Hizbullah-Iran Terror Strike Meant to Distract From Nuke Development

Jerusalem Post video highlighting the terror attack in Bulgaria

Screenshot of terror sleazeball dressed as an American tourist

The bus being carted away

Why Iran Is Targeting Israelis Abroad -Michael Widlanski 

     Hizbullah and Iran have been concentrating on generally "soft" targets away from Israel for two reasons: They're easier to hit than targets in Israel, and they make it harder for Israel to justify a direct reprisal on Iran or Hizbullah.

     Israeli strategists also believe that Iran and Hizbullah are using the attacks to force Israel to lose its focus on Iran, undermining Israel's drive to stop Iran's nuclear program.

     Israeli intelligence believes there are more Iranian-directed terror squads trying to attack Israelis.
(New York Post)
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Time for More Surgery -Hirsh Goodman

     In the early 1970s, a spate of attacks hit Israeli targets around the world, with the 1972 attack on the Israeli delegation to the Munich Olympics being only one of many examples. Prime minister Golda Meir entrusted Aaron Yariv, a former head of Military Intelligence, to deal with the issue. Her orders to Yariv, as he later recounted, were simple: Cut off the head of the snake, she said, and the body will die soon after, and with that gave him a mandate to go after the terrorist leadership wherever they may be.

     With systematic efficiency and in silence, Yariv's team surgically removed dozens of key international terror operatives, often on the soil of countries friendly to Israel. Boats sank, cars exploded, rifles fired backwards, grenades went off unexpectedly early, supposed businessmen died getting into their limousines on the streets of Paris and others fell onto the rails of oncoming subways.

    Now we have yet another cycle of international terror being directed against Israelis. So it's time for more surgery. Terror, unfortunately, is something we know a lot about. Let the professionals deal with the problem and the surgeons do their work.
The writer is a senior research associate at the Institute for National Security Studies at Tel Aviv University.
(Jerusalem Post)
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UPDATE:

Holding Iran Accountable for Terrorist Attacks -Editorial
The Bulgaria bombing, in which five Israelis were killed, was the ninth plot pinned on Iran this year and the third this month. The string of attacks offers a stark answer to the question of whether the regime of Ayatollah Khamenei is prepared to compromise with the West.

The international response to Iran's terrorism should be far more vigorous than it has been so far. If Iran suffers no consequences from its acts of terrorism, they will continue.  
(Washington Post)

Behind the International Terrorism Campaign of Hizbullah and Iran
-Yoram Schweitzer

The deadly terrorist attack in Bulgaria is part of a combined, planned, and ongoing terror campaign waged by Iran and Hizbullah over the last year against Israeli and Jewish targets. The immediate background is the desire for revenge and the drive to create a balance of terror against Israel in light of what Iran and Hizbullah see as Israel's campaign against them.

It may be that Iran is determined to draw Israel into a harsh reaction against Hizbullah in Lebanon in response to terrorist attacks abroad. This would divert Israel from Iran, and perhaps even Syria. If an attack against an Israeli airplane results in the deaths of hundreds of Israelis, Israel would be forced to respond very harshly against Hizbullah in Lebanon and perhaps also against Iran.

Precisely for this reason it is best for Israel to respond at a time of its own choosing, in a targeted and covert fashion, against the perpetrators and those who dispatch them, rather than be drawn into a violent war.
(Institute for National Security Studies-Tel Aviv University)
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