The attack on the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires was a

suicide bombing A suicide attack is any violent attack, usually entailing the attacker detonating an explosive, where the attacker has accepted their own death as a direct result of the attacking method used. Suicide attacks have occurred throughout histor ...

attack on the building of the Israeli embassy of Argentina, located in Buenos Aires, which was carried out on 17 March 1992. 29 civilians were killed in the attack and 242 additional civilians were injured.

The attack

Arroyo 910 - Embajada de Israel en Argentina

On 17 March 1992, at 2:42 pm (UTC−3), a pick-up truck driven by a

suicide bomber A suicide attack is any violent attack, usually entailing the attacker detonating an explosive, where the attacker has accepted their own death as a direct result of the attacking method used. Suicide attacks have occurred throughout histor ...

and loaded with explosives smashed into the front of the Israeli Embassy located on the corner of Arroyo and Suipacha, and detonated. The embassy, a Catholic church, and a nearby school building were destroyed. Four Israelis died, but most of the victims were Argentine civilians, many of them children. The blast killed 29 and wounded 242. It was Argentina's deadliest terror attack until the 1994

AMIA bombing The AMIA bombing occurred on 18 July 1994 in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and targeted the Asociación Mutual Israelita Argentina (AMIA; ), a Jewish Community Centre. Executed as a suicidal attack, a bomb-laden van was driven into the AMIA buildi ...

and it remains the deadliest attack on an Israeli diplomatic mission.

Fatalities

Priest Juan Carlos Brumana was one of the people killed in the suicide bombing. He died in the Catholic Church Mater Admirabilis that is in front of the embassy. Among the dead there were two Israeli women who were the wives of the embassy's consul and first secretary.

Responsibility

A group called

Islamic Jihad Organization The Islamic Jihad Organization – IJO ( ar, حركة الجهاد الإسلامي, Ḥarakat al-Jihād al-'Islāmiyy) or ''Organisation du Jihad Islamique'' (OJI) in French, but best known as "Islamic Jihad" (Arabic: ''Jihad al-Islami'') for ...

, which has been linked to

Iran Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...

and possibly

Hezbollah Hezbollah (; ar, حزب الله ', , also transliterated Hizbullah or Hizballah, among others) is a Lebanese Shia Islamist political party and militant group, led by its Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah since 1992. Hezbollah's parami ...

, claimed responsibility; their stated motive for the attack was Israel's assassination of Hezbollah Secretary General Sayed

Abbas al-Musawi Abbas al-Musawi (; ar, عباس الموسوي; 26 October 1952 – 16 February 1992) was an influential Lebanese Shia cleric, co-founder and Secretary General of Hezbollah. He was killed by the Israel Defense Forces in 1992. Early life ...

in February 1992. Islamic Jihad also released surveillance footage they took of the embassy before the blast. After the bombing, Israel sent investigators to Argentina to search for clues. They learned that the bombers planned the attack in the

Tri-Border area A tripoint, trijunction, triple point, or tri-border area is a geographical point at which the boundaries of three countries or subnational entities meet. There are 175 international tripoints as of 2020. Nearly half are situated in rivers, la ...

, where the borders of Argentina,

Paraguay Paraguay (; ), officially the Republic of Paraguay ( es, República del Paraguay, links=no; gn, Tavakuairetã Paraguái, links=si), is a landlocked country in South America. It is bordered by Argentina to the south and southwest, Brazil to t ...

, and

Brazil Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...

meet and which has a large Muslim population.Bergman, 172. Messages intercepted by the American

National Security Agency The National Security Agency (NSA) is a national-level intelligence agency of the United States Department of Defense, under the authority of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI). The NSA is responsible for global monitoring, collecti ...

revealed Iranian knowledge of the impending attack, as well as the complicity of Hezbollah operative

Imad Mughniyah Imad Fayez Mughniyeh ( ar, عماد فايز مغنية; 7 December 1962 – 12 February 2008), alias al-Hajj Radwan (), was the founding member of Lebanon's Islamic Jihad Organization and number two in Hezbollah's leadership. Information about ...

. In fact, Mughniyah was formally charged by Argentina with participating in the bombings of the Israeli embassy. In May 1998, Moshen Rabbani (the Cultural Attaché in the Iranian Embassy in Argentina until December 1997) was detained in Germany, and the Argentine government expelled seven Iranian diplomats from the country, stating that it had "convincing proof" of Iranian involvement in the bombing. However, none of the suspects were prosecuted. The attack occurred when Iran and Argentina were hoping for a resumption of nuclear cooperation, although Argentina had announced the suspension of the shipments of nuclear materials to Iran a couple months before the bombing. A number of sources report on Hezbollah involvement with the assistance of

Syria Syria ( ar, سُورِيَا or سُورِيَة, translit=Sūriyā), officially the Syrian Arab Republic ( ar, الجمهورية العربية السورية, al-Jumhūrīyah al-ʻArabīyah as-Sūrīyah), is a Western Asian country loc ...

. Hezbollah denies these claims. In 1999, the Argentine government issued an arrest warrant for Imad Mughniyah in connection with this attack and the 1994 AMIA bombing in Buenos Aires, which killed 85. It is suspected that the two attacks are linked.Norton, Augustus Richard, ''Hezbollah: A Short History'', Princeton University Press, 2007, p.79

Aftermath

Kirchner on the case

When he was president,

Néstor Kirchner Néstor Carlos Kirchner (; 25 February 195027 October 2010) was an Argentine lawyer and politician who served as the President of Argentina from 2003 to 2007, Governor of Santa Cruz Province from 1991 to 2003, Secretary General of UNASUR and ...

pronounced that allowing these two incidents to happen, with no real inquiries to be followed, equalled a "national disgrace". He reopened, and kept open files from these incidents, most to be read by Justice Juan Jose Galeano. In the same process Kirchner hoped to lift the ban for former Intelligence Officers (Argentine) to testify. A former president of Argentina (his widow,

Cristina Fernández de Kirchner Cristina Elisabet Fernández de Kirchner (; born 19 February 1953), often referred to by her initials CFK, is an Argentine lawyer and politician who has served as the Vice President of Argentina since 2019. She also served as the President o ...

) also claimed that she wanted to get to the bottom of the case. Argentinian federal prosecutor,

Alberto Nisman Natalio Alberto Nisman (5 December 1963 – 18 January 2015) was an Argentine lawyer who worked as a federal prosecutor, noted for being the chief investigator of the 1994 car bombing of a Jewish center in Buenos Aires, which killed 85 people, th ...

, was assigned to investigate the bombing, but one day before he was scheduled to report on his findings, he was found dead in his home on 18 January 2015.

Commemoration

Today there is a memorial set up in place of where the building stood. In the memorial plaza stand twenty one trees and seven benches in memory of the victims. A plaque describing the event and listing the victims is located in the memorial in both Hebrew and Spanish. Plaza Embajada de Israel.jpg, The memorial to the victims of the bombing Plaza Embajada de Israel Trees.jpg, The memorial to the victims of the bombing File:Plaza de la Memoria ID 198.jpg, The memorial to the victims of the bombing

References

Sources

* Bergman, Ronen. ''The Secret War with Iran: The 30-Year Clandestine Struggle Against the World's Most Dangerous Terrorist Power''. Simon and Schuster, 2008.

External links

Context of 'March 17, 1992: Israeli Embassy in Buenos Aires Is Bombed, Hezbollah and Iran Accused Despite Lack of Evidence'
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