BUENOS AIRES—On March 17, 1992, the bombing of the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires claimed the lives of 29 people, injuring nearly 250. Two years later, on July 18, 1994, a truck packed with explosives drove into the headquarters of the AMIA, a building of the Jewish community in Argentinian capital, killing 85 people and wounding over 300.
Iran and its Lebanese proxy Hezbollah are believed to be behind the two bombings.
In his address to the United Nations General Assembly, Argentina’s president Mauricio Macri remembered the victims of the 1992 and 1994 attacks and urged Iran to cooperate in the investigation of the AMIA Jewish center bombing, “the most brutal terrorist attack to occur on our territory.”
‘’We suffered two serious attacks in 1992 and 1994, which claimed the lives of 107 people and hundreds wounded,” Macri said last Tuesday in New York. “Our country will not cease in its objective: to get all the people involved in the attacks to appear before Argentine courts, to be interrogated and eventually convicted.
Noting that 2019 will mark the 25th anniversary of the AMIA atrocity, Macri said : “We want to get the people involved in the attacks to appear in Argentine courts.’’
The Argentinian president also called on the international community to avoid “sheltering or receiving” those accused of the atrocities. The Argentine leader referred to the “red notices” issued in 2007 by Interpol, the global law enforcement agency, seeking the arrest of the Iranian and Hezbollah operatives behind the AMIA bombing.
On Wednesday, Iran bluntly rejected Macri’s appeal and distanced itself from the attack. “The Islamic Republic of Iran strongly condemns acts of terrorism in any part of the world and in any shape,” the Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Bahram Qassemi said. “Accordingly, Tehran has repeatedly condemned the AMIA bombing since it took place and has expressed sympathy with the families of its victims.”
Of the original six “red notice” subjects, one of them — the notorious Hezbollah terrorist Imad Mughniyeh — is now dead, having been killed in a 2008 car bombing in Beirut. The surviving five — Ali Fallahijan, Mohsen Rabbani, Ahmad Reza Asghari, Ahmad Vahidi, and Mohsen Rezai — are understood to be in Iran.
