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Argentina finally going after Iran’s regime for 1994 Jewish center bombing

[additional-authors]
September 27, 2007

It’s taken 13 years and a presidential election, but the Argentine government is finally taking a brave stand against Iran for the regime’s involvement in terrorist activities that claimed the lives of innocent Argentine Jews during the 1990’s. Tuesday during his address to the U.N. General Assembly, Argentine President Nestor Kirchner denounced the lack of Iranian cooperation in identifying the responsible parties for a 1994 terrorist attack against a Buenos Aires Jewish community center.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad who spoke immediately after Kirchner did not refer to the Argentine leader’s comments. An Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman today said Kirchner’s remarks were either misinformed or based on influences from the Jewish community amid Argentina’s upcoming presidential elections. Iran and Hezbollah have repeatedly denied any involvement in the 1994 bombing.

In an interview on September 22, with Fox cable news, Miguel Angel Toma, the former head of the Argentina’s intelligence service, revealed that the Iranian government directly ordered terrorist bombings of the Buenos Aires Jewish community center that killed 85 people and injured 300. The Iranian President at the time, Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and members of the Iranian Supreme Council of Security met in Mashhad, Iran, on August 14, 1993 to plan the bombing, Toma said.

Last November Argentine federal Judge Rodolfo Canicoba Corral issued an arrest warrant for Rafsanjani and eight other former Iranian officials. On March 15, International police agency Interpol issued so-called Red notices for the arrest of five former Iranian officials, including former Intelligence Minister Ali Fallahian, and for a Lebanese member of Hezbollah. All have been put on an international watch list. Interpol however did not issue requested Red Notices for Rafsanjani, former Iranian Minister of Foreign Affairs Ali Akbar Velayati and former Iranian Ambassador to Argentina Hadi Soleimanpour.

The 1992 bombing attacks against the Israeli Embassy in 1992 killed at least 29 people and wounding 200 others. This bombing incident has also remained unresolved.

Those in the West who think we should be having a dialogue and negotiating with the so-called “moderates” in Iran like Rasanjani, should think twice and remember that he and others like him in the Iranian government have Jewish blood on their hands!

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