generalspeaking

This Was Hezbollah

"There is no question this was Hezbollah. The question is how much of the information will be able to be made public. There are some things that are still unknown. There are some things that are known but have not been made public. But there is no question that this was Hezbollah, period"
"Iran instructed Hezbollah to target Israeli tourists around the world as part of its shadow war with the West, at the same time that it tasked the Quds Force with targeting Western diplomats, Israelis, Americans, Brits, Saudis -- all as part of a shadow war over the nuclear program."
Professor Matt Levitt, author, Hezbollah: The Global Footprint of Lebanon's Party of God

These comments revolve around the July 18, 2012 bombing outside Sarafovo Airport in Bulgaria of a bus that was targeted for bombing because it was scheduled to carry a group of Israeli tourists to the beaches of the Black Sea on a holiday outing. Five Israelis and a Bulgarian bus driver were killed outright, along with one of the bombers. Thirty-two people were injured in the attack.

There's a Canadian connection; one of the three main suspects happens to be a Canadian of Lebanese origin; the other a Lebanese-Australian, and the third, unidentified man who died while in the process of planting the bomb contained in a backpack, that exploded prematurely in the tour bus luggage compartment. The other two escaped in the general panic and melee. They're believed to be in Lebanon.

Bulgaria's Interior Minister, Tsvetlin Yovchev, informed reporters yesterday that details must yet be withheld as a result of the ongoing investigation, but evidence points unmistakably directly to Hezbollah, the Lebanese terrorist group that serves as a non-state militia for Iran. And which has political status in Lebanon. Evidence from the scene of the atrocity demonstrates clearly that this was a Hezbollah planned-and-executed crime.

Canada, the United States and the United Kingdom have been pressing the European Union to blacklist Hezbollah as a terrorist organization. This attack, after all, took place in Europe. "Hezbollah continues to perpetuate instability and promote fear, right on Europe's doorstep. We continue to urge our friends in the European Union to list Hezbollah as a terrorist entity", said Canada's Foreign Ministry spokesman Rick Roth.

Hezbollah has so well infiltrated into Europe as a fund-raising entity that the European Union and its member countries become nervous at the thought of confronting it in any meaningful way. And listing it as a terrorist group while hosting its members however reluctantly and without being able to clearly identify their presence, makes them very nervous indeed. That it is involved in mass murder is irrelevant. Israel is a far easier target for the EU to vent its political spleen upon, boycotting its "illegal occupation" beyond 1967 borders.

The Burgas bombing carried out by Hezbollah and the Quds Force of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps was only one of others that were successfully carried out in the past. While others yet have been apprehended, meant to have taken place in Cyprus, India, Georgia, Azerbaijan and the United States. They speak of Iran's message of defiance against pressure applied by the international community over Iran's nuclear program.

The international community at large and the European Union in particular have a faint hope clause embedded in their expectations of Iran, that with the advent of a new president, Hasan Rowhani, the nuclear issue will change. Mr. Rowhani has summarily dismissed that delusion by belligerently responding to demands that Iran surrender its nuclear ambitions and scorning those who dare to make such suggestions.

Iran is prepared to continue to use its proxy Hezbollah and its own clandestine Quds branch to strike out where it wishes to boldly and unhesitatingly demonstrate that it can and it will. In 1994 Hezbollah, at the direction of Iran, bombed the Argentine Israelite Mutual Association in Buenos Aires killing 85 people and injuring over 300. A 600-kg truck bomb was detonated destroying the building full of elderly Argentine-Jewish retirees.

And two days later a Panamanian commuter plane hosted a suicide bombing which killed 21 people, including a dozen Jews. The bomber was an Arab travelling on Colombian travel documents. Hezbollah and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps have a presence throughout Latin America now where sympathetic Lebanese Shia live who are amenable to the agenda of Hezbollah. And where Hezbollah has moved into the local narcotics industry as they have done in the United States and Mexico.

It has taken twelve years for Argentine officials to muster the courage to directly accuse Iran and Hezbollah of responsibility for the 1994 attack on the AMIA bombing. In April 2013, an Argentine prosecutor presented a report outlining Iranian involvement in the AMIA attack, detailing as well the spread of Hezbollah and the IRGC throughout Latin America since 1994. The report listed two suspects in that bombing: Ali Akbar Velayati and Mohsen Rezai.

In the recent Iranian presidential election, both men had been approved as presidential candidates.

Labels: Atrocities, Canada, European Union, Hezbollah, Iran, Israel

posted by Pieface @ Friday, July 19, 2013