that they saw the suspected bomber at the Sofia airport on July 10 between 10:40 am and 11:20 am.


According to Sofia News Agency, Bulgarian Minister of Economy, Energy and Tourism Delyan Dobrevhas announced that "Bulgarian tour operators who work with Israeli tourists will undergo special training to detect terrorists"


Agence France Presse reports that "Bulgarian Tourism Minister Delian Dobrev said on Tuesday forensic experts were close to producing an image of the suicide bomber." In addition, Dobrev was quoted as saying that "The investigation into the attack is making progress and we have succeeded in recreating 95 percent of the face of the murderer…Within a few days you will receive full pictures of the terrorist, those who sent him and his accomplices."

Update: On Monday Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak appeared on CNN's The Situation Room.During his interview, Barak said that "We are confident without any doubt about the responsibility of Hezbollah to the actual execution of the operation, operations planning and execution." He followed this by saying that "We have direct hard evidence. I'm confident we shared it with your intelligence, we debriefed them with a few others. So I have no doubt and it of course for obvious reason we cannot share the exact evidence."

Update: The Associated Press reports that "Bulgarian police on Wednesday released a computer-generated image of the suicide attacker involved in the bombing in Bulgaria that killed five Israeli tourists and a Bulgarian bus driver two weeks ago." Relatedly, Sofia News Agency reports that "The computer-generated image of the suicide attacker involved in the bombing in Bulgaria that killed five Israeli tourists and a local bus driver, has been verified 95%, the interior minister said."

In currently unrelated news, Sofia News Agency reports that Bulgaria "border police have caught an Iranian hidden in a car at the Bulgarian Kapitan Andreevo Border Point with Turkey."

Update: Sofia News Agency reports that "Bulgaria has asked all INTERPOL member countries to make public a computer generated image of the suspected terrorist responsible for the bombing attack on an Israeli tour bus outside Burgas Airport in Bulgaria."

Update: Sofia News Agency reports that "The Regional Prosecutor's Office in the Bulgarian Black Sea city of Burgas has asked a number of countries to trace possible cell phone contacts of the suspected terrorist responsible for the bombing attack on an Israeli tour bus." The report adds that "authorities have found a SIM card on the crime scene believed to have belonged to the perpetrator." According to Sofia News Agency, "The investigators hope to use the phone logs to shed more light on the attacker, his possible ties with some organization and his travels."

[Magda Hassan]

Update: An official from Bulgaria's Interior Ministry [B]has revealed that the attack at the Burgas airport was planned abroad, however, the bomb was likely made in Bulgaria. According to the official, Kalin Georgiev, "I can definitely say that the attack was plotted, prepared and implemented by people who are very far away from Bulgaria." In addition, he said that "We also cannot talk about so-called homegrown terrorism. The people who prepared the attack did not use local criminal structures for logistic support." Interestingly, he added that "I cannot categorically confirm any of the leads but I can say that he is not the typical suicide attacker. There is a high probability that the terrorist fell victim to his own error."

[B]Update: Sofia News Agency [B]reports based upon the Bulgarian Telegraph that "The suspected terrorist...had a second ID document," which was also a fake. The report also adds that it is believed that accomplices used fake UK and French passports. As of now, the information in the latest report has not been confirmed by Bulgarian authorities. [/B][/B][/B]

[Magda Hassan]

Update: On Monday Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak appeared on CNN's The Situation Room.During his interview, Barak said that "We are confident without any doubt about the responsibility of Hezbollah to the actual execution of the operation, operations planning and execution." He followed this by saying that "We have direct hard evidence. I'm confident we shared it with your intelligence, we debriefed them with a few others. So I have no doubt and it of course for obvious reason we cannot share the exact evidence."

Update: The Associated Press reports that "Bulgarian police on Wednesday released a computer-generated image of the suicide attacker involved in the bombing in Bulgaria that killed five Israeli tourists and a Bulgarian bus driver two weeks ago." Relatedly, Sofia News Agency reports that "The computer-generated image of the suicide attacker involved in the bombing in Bulgaria that killed five Israeli tourists and a local bus driver, has been verified 95%, the interior minister said."

