On the 5th December 2018, the Bulgarian News Agency revealed that the security forces of Bulgaria had uncovered something that I believe should not just worry the citizens of Bulgaria. The security services discovered huge weapons caches, which included sound moderators and grenade launchers along with gunpowder and fake passports. Two Iranian nationals were taken into custody by Bulgarian police and are currently,as far as I can ascertain being questioned.
Now this weapons cache, may not necessarily have anything to do with Islamic terrorism and instead may be connected to the need for organised crime to obtain armaments, but on the other hand it may not. I’m particularly suspicious about the alleged involvement of the Iranians who have been picked up and the fact that one of false passports found was an Israeli one. The Iranian Government have long been funders and promoters of Islamic terrorism across the world and in particular in the Middle East and may have had influence over, or been the funders of, the gang behind the weapons cache. At this point in time such involvement by the Iranian government in this case for terroristic reasons is not being talked of openly, but it should not be seen as an impossibility.
The type of weapons that have been seized appear to be military grade ones that are by their nature expensive and difficult for those unauthorised to have them to secure. It is possible of course that these may be copies of military weapons made in illicit factories or stuff stolen or diverted from legitimate producers or holders and hopefully the origin of these weapons may become more clear over time.
However what is difficult to deny is that this is a particularly extensive and dangerous hoard of weapons and it forces us to ask the question ‘who was going to be using them? Were these going to be used in the course of robberies or other criminal activity or were there more terroristic customers who these weapons were destined for? This was certainly a sophisticated operation and well organised enough to be able to be able to create fake passports that met the biometric standards of Israel and similar nations. The sort of skills and equipment necessary to make such fake documents that would fool the border staff of the issuing nations is not that easily available. You can’t just walk into a pub and talk any old villain into providing such a service. It does make me wonder whether or not the gang behind both the weapons and the false passports has some form of backing from a rouge Islamic state actor? This could be the case. It may well be possible that the Iranians may be funding and supporting Shia terrorists in the West or other Islamic groups who may be useful to the Iranians.
If it is the case that these weapons were for terrorists rather than organised criminals then the citizens of Europe and European governments should start to worry. This cache may only be one of many similar ones that may still be hidden and not yet uncovered, waiting for the day when a gang of Muslims needs weapons for some sort of mass atrocity. This is a significant find but one that may raise more questions than it answers.
