Israel boosted security at El Al airport counters and around embassies across
the globe on Thursday amid concern that Iran and Hezbollah are plotting
additional attacks in the near future.
On Thursday, officials from the
Mossad and the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) convened a meeting to discuss
future coordination and to assess the threat level in various countries
throughout the world.
Defense officials said that specific attention was
being given to airports where security was lax and to Israeli tour buses, like
the one that was attacked on Wednesday by a suicide bomber in the Bulgarian
resort town of Burgas.
On Thursday, Bulgaria released video footage of
the suspected bomber. He is seen wearing shorts, a baseball hat, with long hair
and a backpack.
ABC News obtained a photograph of the fake Michigan
driver’s license authorities found, which named him as Jacque Filepe Martin from
Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
Bulgaria is checking to see if the passport found
on his body was also forged.
Bulgarian authorities said that the bomber
had arrived in the country about four to seven days before the bombing and that
he was about 35 years old.
Security authorities said that he had carried
the explosives in his backpack and that it was possible that he had not
initially intended on carrying out a suicide attack.
“It’s possible he
did not plan on being a suicide bomber and instead intended to place the bag on
the bus but something went wrong. Either way, we will never know,” one official
said.
Bulgarian Interior Minister Tsvetan Tsvetanov said that the bomb
went off when the bomber was standing at the entrance to the bus. In the
meantime, security has been beefed up outside of Jewish synagogues, schools and
institutions in Bulgaria.
The country is also searching for additional
suspects who might have helped the bomber arrive in Burgas and supply him with
the explosives. One possibility is that he arrived in Bulgaria via Turkey or
came from a local Muslim family in Bulgaria.
“Hezbollah has a presence in
the country,” one official noted.