In currently unrelated news, Sofia News Agency reports that Bulgaria "border police have caught an Iranian hidden in a car at the Bulgarian Kapitan Andreevo Border Point with Turkey."

Update: Sofia News Agency reports that "Bulgaria has asked all INTERPOL member countries to make public a computer generated image of the suspected terrorist responsible for the bombing attack on an Israeli tour bus outside Burgas Airport in Bulgaria."

Update: Sofia News Agency reports that "The Regional Prosecutor's Office in the Bulgarian Black Sea city of Burgas has asked a number of countries to trace possible cell phone contacts of the suspected terrorist responsible for the bombing attack on an Israeli tour bus." The report adds that "authorities have found a SIM card on the crime scene believed to have belonged to the perpetrator." According to Sofia News Agency, "The investigators hope to use the phone logs to shed more light on the attacker, his possible ties with some organization and his travels."

Update: An official from Bulgaria's Interior Ministry has revealed that the attack at the Burgas airport was planned abroad, however, the bomb was likely made in Bulgaria. According to the official, Kalin Georgiev, "I can definitely say that the attack was plotted, prepared and implemented by people who are very far away from Bulgaria." In addition, he said that "We also cannot talk about so-called homegrown terrorism. The people who prepared the attack did not use local criminal structures for logistic support." Interestingly, he added that "I cannot categorically confirm any of the leads but I can say that he is not the typical suicide attacker. There is a high probability that the terrorist fell victim to his own error."

Update: Sofia News Agency reports based upon the Bulgarian Telegraph that "The suspected terrorist...had a second ID document," which was also a fake. The report also adds that it is believed that accomplices used fake UK and French passports. As of now, the information in the latest report has not been confirmed by Bulgarian authorities.



Update: Sofia News Agency reports that "The alleged perpetrator of the terrorist act in Bulgaria's Burgas might have been spotted in the capital Sofia, the Head of the Sofia Police Directorate, Chief Commissar, Valeri Yordanov, informs."

Currently, the police say they cannot confirm beyond any doubt that the man has been in Sofia, only that they have received a number of tipoffs about the perpetrator noticed in the capital.

The same report adds that "Special security measures will be in place for the opening of the school year in the Jewish school in Sofia on September 15."

There is continued increased police presence at all locations where there are Israeli citizens, in shopping malls, the subway, railroad and bus stations.

Update The New York Times reports that "Israeli intelligence has evidence of many telephone calls between Lebanon and Burgas in the two months before the bombing, according to a senior government official who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the information is classified, with the volume intensifying in the three days leading up to it."

Update: On August 10, Daniel Benjamin, the U.S. State Department's counter-terrorism coordinator,said that "Our assessment is that Hizbullah and Iran will both continue to maintain a heightened level of terrorist activity and operations in the near future." In addition, Benjamin said that "we assess that Hizbullah could attack in Europe or elsewhere at any time with little or no warning."

Update: Sofia News Agency reports that "The probe has decisively proven that the alleged perpetrator of the terrorist act in Bulgaria's Burgas was a suicide bomber."

The declaration, contradicting a number of reports and leads that that the perpetrator has been deluded, used as a mule, and has acted under the influence of illegal drugs, was made Sunday by investigator, Georgi Iliev, from the National Investigative Services.

..."This has been a suicide bomber, a man who knowingly sacrificed his own live in order to cause the death of many others. He is a foreign citizen who has chosen Bulgaria for this act," the investigator adamantly stated.

Update: Georgi Iliev has now retracted his comments and has now said that "There is no proven evidence that this individual had sacrificed his life to perpetrate the terror act. He is just one of those who did it. We cannot say either what his or their exact goal was." Meanwhile, Sofia News Agencyreports that "The Interior Ministry has new details and information about the terror act in Bulgaria's Burgas, but cannot release them for the public." According to Bulgaria's Interior Minister "We have new data, but it is operational and I cannot share it in public. We had some discussions today with representatives of our foreign partner services and we concluded that we can release some information to the media on Tuesday."

