Bulgaria official: Burgas bombing was planned abroad
The fatal bombing that targeted Israeli tourists at
Bulgaria's Burgas airport last month was planned abroad, but the explosive
device was likely made in Bulgaria, a top Interior Ministry official said Saturday.
"I can definitely say that the attack was plotted,
prepared and implemented by people who are very far away from Bulgaria,"
Ministry Chief of Staff Kalin Georgiev told Bulgaria's 24 Hours newspaper in an
interview.
"They come, act and leave," he said. "We
also cannot talk about so-called homegrown terrorism. The people who prepared
the attack did not use local criminal infrastructures for logistic
support," he added.
The bomb itself, however, was likely assembled on
Bulgarian soil, Georgiev noted. "There is nothing specific about its make.
Our experts estimate that it was assembled somewhere close as no one would risk
carrying an activated improvised explosive device (IED)," he said.
The bomb's components were legally available in any shop
both in Bulgaria and abroad, he added.
Discovering the bomber's identity was now "a prime
task of the investigation," which was progressing, albeit slowly, Georgiev
said.
On Wednesday, Bulgarian authorities released a computer
generated image of the terrorist; his severed head, which was found on the
scene of the attack, was used to compose the image.
Prosecutors said last week they were working with the
authorities in Belgium, Britain and Finland in an effort to identify the
suspect's origin.
Seven people were killed, five of them Israelis, and 34
people were injured, when a blast tore through a bus shuttling Israeli tourists
in the terminal of Sarafovo Airport last month.
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