JERUSALEM — Israel’s prime minister said Sunday that his country is on alert for plots to kill more of its citizens overseas, after speculation that last week’s suicide bombing of a tour bus in Bulgaria was a rehearsal for a spectacular attack on Israel’s Olympic team.
Israel blames Iran and its Lebanese proxy Hezbollah for last week’s bombing at an airport in the Bulgarian resort town of Burgas, just a little more than a week before the opening of the London Games. Five Israelis and a bus driver were killed. Iran called the accusation “baseless.”
Although Israeli officials are tight-lipped about security procedures for their athletes, they are on high alert on the 40th anniversary of a Palestinian attack at the 1972 Olympics in Munich that killed 11 Israeli athletes and coaches.
“We are vigilant about the possibility that they (Iran and its agents) would attack elsewhere, but I can’t give specific details,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on CBS’s “Face the Nation” on Sunday.
He pointedly kept mum when asked to comment on media reports that Israel feared that the Bulgaria attack was a precursor to an assault on Israel’s Olympic team.
“I’m not confirming any information that we have on the Olympics,” he said. Concerning media reports to that effect, he added, “I can’t give you any substantiation.”
The heads of the Mossad and Shin Bet intelligence agencies briefed the Cabinet on attempts by Iran and Hezbollah to carry out attacks in more than 20 countries over the past two years, the prime minister’s office said in a statement.
Protecting Israeli athletes at the Olympics has been a particular concern since Palestinian gunmen took 11 Israeli athletes and coaches hostage at the Munich Games. They were later killed. The Israeli team will be kept away from the others in a secluded, heavily secured area, a senior Israeli intelligence official told The Associated Press.
Defense Minister Ehud Barak told reporters that intelligence agencies around the world were working with the British “to minimize the chances that there will be any sort of incident during the Olympics.”