Update: Sofia News Agency now reports that "new details and leads in the terror act in Bulgaria's Burgas will be provided to the media and the public no earlier than Thursday, August 16." Meanwhile, Israel stands by its position that Iran and Hezbollah were behind the attack.

Update: Sofia News Agency reports that "No mistakes have been made by Bulgaria's authorities in creating the computer-generated image of the bomber in the Burgas Airport terrorist attack, Bulgarian Interior Minister Tsvetan Tsvetanov has declared." In another report, the Bulgarian outlet reports that "A security camera in Bulgaria's Black Sea city of Burgas has taped images of the accomplice of the perpetrator of the terror act."

Update: Sofia News Agency reports that "Bulgaria's Interior Ministry published Thursday noon a new computer-generated image of a suspected accomplice in the July 18 bus bombing in Burgas." The Interior Ministry states that "There is evidence that the man from the picture has been presenting himself with a false driving license from Michigan, the USA. He may have also used other names."

Here is the computer generated photo as well as fake driver's license.



Update: Bulgarian authorities have released an updated photo of the suspected perpetrator based upon his fake driver's license. Sofia News Agency reports that "the suspected accomplice of the perpetrator of the terrorist attack on Israeli tourists in the Bulgarian Black Sea city of Burgas has been caught on camera in Varna." Bulgarian authorities do not appear to be making much progress aside from the driver's licenses and sketches.

Update: Sofia News Agency reports that "A man from the southern Bulgarian city of Plovdiv has recognized the suspected accomplice of the suicide bomber who staged the July 18 Burgas bus bombing."

According to the witness, the man from the computer-generated image released by the Interior Ministry is a Bulgarian, who was involved with people preaching radical Islam.The police are investigating the new lead, according to reports of private TV station bTV.The Plovdiv citizen claims he worked with the suspected accomplice for five years and recognized him by the photo distributed in newspapers.Ashim Asan fails to remember the name of his colleague but says that he is a Bulgarian from the southwestern district of Gotse Delchev. Asan says that the suspect was involved with people preaching radical Islam, who were buying schools in the Rhodope Mountains."They are buying schools, they are building mosques. It was mostly the locals who were organizing things Pomaks, Roma, Turkish, it makes no difference...They were in charge in some sections and they kept the cash flow moving," the witness adds.Asan is one of the leaders in the Stolipinovo Roma borough in Plovdiv, according to Trud daily.He has a foundation and his name has been repeatedly involved in scandals.He is now serving a term at the Plovdiv prison for battery.

Update: Coroner Galina Mileva, who took part in the post-mortem examination of the bomber, has told a Bulgarian outlet that "If they [more Israeli tourists] or the kamikaze [the bomber] were inside the bus there would have hardly been many survivors."

[Magda Hassan]

Quite different to Australia loaning out it's passports to a foreign country for assassinations.....

Australian links to political violence in Lebanon run deeper than a single attack. AAP/Stringer An Australian has been linked to the July 18, 2012 Bulgarian bus bombing, that killed five Israeli tourists, the driver of a bus and a man carrying a bomb.
Several of those responsible for the attack are reported to have travelled from Lebanon, entering Bulgaria via Germany and Belgium, and to have used fake US driving licenses (printed in Lebanon) to rent hotels and cars.
The Australian involved is believed to be of Lebanese descent and to have moved to Lebanon in 2006 to join Hezbollah's military wing. He is alleged to have been part of a three or four man cell and to have fulfilled the role of bomb-maker for the group. Authorities believe him to now be located somewhere in Lebanon.

