Iran and Terror...

Ahmadinejad and his ilk are not just 'mad'...but really dangerous...

On March 17, 1992, a suicide bomber crashed an explosive-filled truck into a building filled with Israelis in Buenos Aires. The bombing was so powerful that the destruction covered several city blocks--29 innocents were killed and hundreds more were injured. This occurred more than 8,000 miles from Tehran. Two years later, on July 18, 1994, Buenos Aires was again hit with a terror attack. This time the target was the Jewish community center in the center of the city--85 were killed.

Argentina was, understandably, rattled. The government launched a full-scale investigation. One of the key officials assigned to it was Miguel Angel Toma (later appointed by then President Eduardo Duhalde as secretary of intelligence from 2002-03). Mr. Toma is not a warmonger. And he did not approach his job with any ideological ax to grind. He concluded not only that Hezbollah carried out the attacks in Argentina, but that at least one of them was planned in Iran at the highest levels of the Iranian government, aided by a sophisticated sleeper-cell network in Latin America. He also concluded that the attacks were strategically aimed at punishing the Argentinean government.

Iran and Argentina had had commercial ties throughout the 1970s and '80s valued at hundreds of millions of dollars, and had entered into agreements to jointly pursue nuclear energy and missile programs. But by 1989, a new civilian government headed by Carlos Menem had come to power and canceled its prior agreements with Iran. As far as Iran was concerned, it was time to punish Argentina for the reversal and send a warning shot to the rest of Latin America. And by focusing on soft targets in Jewish communities, the operations would serve an additional objective: demonstrating to Israel that Hezbollah could hit anywhere at anytime.

Mr. Toma says--based on Argentina's cooperation with intelligence agencies around the world--he's certain of the date, location and participants in the decision by the Iranian government to execute the second Buenos Aires attack. He pinpoints it to a meeting that occurred in the holy Iranian city of Mashhad on Aug. 14, 1993. It was presided over by the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, then and now the Supreme Leader of Iran; and the Iranian president at the time, Ali-Akbar Rafsanjani. Following this meeting, Mr. Toma believes that Iran began working with Hezbollah in the planning, funding and staffing of the 1994 attack in Argentina. Indeed, Argentina has issued warrants for nine Hezbollah operatives and Iranian leaders, including Mr. Rafsanjani. Nobody has been arrested.