BICOM

In two US media interviews Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stressed that he had no doubt that Hezbollah was behind Wednesday’s attack in Burgas that left five Israelis and a Bulgarian bus driver dead.

Netanyahu said he had “rock solid intelligence” linking Iran to the attack, and accused Iran and Hezbollah of orchestrating similar plots, some of them successful, in 24 countries across five continents over the past two years.

“These attacks tell you what kind of people we are dealing with, imagine these people possessing nuclear weapons,” Netanyahu added.

Meanwhile, in the wake of the attack in Bulgaria and an attempted attack in Cyprus, Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman is expected to ask his European colleagues to include Hezbollah on the EU’s terrorist blacklist at the annual EU-Israel Association meeting this week. The Foreign Minister is scheduled to meet with EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton, as well as Foreign Secretary William Hague.

In related news, Defence Minister Ehud Barak late on Friday said Israel is preparing for a possible military intervention in Syria in case the Syrian government hands missiles or chemical weapons to Hezbollah.

“I have instructed the military to increase its intelligence preparations and prepare what is needed so that… (if necessary)… we will be able to consider carrying out an operation,” Barak said in an interview on Channel 10 News.

“We are following… the possible transfer of advanced munitions systems, mainly anti-aircraft missiles or heavy ground-to-ground missiles, but there could also be a possibility of the transfer of chemical means (weapons) from Syria to Lebanon,” he added.