How a cache of weapons in southern Bulgaria is allegedly linked to a Hamas cell, planning attacks in Europe. iMEdD followed the trail of a man accused of being involved in the network.
In August 2023, a man and a woman arrived at a small motel in the town of Plovdiv in southern Bulgaria. The owner had no way of knowing that the purpose of the couple’s visit was to inspect a weapons cache a few kilometers away. Later that year, Bulgarian police discovered the weapons buried in a deserted area outside the city.
The Cache Under the Tree
Along a side road off the highway connecting Plovdiv to the city of Asenovgrad, traces of the December 2023 police operation still remain. Under a tree, a hole in the ground marks the spot where security forces uncovered a buried suitcase full of heavy weaponry: a Kalashnikov, a Makarov pistol, three Tulskiy Tokarev pistols, a silencer and ammunition.
“There was a big police operation here. Men in white coveralls arrived, along with three fire trucks and an ambulance. They showed up around noon and were still here at 4 p.m., which is when I left,” an eyewitness told iMEdD.
The area is remote, surrounded by fields and dirt roads. Near one of these roads, two trees stand amid low vegetation. “They were looking for something under and around the tree,” the eyewitness continued, pointing to the hole in the ground.
The man who visited the motel to inspect the weapons has been identified as Lebanese-born Ibrahim El R. In December 2023, he was arrested in Berlin, along with two other men, while a fourth suspect was detained in Rotterdam. They are accused of being Hamas members plotting attacks on Jewish and other targets in Europe.
Responding to iMEdD, the Office of the Federal Public Prosecutor General of Germany confirmed that “the weapons were discovered near the town of Plovdiv and secured by the Bulgarian police in December 2023.” A source close to the case said the weapons were destroyed after their seizure.
Meanwhile, the local eyewitness in Bulgaria explained that the location of the police operation was a well-known landmark. “For many years, there was a well here, and it was a reference point for the local community. They must have had help from someone local to know this exact spot,” he said.
At the Motel
Ibrahim El R. was not alone on his trip to Bulgaria in August 2023. He was accompanied by a woman identified as A.B.G. The two stayed at a motel near the bus station in Plovdiv, about 14 km from where the weapons were found.
“The room was booked by the woman through an online platform. They stayed for one or two nights, but I only met the woman in person,” the motel owner told iMEdD. “The counterterrorism agency came here and asked me questions, but I don’t know anything else.”
A source familiar with the case, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that German and Bulgarian authorities discovered the location of the firearms after examining photos and evidence found on Ibrahim El R’s mobile phone. Data obtained from the GPS of the rental car used by the couple helped authorities track his movements in Bulgaria and locate the weapons cache. The car had been rented in Sofia. The owner said the man, accused of being a Hamas member, had rented the car in his name for five days.
iMEdD reached out to both the Prosecutor’s Office in Plovdiv and the Bulgarian Interior Ministry for updates on the case involving the weapons, which are believed to be linked to a Hamas cell. As of publication, no responses had been received.
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The Bulgarian Kalashnikov and the Palestinian Fighters
Maya Yordanova, an Arabic translator, works for the Embassy of Palestine in Bulgaria and teaches at Sofia University. We met her in a grand university building in the city centre. At the entrance an engraved sign greets the visitor: “Centre for Eastern Languages and Cultures.”
Yordanova explained that during Bulgaria’s communist era, the country had a significant arms industry. “Bulgaria, like all the states of the former Eastern bloc, supported liberation movements in Palestine and the rest of the Arab world,” she told iMEdD, sitting at the edge of a large table in a university conference room, surrounded by posters about Islam and Arab culture.
In the 1980s, Yordanova worked as a translator at the Academy of Social Sciences and Management of the Bulgarian Communist Party Central Committee, where she frequently interacted with members of the Palestinian community.
“One of my contacts in Palestine told me at the time that the Bulgarian Kalashnikov was the favourite weapon of Palestinian fighters,” she recalled.
The situation appears to have changed in recent years. Ruslan Trad, a research fellow at the Atlantic Council’s DFR Lab, is an expert on security and weapons in the Balkans and the Middle East. “While Bulgaria sells relatively small quantities of arms to Israel compared to other European countries, cooperation between the two countries is significant in areas such as counterterrorism and cybersecurity,” he noted.
Trad further explained that Bulgaria is believed to have active members and supporters of various organisations, including Hamas, Hezbollah, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Fatah. Hezbollah, in particular, has allegedly maintained a presence and an organised network in the country for decades. In 2012, a suicide bombing that killed five Israeli tourists at Burgas Airport, a coastal city in southeastern Bulgaria, was attributed to Hezbollah, though the group denied involvement.
Trad believes that Hamas, through its contacts with Hezbollah, is using Bulgaria as a “logistical hub” and “transit point” for people and illegal cargo due to the country’s geographical location. “Weapons and other equipment purchased in Croatia, Bulgaria and Serbia are shipped through Bulgarian and Greek ports – often with stops in Africa – before heading to the Middle East, where they reach Iran or its proxies,” Trad said.
