US Citizen Suspected Accomplice in Burgas Terror Attack - Report

The image of the supposed accomplice of the terror attack, as circulated by Israeli media. Photo by BGNES

Bulgarian police are looking after a supposed accomplice of the suicide bomber who detonated an explosion in the Bulgarian city of Burgas Wednesday.

The attacker killed himself, 5 Israeli tourists, and their Bulgarian driver, and sent dozens badly wounded to hospital.

Bulgarian police have not yet identified the perpetrator, but say they have a lot of evidence gathered.

According to a information by the Bulgarian Ministry of Foreign Affairs quoted by world media Saturday, police are now looking for a supposed accomplice.

Israeli media have published an image of the presumed accomplice, saying they had sources saying that was a US citizen named David Jepson.

The presumed suicide bomber was carrying on himself a fake Michigan driver's license with an address in Louisiana.

Bulgaria FM 'Refutes' Al Qaeda Responsibility for Burgas Attack

The Bulgarian Ministry of Foreign Affairs has refuted information from Israeli papers that the organization Qaedat al-Jihad has assumed responsibility for Wednesday's terrorist attack in Burgas.

This has been stated by Foreign Affairs Ministry spokeswoman Vesela Cherneva to Bulgaria's Focus Information Agency.

Earlier Saturday, Israeli papers the Israel Times and Yedioth Ahronoth stated that Qaedat al-Jihad, or Base of Jihad, had assumed responsibility via an e-mail to Lebanese paper Elnashra.

The organization, possibly an Al Qaeda unit, allegedly stated it organized the Burgas suicide bombing attack, which claimed the lives of 7, and vowed to pursue further acts of terror against Israel, the US and their allies.

In case the terrorist act has been organized by Al Qaeda, that would render less plausible claims by senior Israel statesmen, including President Shimon Peres and PM Benjamin Netanyahu that Hezbollah and Iran are responsible for the attack.

Bus bomber was not Bulgarian, says minister

The coffin of the five Israelis who were killed during the terror attack on a tour bus in Burgas, Bulgaria after their arrival at Ben Gurion International Airport near Tel Aviv on July 20, 2012. A suicide bomber carried out an attack that killed six people in a bus transporting Israeli tourists in Bulgaria, the country's interior minister. AFP PHOTO/JACK GUEZ

The man who blew up a bus carrying Israeli tourists at a Bulgarian airport, killing himself and six others, was not Bulgarian, the country's interior minister said on Friday.

Israel has accused Iranian-backed Hezbollah militants of carrying out Wednesday's attack at Burgas airport, a popular gateway for tourists visiting the Black Sea coast. Iran has denied having any involvement.

"We are talking about a person that is not a Bulgarian citizen," Interior Minister Tsvetan Tsvetanov told a news conference. "We are exchanging information with our Israeli colleagues and the other services."

Investigators said they managed to obtain DNA samples from the fingers of the bomber and were checking databases in an attempt to identify him. Bulgarian Prime Minister Boiko Borisov told parliament he hoped to pin down who the bomber was in three or four days.

The tourists had arrived in Bulgaria on a charter flight from Israel and were on the bus in the airport car park when the blast tore through the vehicle.

Bulgarian Interior Refutes Reports Terror Bomber Was Guantamo Detainee

Media reports claiming that the suicide bomber who blew a bus full of Israeli tourists in Bulgaria is Swedish ex Guantanamo detainee Mehdi Ghezali are false, stated the Bulgarian Ministry of Interior.

"Information circulated by media and elsewhere that the man who performed a suicide attack in Burgas is Mehdi Ghezali is not true," said the Ministry in a statement.

Earlier The Atlantic Wire had reported that Swedish officials had also refuted the allegations.

Bulgarian news site News.bg was among the first to publish the report, quoting its own forum users and refering to Ghezali's profile in the site CagePrisoners.com.

Born in Stockholm in 1979, Mehdi Ghezali is of mixed Algerian and Finnish descent.

He was detained in US detention camp of Guantanamo between 2002 and 2004, with no formal charges levied against him before his release.

Prior to his detention, Ghezali has studied at Muslim religious schools in the UK, and after that traveled to Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan and Pakistan, where he was detained.

At the same time, Bulgarian Minister of Interior Tsvetan Tsvetanov has stated that the "ring around the perpetrator is tightening up," but refused to reveal any details before the end of investigations.

4 NATO Warships Arrive in Bulgaria after Terror Attack

Four NATO combat ships have unexpectedly turned up in the major Bulgarian Black Sea port of Varna Thursday, following a deadly attack on Israeli tourists in Burgas.

The ships, from the UK, Turkey, Germany and Italy, have anchored at the Varna port under extreme security measures, informs OffNews.

According to the news site, the visit of the ships has not been planned.

Wednesday around 5.30 am, a bomb exploded on Burgas airport in a bus transporting Israeli tourists to the resort of Sunny Beach, killing 7 people and sending 32 to hospital.

Israel has sharply reacted to the tragic incident, with top officials including PM Benjamin Netanyahu throwing the blame on Iran.