Attack on Israeli tourists kills six in Bulgaria

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu,
whose government said it had been told the death toll was seven, said
"all signs point to Iran" after an official in Jerusalem said the bus
was shot at and an explosive thrown.

"The vast majority of the dead and the injured are Israelis," Israeli foreign ministry's deputy spokesman Paul Hirschson told AFP.

"Six
people were killed and over 30 were injured in a blast on a tourist bus
near Sarafovo airport," the Bulgarian foreign ministry said, adding
that authorities were investigating whether it was a terrorist attack.

Israel's foreign ministry said that Bulgarian Foreign Minister Nikolay Mladenov had told his counterpart Avigdor Lieberman that "the explosion was caused by a bomb," while putting the death toll at seven.Burgas
mayor Dimitar Nikolov, who was at the airport at the time, said the
blast happened as tourists were boarding the bus and placing their bags
in the luggage compartment, where he suspects the explosives might have
been.
"I cannot say if
it was an act of terrorism. The blast was very strong and in my view was
triggered by a device which was deliberately set," he said.
The
blast occurred around 1400 GMT on the bus carrying Israelis who had
flown in to Burgas, the second largest city on Bulgaria's Black Sea
coast, setting off a fire that spread to another two buses, the ministry
said.
Israel's foreign ministry said the attack targeted a group of tourists who had just arrived on a flight from Tel Aviv.
Israeli
media reports said many of those on the flight were young Israeli
school-leavers who were just about to be drafted into the military.
Pictures showed huge plumes of black smoke rising over the airport, which the ministry said was closed after the attack.
Television showed ambulances rushing people to hospital and women crying.
Israel
and formerly
communist Bulgaria enjoy good relations, and the Black Sea coast has
become a popular holiday spot for Israelis, with almost 140,000 visiting
the country in 2011.

"I
was on the bus and we had just sat down when after a few seconds we
heard a really loud explosion," one Israeli tourist, Gal Malka, told
Israeli army radio. "The whole bus went up in flames."

Aviva, another Israeli woman who was on a nearby bus, said she heard a "very loud explosion".

"There
are seven dead people," she told the radio, adding that she saw people
whose clothes had been blown off and bodies lying on the floor.

"It was just terrible; people were jumping out of the windows," she said.

In
January, Israeli public television reported that Bulgarian authorities
had foiled a bomb attack when they found an explosive device on a bus
chartered to take Israeli tourists to a ski resort.

Bulgarian troops were deployed in several ski resorts frequented by Israeli tourists after the bomb was found, the report added.