Argentina Seeking Hezbollah Official in ’92 Embassy Bombing

Argentina’s Supreme Court issued an arrest warrant Friday for a top Hezbollah security official for the 1992 car bombing of the Israeli Embassy here that killed 29 people.

Argentina, its large Jewish community and Israel blame the Iranian-backed Hezbollah, or Party of God, and the Palestinian group Islamic Jihad for that attack and another on the city’s Jewish community center in 1994 that killed 86 people.

Imad Mughniyah, a security officer for Hezbollah and former head of Islamic Jihad, is reported to be living in Tehran.

“The court has proof the attack was carried out by Islamic Jihad, so that’s why we’re seeking this man,” a Supreme Court official said. “The U.S. and German governments named him as head of Islamic Jihad at the time of the bombing.”

“When Hezbollah undertakes a major attack, they do it themselves, and in this case it was revenge for the death of a secretary-general of Hezbollah killed by the Israeli army,” said the court official, who asked not to be identified.

“In keeping with this strategy, there was no so-called local connection, which only increases the responsibility of the chief of this group,” he added.

The court asked Interpol to carry out the arrest warrant.

Mughniyah also is being sought by U.S. officials as a suspect in the 1983 bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Beirut and the 1985 hijacking of TWA Flight 847 from Athens to Rome.

Argentina is home to a well-established Jewish community of 300,000 people.

Iran has denied involvement in either of the anti-Jewish bomb attacks in Buenos Aires.