Bezmer, Bulgaria – The news landed on Saturday, bringing relief to nearby villagers: two United States Air Force (USAF) refuelling aircraft had left Bulgaria’s Bezmer airbase.
“The USAF air tankers took off yesterday and left Bulgaria,” the country’s defence minister, Dimitar Stoyanov, announced, as President Iliana Yotova declared: “For now, this mission is over.”
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The US Air Force said the Boeing KC-135 Stratotankers, intended to aid Washington’s war on Iran, had left to support “other operational requirements”.
The village had spent weeks worrying that the aircraft could make their area in southeastern Bulgaria a target for Iranian attacks.
Tehran had urged Bulgaria against allowing its territory to be used for the US and Israel’s military operation against Iran. Later, citing unnamed Iranian sources, the Financial Times reported that in the event of Washington’s escalation in Iran, Iranian forces had “assessed striking US assets in southeastern European countries such as Bulgaria” after Sofia had approved the use of its Bezmer airbase for US refuelling aircraft.
“I pray to God that our village won’t be attacked,” a woman working at a local grocery shop, who requested anonymity, told Al Jazeera days before the tankers left. “We are scared, but nothing depends on us.”
Although the planes are gone, geopolitical tensions – as well as fears in Bezmer of being drawn into the US-Israel war on Iran once again – persist.
This week, Stoyanov told reporters that Iran had carried out an effective hybrid operation, aided by Bulgarian politicians in the opposition.
“Unfortunately, this hybrid operation will continue,” he predicted in comments understood to have been directed at the opposition. Stoyanov did not elaborate further.
In Bezmer, a village of about 1,000 people that sits beside the base, Bulgarian military aircraft have long been part of the landscape. Many residents work at the base, according to Rosen Rusev, the mayor, and the sound of aircraft overhead is routine.
But in late July, the Bulgarian government proposed – and Parliament approved – the deployment of as many as eight US Air Force Stratotankers and up to 250 personnel.
Within two days, residents of Bezmer and nearby villages had collected more than 3,000 signatures against the deployment and held peaceful protests.
They did not want their village to become part of the war on Iran.
Rusev said a buzzy atmosphere took hold of Bezmer on Friday, when residents realised the tankers had left.
“Now they feel their voice is finally heard,” he told Al Jazeera. “It happened just as they wanted.”
The government had moved to reassure residents. Stoyanov said military intelligence had identified no threat to national security, the US aircraft or other facilities in Bulgaria. A United Kingdom assessment requested by the government had reportedly judged the risk as extremely low.
But reassurances did little to calm everyone.
With temperatures soaring to about 30 degrees Celsius (86F), two friends, Dinka Todorova, 67, and Ganka Vlaeva, 78, sat in plastic chairs in the shade.
Both have children who work at the airbase.
“We shiver day after day and pray that the war doesn’t come here,” Vlaeva said. “We are the first target, and many people will die.”
“And children, too,” Todorova added quietly. “For the ambitions of the greedy.”
Vlaeva said she was disappointed with the government and lawmakers, accusing them of ignoring the villagers’ petition.
“They don’t want to hear the voice of the people who elected them,” she said.
Not everyone in Bezmer shared that concern.
Ivan, a 33-year-old who sat beside the village church with his electric bicycle nearby, said that “groundless panic” was spread “recklessly”.
“There’s no danger for the village,” he concluded.
He is more worried about the possibility of interceptor missiles, or “something coming from Russia across the Black Sea”.
As residents protested, Antoniya Ivanova, whose father is a serviceman at the base, hung a white sheet over an aerial photograph of Bezmer. Animated films were projected onto it for children “to wind down the accumulated stress”, she explained.
“We’re the most innocent in this whole situation,” she said. “We didn’t want those aeroplanes near our homes.”
Children filled the playground as the afternoon cooled.
“Maybe there is a chance of attacks, but I think the media exaggerates,” said Tsonka Moskova, a mother in the village. “Whatever is meant to happen will happen. Those above us decide – the government. They are to blame.”
A low-flying AS532 Cougar helicopter passed overhead. Nobody looked up. The residents are accustomed to Bulgarian military aircraft.
Rusev, the fourth-term independent mayor, spent days trying to navigate between the villagers’ fears and officials. The protests were not an attempt to bring down the government, he said.
“We just wanted adequate information about the potential threats if the planes remained stationed here and what the guarantees for our safety were,” he said.
Social media made the situation harder, he added.
In Facebook groups, officials and experts struggled to compete with thousands of comments, many speculative and panic-inducing.
Military police also patrolled the village and the area around the airbase, adding to a sense of fear for some, and a sense of safety for others.
While Bulgaria is in the range of some Iranian missiles, some analysts argue that Iran is unlikely to have the capacity – or genuine will – for successful missile attacks against Bulgaria or elsewhere in continental Europe.
On Monday, Prime Minister Rumen Radev said that the tankers had not made a single flight “south from the airport”, but had travelled to fellow NATO member nations for training and exercises.
But also on Monday, Iran’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said Tehran reserved the right to counter “any action regarded as supporting US and Israeli military aggression” against it.
“We have no issue with the Bulgarian people,” Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei said. “It was previously announced – and reports have also confirmed – that several refuelling aircraft have left Bulgarian territory.
“As many Bulgarian citizens and politicians themselves have acknowledged, this action is contrary to international law and amounts to support for the military aggression by the United States and the Israeli regime against Iran.”
Back in the village, a woman said she was not afraid of Iran’s threats.
She did not want to be named or photographed for this article.
“I am definitely not scared. God is keeping us safe,” she told Al Jazeera. “I lie down and sleep in peace, for you alone, Lord, make me live in safety,” she said, reciting a line from the Bible.
