Bulgaria on Wednesday rejected the ultimatum of a group calling itself the “Al Qaeda organisation in Europe” which threatened to attack both Bulgaria and Poland unless they withdrew their troops from Iraq

Bulgaria on Wednesday rejected the ultimatum of a group calling itself the “Al Qaeda organisation in Europe” which threatened to attack both Bulgaria and Poland unless they withdrew their troops from Iraq. “We will not bow to the demands of terrorists. We will resist them. To give in to the demands of terrorists will only encourage more terror attacks,” President Georgy Parvanov said in Berlin on a visit to Germany. Defence Minister Nikolai Svinarov told reporters in Sofia: “I cannot accept this as a demand because any demand should come from a clear source. “The crusader Bulgarian government, ally of the Americans ... only knows the language of blood which will be expressed as in Spain, Washington and New York,” added the text posted on the website http://www.ansarnet.ws/vb/. It was referring to the September 2001 suicide attacks on New York and Washington, and the March 11 train bombings in Madrid, which killed 191 people. The authors also warned Poland: “Withdraw your troops from Iraq or we will make you hear the sound of explosions.” Svinarov said his country had already received similar threats since the September 2001 attacks, but added: “We know nothing about this group.” The Bulgarian national security services said in a statement that they have no “clear alert of any threat of terror attacks against Bulgaria.” Bulgaria has 470 troops stationed in Iraq, while Poland commands a 6,500-strong multinational force, which includes 2,500 of its own troops.