Hezbollah

As part of a Shia and primarily nationalist orientated movement, Hezbollah represents a phenomenon distinct from the globally focused Sunni extremist movement represented by al-Qaeda and associated groups. While Australia does have extensive links to jihadist political violence in Lebanon this would be the first public example of an Australian involved with Hezbollah, Lebanon's largest and most recognised militant group. But it is important to note that the organisation has denied responsibility for the attack, claiming it to be part of an international smear campaign.
If sanctioned the attack would have been carried out by the External Security Organisation, the branch of Hezbollah responsible for terrorist activities.
The bombing would constitute Hezbollah's first terror strike on European soil since the 1990s and would be another manifestation of the simmering conflict between Israel and Iran (and by extension Hezbollah). The direct target appears to have been Israeli citizens, with the location chosen not only because of the Black Sea's popularity with Israeli tourists, but also because security is considered particularly lax.
At first, authorities believed the attack was a suicide bombing, however bomb fragments revealed the device had been remotely detonated. More likely is that the bomb was intended to explode as the bus was driving, which would have caused significantly more carnage. But there may have been a malfunction which killed the man placing the bomb. This target and tactic would fit the modus operandi of Hezbollah, which generally does not carry out lone-bomber suicide attacks on foot.
An Australian was involved in a terrorist blast that killed seven people. AAP/Oliver Weiken

Hezbollah in Australia

Hezbollah's External Security Organisation has been listed as a terrorist group by Australia since 2003, but the group's political wing is recognised as an official party and is represented in the Lebanese Parliament. The UK and New Zealand also prescribe the External Security Organisation a terrorist organisation, while the entire apparatus of Hezbollah has been listed as a terrorist organisation by the United States and Canada.
While there is certainly no evidence the group has ever attempted political violence in this country, Australians have been investigated for providing financial support to the organisation as a whole. Indeed, as long ago as 1991, the federal government listed Hezbollah as having active support in Australia.
Further, in 2007 an investigation was conducted into two persons suspected of providing money to Hezbollah from Australia. Thousands of dollars in five distinct transactions are believed to have been transferred during the 2006 conflict between Hezbollah and Israel. Then Attorney-General Philip Ruddock, warned it was illegal to provide financial support to Hezbollah at the time of the conflict.
There have also been several investigations into broadcasts made into Australia by Lebanese-based television station Al-Manar, which has close associations with Hezbollah. The investigations related to whether or not broadcasts attempted to solicit funds for, or recruit people to join, Hezbollah. However, no breach of the Broadcasting Services (Anti-terrorism Requirements for Open Narrowcasting Television Services) Standard 2006 was recorded.
Though Hezbollah is not known to have operated in Australia, it has had a significant presence in our region, in places such as Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia and the Philippines. Indeed, in March 1994 Hezbollah, with Iranian intelligence assistance, prepared a truck bomb to be detonated outside the Israeli Embassy in Bangkok. But the attack was thwarted when the driver of the truck had a traffic accident on route to the location.

Australian terrorist connections to Lebanon

Though this would constitute the first Australian known to have participated in an act of political violence in the name of Hezbollah, Australia does have significant links to political violence in Lebanon. There have been several significant instances of Australians involved with jihadist activity throughout the past decade, and support for Lebanese based groups has been disproportionately represented within Australian jihadist circles.
While there are many small and clandestine semi-autonomous jihadist groups within Lebanon, Fatah al-Islam and Asbat al-Ansar are two organisations which have seen significant Australian involvement. There have been thirteen Australians arrested for involvement with these Sunni groups as well as three others accused of involvement in jihadist activity in separate incidents.
The individual identified in the past few days appears to be another manifestation of Australians linked to terrorism internationally. Examples such as this highlight the small but persistent problem of citizens involved in acts of political violence both at home and overseas.

http://theconversation.edu.au/the-austra...bing-12021

[Magda Hassan]

Bulgarian Revelations Explode Hezbollah Bombing "Hypothesis"

By Gareth Porter

February 19, 2013 "Information Clearing House" - WASHINGTON, Feb 18 2013 (IPS) - When European Union foreign ministers discuss a proposal to designate Hezbollah as a terrorist organisation, Bulgaria's Foreign Minister Nikolay Mladenov will present his government's case for linking two suspects in the Jul. 18, 2012 bombing of an Israeli tourist bus to Hezbollah.

