Bulgarian reactions of sympathy to the victims of the bloody attack in Paris continue. So far, emotions prevail, but they will soon give way to reflection and thinking about the fact that a risk of such tragedies exists in Bulgaria.
After the attack in Paris Interior Ministry Chief Secretary Svetozar Lazarov said that Bulgaria was among the countries in which risk of terrorism existed. Currently there are no specific threats to the country, but in 2012 at the airport in Burgas a bloody terrorist act was carried out, killing five Israeli tourists and a Bulgarian. Although it was different from that in Paris, this act of terrorism in Bulgaria was also dictated by Islamic fanaticism. The perpetrators have not been revealed yet, but there are indications that the terrorists just like the killers in Paris, grew up and lived in the west.
There are no homegrown jihadists In Bulgaria but there are potential jihadists trained in Arab countries where they studied non-traditional and radical Islam. At the end of November last year, the Prosecution, the Agency for National Security and Interior Ministry carried out a large- scale operation in five cities against preaching radical Islam, particularly in Roma neighborhoods. Supporters’ behavior mimics the behavior of the supporters of the Islamic State. Those who don’t believe could search for a video in YouTube showing a demonstration in the town of Pazardzhik, Southern Bulgaria.
A representative of jihadist group "Islamic State" hailed the shooting against journalists in Paris as the first drop of revenge for insults against Islam, and expressed confidence that the killers followed the path of "our sheikh Osama bin Laden" and the leader of the Islamic State Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. This is the path of that same Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, who previously announced that the Islamic State was planning to establish a caliphate in Europe and the first country in the Balkans, where the black flag of the Islamic State would be unfurled, was Bulgaria.
A few days before the "jihad" in Paris, a Bulgarian court extradited to Spain three jihadists arrested at the border with Turkey - a Brazilian and two Moroccans who were about to join the fighters of the Islamic State in Syria. The case confirmed that Bulgaria is also a transit country for jihadists.
We are soon to see what measures will be taken by the authorities after the attack in Paris. Undoubtedly they will be in the spirit of the forthcoming EU proposal for new measures to combat terrorism and the decisions of the Foreign and Interior Ministers of the EU taken on the 19th and 28th of January.
English: Alexander Markov
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