• Terrorists Target Israeli Tour Bus in Bulgaria - Edmund Sanders
  An Israeli tour bus ferrying vacationers in the Bulgarian resort city of Burgas exploded Wednesday in a terrorist attack, killing seven people and injuring more than 30. (Los Angeles Times)
      See also 5 Israelis Killed, 34 Hurt in Bulgaria Suicide Bombing - Yaniv Kubovich and Barak Ravid
  Footage from airport security cameras captured the suspected suicide bomber roaming the airport for at least one hour, the Bulgarian news agency Novinite reported. He was a long-haired Caucasian with a fake U.S. driver's license. (Ha'aretz)
      See also Israel Evacuates Injured from Bulgaria - Carmit Reuven
  Two Israel Air Force C-130 aircraft landed in Burgas, Bulgaria, Thursday to airlift the Israelis injured in Wednesday's terror attack back to Israel. (Ynet News)
• Jordan's King Abdullah: Syrian Chemical Weapons Could Fall into Al-Qaeda Hands - Wolf Blitzer
  King Abdullah II of Jordan said in an interview broadcast Wednesday: "All the countries in the region and the international community have been looking at [Syria's] weapons of what we call mass destruction, the chemical and biological weapons, as elements of tremendous concern....We can't afford the use of those chemical weapons, obviously on the Syrian people, but also the chemical weapons falling into the wrong hands."
      "Our information is that there is a presence of al-Qaeda in certain regions inside Syria; has been there for a while. And, again, one of the worst-case scenarios...would be if some of those chemical stockpiles were to fall into unfriendly hands."  (CNN)
      See also Washington Begins to Plan for Collapse of Syrian Government, Discusses Fate of Syrian Weapons with Israel - Helene Cooper
  Pentagon officials were in talks with Israeli defense officials about whether Israel might move to destroy Syrian weapons facilities, two administration officials said. The administration is not advocating such an attack because of the risk that it would give Assad an opportunity to rally support against Israeli interference. (New York Times)
      See also Syria's Chemical Weapons - Spencer Ackerman and Noah Shachtman (Wired)
• Rebels Keep Pressure on Assad in Damascus - Khaled Yacoub Oweis and Erika Solomon
  Syrian rebels kept up pressure on President Assad following the assassination of three top lieutenants, fighting loyalist troops within sight of the presidential palace and near government headquarters, Damascus residents said Thursday. (Reuters)

• Netanyahu: Iran Behind Terror Attack Against Israelis in Bulgaria
  Following Wednesday's terror attack in Bulgaria, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said: "All signs point towards Iran. Over the last few months we have seen Iran's attempts to attack Israelis in Thailand, India, Georgia, Kenya, Cyprus and other countries. Exactly 18 years to the day after the horrendous attack on the Jewish Community Center in Argentina, deadly Iranian terrorism continues to strike at innocent people. This is a global Iranian terror onslaught and Israel will react firmly to it."  (Prime Minister's Office)
• Who Is Behind the Bulgaria Attack? - Ron Ben-Yishai
  The terror attack at the Bulgaria airport is an almost exact repeat of the attack thwarted by Bulgarian security forces in January. Then, a bus full of Israeli tourists was supposed to be blown up using explosives snuck into it. The bombing thwarted in January was the work of Hizbullah. This time, apparently, it's Hizbullah's terror apparatus in conjunction with the al-Quds force of Iran's Revolutionary Guards. (Ynet News)
• Report: Assad Troops Defect En Masse, Opposition Says - Ilan Ben Zion
  Syrian opposition sources reported mass defections of Syrian Army soldiers on Wednesday in the wake of a bombing that killed top Assad ministers. The Local Coordination Committees in Syria tweeted Wednesday that 60 soldiers defected in Homs and 50 special forces troops abandoned their posts in the Qaboun neighborhood of Damascus. Additional defections were reported in the Syrian towns of Kafr Zita, Tayba, Sqeilbieh, Maroc, Kafr Naboodah, Salamieh, and Aqirbayat Station. The Free Syrian Army claimed Wednesday that regime soldiers had withdrawn from the Midan neighborhood of Damascus, abandoning their armored personnel carriers on the side of the road. (Times of Israel)
• Sen. Lieberman: U.S. Must Act on Iran Soon - Hilary Leila Krieger
  Senator Joseph Lieberman warned Tuesday that the U.S. soon faces a choice between allowing Iran to acquire nuclear weapons or taking military action to stop it. "For me, there is only one choice," he told thousands of Christians United for Israel activists in Washington. "I have absolutely no doubt that it is within our power to stop Iran from becoming a nuclear weapons country. The question is not whether we can stop them, but whether we will choose to stop them." He pointed to a bipartisan Senate resolution with 78 cosponsors declaring that when it comes to Iran, "all options are on the table except one, and that one is containment of a nuclear Iran."  (Jerusalem Post)

• Syria's War Hits the House of Assad - Fouad Ajami
  With Wednesday's rebel bomb attack on a meeting of Bashar al-Assad's top lieutenants, killing at least three, the war has come to the House of Assad itself. Asef Shawkat, the ruler's brother-in-law and deputy chief of staff of the armed forces, was a big player in the regime.
      The Assads took the Alawites - a historically despised community - from destitution and gave them a dominion of four decades. The edifice was unnatural, a majority Sunni society with pride as to its place in Islamic history submitting to the rule of a "godless" bunch of schismatics. The writer is a senior fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution. (Wall Street Journal)
• Looking for a Syrian Endgame - David Ignatius
  President Obama is seeking a "managed transition" in Syria with the twin goals of removing President Bashar al-Assad as soon as possible and doing so without the evaporation of the authority of the Syrian state. The need to safeguard Syria's chemical-weapons arsenal is one reason why the U.S. is stressing an orderly transfer in which the opposition works with acceptable elements of the regime and army.
      The most urgent question for CIA officers is how potent are al-Qaeda and its affiliates in the Syrian opposition. The answer seems to be that, while al-Qaeda is a factor, other opposition groups are promising the U.S. that they will root it out - once they have disposed of the Assad regime. (Washington Post)

Syrian Rebels Land Deadly Blow to Assad's Inner Circle - Neil MacFarquhar (New York Times)

• The killing on Wednesday of President Bashar al-Assad's key security aides in a brazen bombing attack close to Assad's own residence dealt a potent blow to the Syrian government. It targeted the very cabinet ministers and intelligence chiefs who have coordinated the government's iron-fisted approach to the uprising.
• The bombing pierced the psychological advantage that Assad's superior military strength has provided in preserving the loyalty of his forces and frightening much of the public into staying home.
• With the opposition energized and the government demoralized, analysts wondered if other military units and trusted lieutenants would be more inclined to switch sides.

• Something fundamental shifted in Damascus on Wednesday. The Syrian government has managed to insulate Damascus from the rest of the country since the uprising began in March 2011.
• It became a kind of a psychological yardstick: if Damascus remained under control, it meant the Assad government was still in control.