(Buenos Aires) The Argentine authorities announced on Wednesday the arrest at the end of December, in Buenos Aires and its suburbs, of three foreign nationals of Syrian and Lebanese origin, suspected of “planning a terrorist action in the country”.
The suspects, one of whom carries Venezuelan and Colombian passports, were arrested on December 30 and at the same time the authorities carried out “tracking of a package” coming from Yemen, the Ministry of Security said on its website. account X, announcing: “we have neutralized a possible terrorist cell”.
The suspects were brought before a magistrate on Wednesday morning, the official Telam agency also indicated, citing judicial sources.
The Security Minister told the press that investigators were verifying the “real identities” of the suspects, because “some held passports separate from those used to enter Argentina.”
The suspects were arrested, one in Buenos Aires, the other in the suburb of Avellaneda, and the third at an airport. None of them “was the subject of an international arrest warrant,” she said.
“We will see if it was a cell that came to Argentina, or if it had another connotation,” she said.
The arrests, she continued, were made “on the basis of intelligence from various sources, provided by the United States and Israel,” and another information from Colombia.
A history of anti-Semitic attacks
Argentina, underlined Mme Bullrich, was particularly attentive these days to the security risk, because it hosts, until January 4, the Pan American “Maccabiades”, or Pan American Jewish Olympics, which take place every four years. President Javier Milei, openly close to the Jewish community, inaugurated this event last week.
The current context of war in the Middle East has also given rise to “special attention” from the Argentine authorities to the terrorist risk, she added.
Javier Milei, the ultraliberal president who took office less than a month ago, has regularly asserted that his natural allies are the United States and Israel.
Argentina, which has the largest Jewish community in Latin America, has in the past been the target of two major attacks targeting this community.
The Israeli embassy was targeted in 1992 by a bomb attack which left 29 dead and 200 injured. Two years later, another attack, against the AMIA (Argentine Jewish Mutual Association), left 85 dead and 300 injured, in what is the worst attack in the country’s history.
“Ahead of the arrests on December 30, one of the elements that worried us was that the hotel (where the three suspects were to stay) was located two blocks from the Israeli embassy,” underlined Mr.me Bullrich.
The three were presumed recipients of a package coming from Yemen, a “35 kilo package” according to the ministry, but on which Mme Bullrich did not provide details.