But European ministers who demand hard evidence of Hezbollah involvement are not likely to find it in the Bulgarian report on the investigation, which has produced no more than an "assumption" or "hypothesis" of Hezbollah complicity.

Major revelations about the investigation by the former head of the probe and by a top Bulgarian journalist have further damaged the credibility of the Bulgarian claim to have found links between the suspects and Hezbollah.

The chief prosecutor in charge of the Bulgarian investigation revealed in an interview published in early January that the evidence available was too scarce to name any party as responsible, and that investigators had found a key piece of evidence that appeared to contradict it.

An article in a Bulgarian weekly in mid-January confirmed that the investigation had turned up no information on a Hezbollah role, and further reported that one of the suspects had been linked by a friendly intelligence service to Al-Qaeda.

The statement made Feb. 5 by Interior Minister Tsvetan Tsvetanov referred to what he called a "reasonable assumption" or as a "well-founded assumption", depending on the translation, that two suspects in the case belonged to Hezbollah's "military formation".

Underlining the extremely tentative nature of the finding, Tsvetanov used the passive voice and repeated the carefully chosen formulation for emphasis: "A reasonable assumption, I repeat a reasonable assumption, can be made that the two of them were members of the militant wing of Hezbollah."

The host of a Bulgarian television talk show asked Tsvetanov Feb. 9 why the conclusion about Hezbollah had been presented as "only a guess". But instead of refuting that description, Tsvetanov chose to call the tentative judgment a "grounded hypothesis for the complicity of the Hezbollah military wing".

The reason why the senior official responsible for Bulgarian security used such cautious language became clear from an interview given by the chief prosecutor for the case, Stanella Karadzhova, who was in charge of the investigation, published by "24 Hours" newspaper Jan. 3.

Karadzhova revealed how little was known about the two men who investigators believe helped the foreigner killed by the bomb he was carrying, but whom Tsvetanov would later link to Hezbollah. The reason, she explained, is that they had apparently traveled without cell phones or laptops.

Only two kinds of information appear to have linked the two, according to the Karadzhova interview, neither of which provides insight into their political affiliation. One was that both of them had led a "very ordered and simple" lifestyle, which she suggested could mean that they both had similar training.

The other was that both had fake Michigan driver's licenses that had come from the same country. It was reported subsequently that the printer used to make the fake Michigan driver's licenses had been traced to Beirut.

Those fragments of information were evidently the sole basis for the "hypothesis" that that two of the suspects were members of Hezbollah's military wing. That hypothesis depended on logical leaps from the information. Any jihadist organisation could have obtained fake licenses from the Beirut factory, and a simple lifestyle does not equal Hezbollah military training.

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 United States, 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.

Senior Bulgarian officials have remained mum about the SIM Card, and
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 "Jerusalem Post". 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 Jewish Telegraphic Agency 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: the United States and Israel 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 Prime Minister Benjamin 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 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 the United States and Israel.

The timing of that decision is a sensitive issue in Bulgaria. Prime Minister Borissov told reporters in Brussels 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 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, an investigative historian and journalist specialising in U.S. national security policy, received the UK-based Gellhorn Prize for journalism for 2011 for articles on the U.S. war in Afghanistan.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info...e34014.htm

[Magda Hassan]

Bulgaria releases names and photos of Burgas bombing suspects

Interior Ministry identifies two suspects as Australian, Canadian nationals; third suspect not identified.

By The Associated Press | Jul. 25, 2013 | 3:46 PM

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Smoke rising from Burgas airport terminal following bus explosion, July 18, 2012.



By Barak Ravid and Reuters
Jul. 23, 2013 | 1:10 AM |




Bulgaria has distributed the names and images of two wanted suspects involved in a bomb attack that killed five Israelis and a Bulgarian in Burgas last year.
The first alleged terrorist was identified as Meliad Farah, also known as Hussein Hussein, an Australian citizen born November 5, 1980. The second is Hassan El Hajj Hassan, a Canadian citizen born March 22, 1988, according to a statement of the Interior Ministry issued Thursday.
A third suspect who died on the scene was not identified.
The statement says that three weeks ahead of the attack on July 18, 2012, they were spotted in several nearby cities.
Investigators believe the suspects checked into hotels and hired cars with fake ID cards under the names of Brian Jeremiah Jameson, Jacque Felipe Martin and Ralph William Rico.
http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/1.537954

[Magda Hassan]

Maybe related. Maybe not. Interesting it was recently that Hezbollah military wing was put on the 'terrorist list'.

