DNA Discovered at Site of 1994 AMIA Bombing in Buenos Aires Points to Hezbollah Suicide Attacker
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by Ben Cohen
A memorial outside the AMIA building in Buenos Aires commemorates those murdered on July 18, 1994. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.
New DNA evidence discovered at the site of the AMIA Jewish community center in Buenos Aires may belong to the Hezbollah terrorist who carried out the bombing of the center on July 18, 1994, murdering 85 people and wounding hundreds more.
Investigators from Argentina’s AMIA Special Investigation Unit said on Monday that DNA not connected to any of the victims had been discovered — suggesting that it may belong to Ibrahim Hussein Berro, the Hezbollah operative behind the bombing. The discovery was made following an analysis of all the victims’ DNA by the Chemical Laboratory Division of the Argentine Federal Police.
Berro was identified as the bomber by the late Argentine prosecutor Alberto Nisman in 2005, in a report which also revealed that the AMIA atrocity was first planned in August 1993 at a meeting at the home of the late Ayatollah Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, who was then president of Iran, in the city of Mashhad.
Hezbollah has always claimed that Berro was killed during a clash between the Lebanese Shia terrorist group and Israeli forces in southern Lebanon one day before the AMIA bombing occurred.
“If Berro was actually in Argentina and not in the Middle East, it will be possible to know now, thanks to the genetic profile found by the Forensic Medical Corps experts, the Argentine Forensic Anthropology Team and the University of Buenos Aires (UBA),” the Spanish newspaper El Pais reported.
Prosecutors have now ordered a new review of the remains of the vehicle used in the attack — evidence that may further tie in Berro, and which would provide further confirmation of Nisman’s conclusion that the attack was the work of a suicide bomber who drove a truck packed with explosives into the AMIA building.
Nisman was found dead in January 2015, the night before he was due to an unveil a complaint charging the former Argentine President Cristina Kirchner, Foreign Minister Hector Timerman and other high-ranking officials of colluding with the Tehran regime to exonerate the Iranian and Hezbollah operatives responsible for the AMIA bombing. Nisman’s death is now being treated as a murder investigation.
