The director of Israel’s National Center for Public Diplomacy, Lior Hayat, confirmed this Sunday the authenticity of the Mossad report released by The New York Times, according to which a Hezbollah cell attacked the embassy of that country and the AMIA in Buenos Aires without assistance of Argentines or Iranian officials in the territory, but confirmed that Iran “is behind” the attacks and that these data “are already known by those who are involved in the investigation.”
The official said that “there is no change; this report was published but there is no change and data is known to those involved” in the case.
He also stated that the report does not moderate the responsibility of the former officials of the Iranian embassy in Buenos Aires and of the leaders of the Persian nation on those who weigh Interpol red notices to be arrested for those terrorist attacks of 1992 and 1994.
Hayat told Télam that the report, whose details were published last Friday by The New York Times, “is based on a summary of the State of Israel’s investigation into the two attacks and reaches a very clear conclusion: behind the attacks is Iran, which initiated, organized, financed and authorized the targetswhich were the embassy and the headquarters of the AMIA”.
“And the one that carried out the two attacks is the terrorist arm of Iran, the Hezbollah (Party of God). Both attacks are the largest anti-Semitic attack since World War II,” Hayat emphasized to this agency. The official pointed out that “what is new is that some details of the information that exists in the investigation were entered, for example in the way the explosives entered” with which the attacks were committed.
The NYT work revealed that this material was brought into Argentina on commercial flights in shampoo bottles and chocolate boxes.
The official confirmed, as the work indicates, that he did not there was a “local connection” of Argentines who have collaborated and that “there was an importation of Iranian terrorism, that is, Hezbollah cells sent by Iran that committed the two attacks.”
Hayat downplayed the alleged delay in the dissemination of this report known now through a journalistic work, although he pointed out that “it is a confidential report that has not yet been published”, since he insisted that its details are known to those who should know.
“This report does not change Israel’s position on those responsible for the two attacks: Hezbollah carried them out,” he emphasized, and asserted that “it does not mean that the responsibility of Iran and the (Iranian embassy in Buenos Aires) does not exist.” ; it does not mean that they are not part of the operation itself, we believe that not only the driver (of the car bomb) is responsible”.
“What I am saying is that there is no change; it was published but there is no change. are known facts by those who are involved. Those who have to know the data in the report already know it, they have it. Those who are involved in the investigation know the content of the report,” Hayat said repeatedly.
However, the official took care to emphasize that “we were very surprised in Israel as the article was misunderstood and there were people thinking that this article can blame the Iranians.”
“The basis of the report is that: the fault lies with Iran. Iran is behind the two attacks, that were not only against the Jewish community and Israel, but also against the Argentine people,” he said. And he concluded: “Israel joins Argentina to investigate these two terrible attacks.”
The American newspaper The New York Times published a study based on an internal report by the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad on the attacks on the Israeli embassy (1992) and the Jewish mutual society AMIA (1994) which said that the attacks “were carried out by a secret unit of Hezbollah”, who did not have the collaboration of “Argentine citizens nor assisted on the ground by Iran”.
The Argentine Justice always maintained the theory of a “local connection” and the collaboration of officials from the Iranian embassy in the attacks.
The controller of the Federal Investigation Agency (AFI), Agustín Rossi, stated this weekend that “we must be very careful” with the report and said that “now he has to follow the judicial path”.
“If Israel sends the information, justice will have to determine if this information has judicial validity,” he said, and clarified that “I prefer not to make any guesses because it is also a very sensitive issue.”
The article detailed that “the material for the explosives was smuggled into Argentina in shampoo bottles and chocolate boxes.” He also maintained that the investigation “disproves suspicions in Argentina that local officials and citizens had been complicit in the attacks.”
According to the publication, the conclusions “are based on information gathered from interrogations with suspects, surveillance, wiretaps and agents.”
“These conclusions of the internal reports were confirmed in interviews this month with five current and former senior Mossad officials“, reported the information of the New York media.