More than 100 Bulgarian lawmakers, ministers and journalists spent the night besieged inside parliament by anti-corruption protesters before police evacuated them early on Wednesday in the latest instability in the southeast European state.
A political crisis that began over utility price rises and spread to accusations that private interests control state institutions has caused months of protests in the ex-communist state, which joined the European Union in 2007 but has struggled to live up to its governance standards.
Parliament was closed for business on Thursday, barricaded and under heavy police guard, after speaker Mikhail Mikov urged deputies not to go to work until public order is restored.
Lawmakers were escorted out of the building in police vans at around 3 a.m. more than eight hours after they were trapped inside by protesters shouting "Mafia!" and "Resign!" who tore up paving stones and piling up garbage for makeshift barricades.
European Justice Commissioner Viviane Reding, departing from diplomatic usage, lent open support to the protest movement on Wednesday when she told civil society groups in Sofia: "My sympathy is with the Bulgarian citizens who are protesting on the streets against corruption."
"Bulgaria must continue its reform efforts."
In Brussels, European Commission spokesman Olivier Bailly called for calm on all sides and declined to distance himself from Reding's comments, saying what was at stake was public order and the right to demonstrate in Bulgaria.
More than 10,000 mainly well-educated Bulgarians have rallied daily in Sofia for the last 40 days to demand the resignation of the Socialist-led government that took office in May after an inconclusive election.
The movement was sparked by the appointment of an influential media figure to a top security post, which many saw as an example of murky ties between politicians and businessmen.
The government withdrew his nomination but the protests have persisted amid widespread disenchantment with the political class. The previous center-right government quit in February after mass protests against electricity price rises and failed to return to power after a deadlocked election in May.
GOVERNMENT WON'T QUIT
The blockade of the parliament was sparked by a government decision to borrow 1 billion levs ($676 million), raising the budget deficit to 2 percent of gross domestic product.
The move is not likely to threaten fiscal stability, but center-right opposition parties and some analysts see it as an example that this government plans to fuel spending rather than carrying out any significant reforms.
About 30 protesters were drinking coffee in public outside parliament, as they have in the past 20 days, to maintain pressure on the government to resign.
"We want people in the parliament to start thinking about the people, and not only for their own pockets," said 35-year old Anna Grozdanova, sipping coffee outside a protest tent in front of parliament.
"It is important we send honest and decent people, so that these outrageous appointments and deals stop. They need to think about education, healthcare, how to take Bulgaria forward. Instead we see this government is not doing that," she said.
Prime Minister Plamen Oresharski's cabinet has refused to quit and about 500 to 1,000 pro-government supporters have held daily counter-demonstrations in Sofia and about 200,000 people have signed a petition supporting him.
Earlier, police forced a pathway through hundreds of activists in the capital of the poorest EU country to free the trapped lawmakers.
"Police reacted very adequately, policemen did their job perfectly although protesters behaved extremely aggressively," Interior Minister Tsvetlin Yovchev told reporters.
The protests have turned violent with some clashes with police and stone throwing.
Several protesters were treated for head injuries, a hospital official said. Two police officers were also wounded.
"We will try to find those who threw stones at police and deputies," the minister said.
Ivailo Kalfin, a member of the European parliament and a former foreign minister, wrote on Facebook: "With apologies to the millions, who voted two months ago, we need new elections."
An earlier attempt to get deputies out of the parliament with a bus led to a scuffle with police. It was aborted after protesters threw bottles, stones and other objects at the bus, while others sat in front of it.
($1 = 1.4795 Bulgarian levs)
(Additional reporting by; writing by Paul Taylor)