Sofia: The Bulgarian government said Tuesday that two people with Canadian and Australian passports linked to the Lebanese Hezbollah movement were behind a July bomb attack that killed five Israeli tourists.
“What we can make as a justified conclusion is that the two persons whose identity we have established belonged to the military wing of Hezbollah,” Interior Minister Tsvetan Tsvetanov told reporters.
He said that they “had Canadian and Australian passports,.. (and) lived in Lebanon since 2006 and 2010”.
 He also the two suspects and a third person used fake drivers’ licences from the US state of Michigan “made in Lebanon” to hire hotel rooms and hire cars in the weeks before the July 18 attack.
“From these three fake personalities, we established beyond doubt two persons’ real identity,” Tsvetanov said.
The bombing on a bus carrying Israelis at Burgas Airport on Bulgaria’s Black Sea coast, the deadliest attack on Israelis abroad since 2004, also killed the Bulgarian bus driver and the bomber. Some 30 people were wounded.
Israel immediately blamed Iran and its “terrorist proxy” Hezbollah but until now Bulgarian investigators have stopped short of pointing the finger at anyone.
Tehran has denied any involvement.
Helped by DNA and fingerprints retrieved from the bomber’s remains, investigators had issued a computer-generated image via Interpol a month later, but since then progress has been slow.
The bomber’s DNA had drawn no matches on international databases.
Investigators had already said they believed he had several accomplices and last month issued an arrest warrant for one of them, saying only that the suspect was male and foreign.
They also had security camera footage of the bomber at the airport terminal and a fake driver’s licence from Michigan.
Doubts have also been expressed over whether the attacker meant to die in the bombing.
Bulgaria’s Black Sea coast is a popular destination for Israeli tourists and the two countries enjoy warm relations.
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