In the aftermath, Thai press reports and photos revealed that the suspects in Bangkok took time from casing Israeli diplomatic targets to cavort with prostitutes. An ambitious plan to spread worldwide terror broke down because of questionable personnel and "improvised" plots, a French official said.
"Iran wanted to strike fast and strong," the French official said. "But they weren't ready. It was intended to send a signal. They failed."
Surveillance on Israeli Tourists
New incidents raised concerns in the weeks before the Bulgaria blast.
In June, the U.S. embassy in Nairobi issued a terror warning after Kenyan police arrested two alleged Quds Force officers and found 33 pounds of explosives in a shipping container in the port city of Mombasa. Authorities allege that they had Israeli, U.S. and Saudi targets in mind. The Iranian suspects have denied guilt and face trial.
An arrest took place in Cyprus on July 7. Police detained a suspected Hezbollah operative and charged him with conducting surveillance on Israeli tourists, who frequent the island in large numbers.
As in Thailand in January, the suspect held a passport from Sweden, which has an active, internationally connected community of extremists. He remains in jail. His profile fits a pattern of using operatives with Western documents.
Israeli leaders say the Cyprus case has close parallels to the bombing in Bulgaria 11 days later. If the investigation implicates Hezbollah and Iran, it could worsen the Middle East turmoil caused by the civil war in Syria.
While vowing a stern response to the bombing, Israel has also warned that it might intervene militarily if Syria attempts to transfer chemical weapons to its allies. Iran and Hezbollah have a vital triangular alliance with Syria, which plays a central role helping Iran fund, train and arm the Shiite militant group. The Syrian crisis has pushed Tehran and Hezbollah closer together, though Hezbollah Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah knows that supporting the regime in Damascus hurts his international image, experts say.
"When the individual interests of Hezbollah and Iran coincide, they are more dangerous," said Matthew Levitt of the Washington Institute on Near East Policy, a former deputy assistant secretary for intelligence at the Treasury Department.
As the tensions mount, the world's intelligence and law enforcement agencies are keeping a close watch on a network they say has a taste for risk and for striking in unexpected places.
"If there are hostilities, they would hit in the Middle East, Latin America, Europe," said Faddis, the CIA counterterror veteran. "And the U.S., if they could."
