MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Argentina identifies suicide bomber

Argentina revealed Wednesday the identification of a Hezbollah militant allegedly the suicide bomber who destroyed a Buenos Aires downtown Jewish community center killing 85 people and wounding 200 in July 1994.

Prosecutor Alberto Nisman said at a news conference that Ibrahim Hussein Berro, a 21 year old Lebanese citizen, detonated a van packed with explosives at the community center which served Argentina's more than half a million Jews and had a library with documents and records dating back to the first Jewish immigration.

Nisman said Hussein "belonged to Hezbollah," an international Iranian-backed Islamic militant group. He said friends and relatives of the man identified him through a photograph, which he called a major breakthrough in the decade-old probe.

Apparently two brothers of Ibrahim Hussein Berro living in Detroit also helped with the identification. According to the Argentine press the suicide bomber's father was also a radical militant and an elder brother died in a similar attack in the Middle East in 1989.

Nisman said investigators believe the 21-year-old attacker entered Argentina through the tri-border region at the joint frontiers of Argentina, Paraguay and Brazil, a center of smuggling and alleged terrorist fundraising.

Assistant prosecutor Marcelo Martinez Burgos revealed the current investigation started eight months ago.

"Since February we have been on the trail. With the help of United States prosecutors, the US Justice Department and the FBI we reached two brothers of the suicide bomber living in Detroit", said Martinez Burgos.

"We're crossing information and are very pleased with the results so far. We're hopeful we can further advance", indicated the prosecutor.

Sergio Burstein a member of the Families and Friends of AMIA victims said the identification of the suicide terrorist was "most important" because there's no doubt "Hezbollah was behind the massacre".

For years, the Jewish community pressured Argentine law enforcement to solve the attack and bitterly decried the lack of leads, noting that swift progress was made by investigators in other countries after terrorist attacks in New York, Madrid and London.

"Finally, after eleven years there's respect for the 85 people killed and with no political abuse. We can't forget that a few weeks ago elections were held in Argentina and this breakthrough was not used for political benefit, as unfortunately we have been used to in this case", added Mr. Burstein.

"Let's hope this is the beginning of many other fruitful investigations so we can say that Justice exists in Argentina and we can know the truth. Not as has been happening for eleven years of empty hands".

Actually the Iranian connection is not new and the Jewish community has insisted on it from the very beginning: in March 2003, a judge asked Interpol for help in arresting four Iranian diplomats allegedly involved in the bombing. Iran recalled its ambassador from Buenos Aires and denied involvement. In August 2003, English authorities detained Hade Soleimanpour, the Iranian ambassador to Argentina when the attack occurred, but he was later freed on bail when a judge ruled there was insufficient evidence against him.

The AMIA bombing was the second of two such attacks targeting Jews and Israel in Argentina during the 1990s. A March 1992 blast destroyed the Israeli Embassy in Buenos Aires, killing 29 people. That bombing also remains unsolved.