the american newspaper The New York Times (NYT) released this Friday a recent report by the Israeli intelligence service, Mossad, according to which the two attacks in Buenos Aires were committed by agents of the pro-Iranian Lebanese organization, Hezbollah, but without the participation of either Argentine citizens or personnel from the Iranian embassy. The text indicates that Israeli intelligence continues to think that Tehran approved the attacks, financed them and perhaps trained the commandos that came to Argentina to carry out the attacks, but that the recent investigation contradicts what has been affirmed for years and years. . Among the surprising points of the report known in Israel It is mentioned that the explosives entered the country in shampoo bottles and chocolate boxes, and a very unbelievable piece of information that has been considered before is reiterated: that the explosives were hidden in a square or park. According to the NYT, the report is critical of Mossad itself for not having foreseen the attacks. In the AMIA prosecutor’s office, obviously they are not going to be guided by what a newspaper says, but they will ask Israel for the report. It happens that if I had real, judicial evidence, Mohsen Rabbani -former cultural attaché of the Iranian embassy in Buenos Aires and until now considered the mastermind of the attacks-, Hadi Soleimanpour, former ambassador, and Ahmad Asghari, third secretary of the embassy, all of them accused, among others, by the prosecutor Alberto Nisman.
Specifically, the Mossad says that several Hezbollah commandos participated in the preparation and execution of the attack once morest the Israeli embassy, without the help of Argentines or Iranians from Buenos Aires. “Iran did not have an operational role in the attacks in Argentina”headlined several Israeli newspapers.
According to the text known this Friday:
*The operational chief was a certain Hassan Haraki, who used Brazilian documentation to enter the country and buy the Ford F-100 truck that exploded at the diplomatic headquarters of Suipacha and Arroyo. Indeed, the vehicle was purchased at a used car dealership on Juan B. Justo Avenue with a document in the name of a certain Ribeiro Da Luz.
*There was a second Hezbollah operative chief, Talal Hamiyah, who also came to Buenos Aires for the attack. The text released by the NYT speaks of other members of the operative group who left the country the day following the attack.
*The suicide — always according to the Mossad report — was a certain Muhammad Nur al Din, 24, Lebanese, who had come to live in Brazil a few years earlier and agreed to be the suicide driver.
“The Israeli investigation indicates that the explosives used in the two attacks were brought into Argentina by Hezbollah operatives in shampoo bottles and chocolate boxes. They were transported on commercial flights from various European countries. Then they hid in a square. “The chemicals used to assemble the bombs were purchased by a commercial company used as cover for Hezbollah operations in South America,” Israeli journalist Ronen Bergman transcribed in the NYT.
None of this can be verified and it seems hardly credible. In the case of AMIA, 300 kilos of ammonal were used, a fertilizer that surely did not come from abroad. Perhaps dynamite was used as a starter. Fewer kilos were required at the Israeli embassy, possibly 80, and it was never fully determined whether it was trotyl, penthrite or hexogen. In the case of the diplomatic headquarters, the experts maintained that the explosive came from a military unit. In any case, it does not seem very logical that they have brought explosives in shampoo bottles and chocolate boxes –the explosive is a kind of cream–, running the risk of being discovered or of an accident, since this material is available in the country. . Even less credible is that he has hidden in a park or square, places of public access.
From what was transcribed in New York and in Israel, the text is critical of Mossad itself for not having warned of the attacks in advance. This is especially true in the case of the AMIA, since there was the precedent of the Embassy. There is an important detail in the report: it indicates that following the first attack, in March 1992, a meticulous monitoring of the Iranian embassy in Buenos Aires was carried out and that no strange movement was noticed. That is why the second attack surprised them. It is one of the basic elements by which they affirm that there was no local connection, neither Iranian nor Argentine.
If the Mossad text were given judicial validity, the accusations once morest Rabbani, Soleimapour and Asghari, the Iranian officials who were in Buenos Aires, would fall. The cultural attache was always pointed out by the former SIDE and by Nisman as the organizer of the attack and the accusations were even sustained with the argument that he called Lebanon by phone. A question that seems rather ridiculous was also used as evidence: Rabbani went to ask the price of a van on Juan B. Justo Avenue in November 1993. He did it dressed in religious habits, something unthinkable for someone who is planning an attack.
In any case, the AMIA case is permanently tied to intelligence reports. There is almost no judicial evidence in the file and it would be necessary to see if the Mossad report provides any more precise elements: for example, through which companies the importation of shampoo and boxes of chocolate was made, what documents were used by the Hezbollah operatives to enter the country or other data that allows you to check something. It is difficult 30 years following the attack on the Embassy and 28 following the attack on the Jewish mutual. The NYT text states that the report itself is a blow to the investigations carried out so far by the United States, Israel and Argentina. He says it explicitly.
Criticism of the document
After knowing the report, the Group for the Clarification of the Unpunished Massacre of the AMIA (APEMIA), assured that it is “a new operation” of the Mossad.
“Israel is in charge of ending the ‘international connection’ that -until today- Argentina continues to impute to Iran, following the Prosecutors tried to dismiss the ‘local connection,'” the group said in a statement, adding: ” Israel is on its way to ending the common version that they fabricated 28 years ago with Argentina, a few hours following the AMIA attack, to accuse Iran.With the new report, the Mossad considers its own accusations out of date and acknowledges that this was never true! It was a construction!!
We repudiate this new maneuver by Israeli Intelligence in aid of its partner, the Argentine State, which all official evidence shows as responsible for the commission of the attack on the AMIA.”
Finally, APEMIA proposed, once once more, the creation of an Investigative Commission together with personalities representing Human Rights and political, social, academic organizations, with access to the declassified archives of the State “to study those official documents and the evidence of criminal responsibility in this true political crime, the attack on the AMIA”.
