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Bring Those Indicted in 1994 Argentina Bombing to Trial

(Jerusalem Post) Matthew Levitt - Seventeen years ago this week, Hizbullah operatives working closely with Iranian intelligence blew up the Israeli-Argentine Mutual Association (AMIA) building in Buenos Aires, killing 85 people and wounding 300 more. Argentinean authorities conducted an extensive investigation, with significant international cooperation, and concluded that "the decision to carry out the AMIA attack was made, and the attack was orchestrated, by the highest officials of the Islamic Republic of Iran at the time, and that these officials instructed Lebanese Hizbullah...to carry out the attack." Argentinian prosecutors concluded that the decision to bomb the AMIA building was made at a meeting of Iran's Supreme National Security Council in Mashhad on August 14, 1993, where senior Iranian leaders approved the bombing plot and selected the AMIA building as the target. Iranian intelligence chief Ali Fallahian was given overall operational responsibility for the attack, and Qods Force Commander Ahmad Vahidi - who today serves as Iran's Minister of Defense - was instructed to provide any necessary assistance. Fallahian turned to Hizbullah's Imad Mughniyeh to execute the attack. The writer directs the Stein Program on Counterterrorism and Intelligence at The Washington Institute for Near East Policy.
2011-07-22 00:00:00
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