The Associated Press reported that since the start of the war in Gaza on Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas militants have been using weapons made in Bulgaria. “This should not be surprising,” Ruslan Trad commented.
“The Middle East is a key market and, for many years, Bulgarian companies maintained close ties with the Assad regime in Syria and the Algerian government —both points of departure for supplies to Palestinian factions in Gaza. All factions in Gaza have Bulgarian weapons, mainly anti-tank rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs) and anti-tank shells.”
“Foreign Operators”
The investigation traces a path backward from Bulgaria to the heart of Europe. On December 14, 2023, Ibrahim El R. and three other men—a Lebanese national, one Egyptian, and one Dutch, all aged between 34 and 56—were arrested in Berlin and Rotterdam as suspected Hamas members. German authorities believe all four individuals had been involved in the organisation’s operations abroad for years.
According to case files, investigations by German prosecutors uncovered an extensive network of Hamas strategic operations. Among other findings, they detailed how weapons caches were established in Bulgaria and Denmark and how preparations were made for potential attacks in Europe.
Responsibility for locating and transferring the weapons had been assigned by Hamas leadership in Lebanon to one of the arrested men as early as spring 2023.
A statement from the German Prosecutor’s Office indicated that the defendants had close ties to the leadership of the Al Qassam Brigades, Hamas’s military wing, which plays a key role in the organisation’s international operations.
According to an SWR/ARD investigation, Ibrahim El R. had travelled to Lebanon four years ago, in April 2019, where he received orders from senior members of the Al Qassam Brigades to build a weapons cache in Bulgaria. The plan was implemented immediately. In early May 2019, Ibrahim El R. created the cache and buried the weapons, allegedly recording the exact location on his mobile phone so he could return. Local authorities believe he left Bulgaria on the same day. Police sources confirmed that in preparation for the October 7 attack on Israel, Hamas had “mobilised” weapons from European stockpiles for potential attacks in Europe. German prosecutors believe it is likely that the four-man cell was activated in preparation for the October 7 attack.
According to the German authorities, the ultimate goal of the arrested men, who are described as Hamas “foreign operators”, was to transport the weapons to Berlin. A Dutch investigator involved in the case, who spoke on condition of anonymity, explained that the group’s possible targets reportedly included the Israeli embassy in Berlin, the US Ramstein Air Base and the Tempelhof district in Berlin. A Hamas official, speaking to Reuters, denied any involvement by the group.
German authorities, however, believe that the targeted sites were of strategic importance to Hamas, as they represent both symbolic and military hubs: the Israeli embassy signifies Israel’s presence in Germany, the US base in Ramstein is a vital part of NATO’s infrastructure, and the Tempelhof district is a densely populated area with critical infrastructure. It should be noted that Hamas has never previously carried out attacks outside Palestinian territories and Israel. The US, the EU and the UK, among others, have designated Hamas as a terrorist organisation.
Hamas Network in Europe
Israeli intelligence services contributed to the German investigation. In January 2024, the Office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu issued a statement on Hamas’ activities in Europe, accompanied by a diagram outlining Hamas’ “command structure for terrorism abroad,” as noted.
At the bottom of the blueprint are photographs of the four individuals arrested in the Bulgaria case, marked in red with the label “in custody.” Next to them are other suspected Hamas collaborators from Sweden and Denmark – most of them unnamed.
According to Israeli intelligence, the four men’s direct contact and overseer of the group’s operations in Europe was Khalil Hamed al Kharraz, a deputy commander of the Al Qassam Brigades in Lebanon, who was killed in an Israeli strike on November 21, 2023, in southern Lebanon. His death is believed to have had a direct impact on the network in Europe. One of the four detainees reportedly even travelled to Lebanon for his funeral. At the top of the hierarchy is Saleh al-Arouri, deputy chairman of the Hamas Political Bureau, who was assassinated in Lebanon in January 2024.
In the photos of both men, the red marker is different: “dead”.
The Caches in Poland and Denmark
According to German prosecutors, the four arrested men were allegedly aware of similar secret locations in Denmark and Poland.
Specifically, Ibrahim El R. is said to have “cleared out” a Hamas weapons cache in Denmark during the summer of 2019 and transported “at least one pistol” back to Germany. According to a German security services file, he received detailed information from the Al Qassam Brigades regarding the cache’s location and contents. He then travelled by coach to Denmark in August 2019 and returned to Berlin later that month, carrying the weapons in a bag.
Between June and December 2023, the four arrested men, working in changing teams, made multiple trips from Berlin in an effort to locate another weapons cache in Poland.
German media reported that authorities grew suspicious when the men were spotted crossing the German-Polish border, carrying shovels and camping gear, with their clothes covered in dirt.
German police investigators, in cooperation with their Polish counterparts, have repeatedly searched for the hidden weapons, believed to be near the border between the two countries. However, they have yet to locate them.
Additional reporting in Bulgaria by Nikolay Doychinov.
Translation: Anatoli Stavroulopoulou.
Read all articles and analyses of the Special Report: “Armories of the Middle East” here.
This article was first published on Feb. 22 by the weekend edition of the newspaper “TA NEA”.
