(New York Times) Mark Dubowitz and Toby Dershowitz - On July 18, 1994, Hizbullah operative Ibrahim Hussein Berro drove a van filled with 606 pounds of ammonium nitrate fertilizer and fuel oil into the Buenos Aires Jewish community center (AMIA). More than 300 Argentines were wounded and 85 were murdered in the bloodiest terrorist attack in Argentina's history. From 2004 until 2015, prosecutor Alberto Nisman found that the attack was an Iranian-planned operation, and that former president Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner was behind a cover-up designed to whitewash Iran's role. Federal judge Claudio Bonadio last week handed down a 491-page indictment against Kirchner; her foreign minister, Hector Timerman; her intelligence chief; her top legal adviser; two pro-Iran activists; and 10 others. On Jan. 18, 2015, the day before Nisman was to testify to the Argentine Congress on Kirchner's role in the cover up, he was found dead, despite the fact that he had a 10-man security detail paid to protect him. Nisman had determined that Iran's former president, Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani; its minister of intelligence; its foreign minister; the head of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps; the head of the corps' Quds force; the Iranian cultural attache in Argentina; and the third secretary at Iran's Embassy in Buenos Aires were involved in planning the AMIA bombing. Mark Dubowitz is chief executive and Toby Dershowitz is senior vice president at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.
2017-12-15 00:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive