New Evidence Of Iran’s Destabilizing Influence Across South America – OpEd

June 1, 2013


Iran flag

By European Foundation For Democracy

By Roberta Bonazzi

EFD commends the work of Argentinian General Prosecutor Alberto Nisman, who this week presented a 500-page dossier, providing evidence of the Iranian regime’s efforts at ‘infiltrating’ several South American countries ‘… by building local clandestine intelligence stations designed to sponsor, foster and execute terrorist attacks’. New evidence also shows the involvement of senior Iranian government officials in Argentina’s worst terrorist attack, which killed 85 people, 19 years ago in Buenos Aires.

Mr. Nisman also accused Mohsen Rabbani, Iran’s former cultural attaché in Buenos Aires, of actively working over the past two decades to develop an Iranian intelligence network in a number of countries in South America, including Brazil, Paraguay and Colombia, among others. Rabbani is also a suspect in the 1994 AMIA (Asociación Mutual Israelita Argentina) bombing at the Buenos Aires Jewish Centre. The Nisman investigation, conducted over seven years, also provides evidence of the involvement of high level Iranian officials in the 1994 bombing, including the former Foreign Minister, Ali Akbar Velayati and the former head of the Revolutionary Guards, Mohsen Rezaei, both of whom are candidates in Iran’s presidential election, scheduled to take place on 14th June.

At the presentation of the dossier, Nisman said that the bomb attack at the Buenos Aires Jewish Centre was not an isolated incident; it was, rather, part of a larger plot, where Rabbani’s role, in particular, extended to being responsible for co-ordinating activities all across the South American continent.

As Iran continues to provide finance and weapons to its proxy Hezbollah to support the murderous Assad regime in Syria, it comes as no surprise that it continues its aggressive hegemonistic foreign policy in South America. Indeed, the European Union should recognise that Iran is just as much a threat to European security, as we have seen the evidence of Hezbollah’s role in the bus bombing at Burgas airport, which killed eight people in July 2012.

EFD invites Mr Nisman to visit Brussels and EU capitals to meet officials and diplomats to present the evidence in his dossier to demonstrate the persistently nefarious and hugely destabilising role of the Iranian regime in many countries across the continent of South America – as well as in Europe.

Roberta Bonazzi, Executive Director, European Foundation for Democracy.

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