Bulgarian media on Thursday named the suicide bomber who blew up a bus full of Israeli tourists, killing five Israelis and a local bus driver, in the Black Sea resort of Burgas on Wednesday as Mehdi Ghezali.
There was no independent confirmation of the veracity of the information. The reports surfaced soon after Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had publicly accused Hezbollah, directed by Iran, of responsibility for the bombing. The Prime Minister’s Office made no comment on the reports.
The Bulgarian reports, rapidly picked up by Hebrew media, posited various versions of how the bomber had detonated the bomb, including the suggestion that the bomber had not intended to die in the blast, but may have wanted to place the bomb on the bus and flee.
Ghezali was reportedly a Swedish citizen, with Algerian and Finnish origins. He had been held at the US’s Guantanamo Bay detainment camp on Cuba from 2002 to 2004, having previously studied at a Muslim religious school and mosque in Britain, and traveled to Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. He was released to Swedish custody in 2004, and the Swedish government did not press charges. He was also reportedly among 12 foreigners captured trying to cross into Afghanistan in 2009.
OK. I trust the Israeli media about as far as I can throw the Wailing Wall, but it's pretty easy to check if this is the guy. If it's true, there is now zero chance Gitmo will ever close in our lifetimes. Period. Members of Congress will immediately be accused of Israel-hating anti-Semitism for even suggesting Gitmo should be closed, and all debate in the US will end on this for good. Even discussing this will be a grave insult to the memory of the victims of the blast.
We'll see where this goes, but my guess is we'll have another situation where Obama will be blamed by all sides for something that happened in Bush's first term.
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