Police in Argentina arrest 7 accused of plotting terror attacks on Jewish targets

By JUAN MELAMED/JTA

AUGUST 19, 2024 08:43

Argentine Minister of Security Patricia Bullrich arrives at a ceremony to commemorate the AMIA Jewish community center bombing Buenos Aires, July 18, 2024. (photo credit: Tomas Cuesta/AFP via Getty Images) — Argentine Minister of Security Patricia Bullrich arrives at a ceremony to commemorate the AMIA Jewish community center bombing Buenos Aires, July 18, 2024.

(photo credit: Tomas Cuesta/AFP via Getty Images)

“We are going to get rid of each and every one of these criminals who try to sow fear in Argentines and they will pay,” Security Minbister Patricia Bullrich tweeted.

Police in Argentina arrested seven people Saturday during raids against what they said was an Islamic terrorist organization planning an attack on Jewish targets, including synagogues.

Argentina’s Jewish political umbrella organization, DAIA, said the raids had followed its own complaint to Argentina’s Federal Police after a Jewish journalist in Mendoza faced a threat that it did not detail. The group said in a statement that the group had “spread anti-Christian and anti-Jewish language via Telegram and WhatsApp” and also suggested that the group had ties to ISIS and the Taliban.

Local news in the western Argentina province reported that the threats had been made on the journalist’s Facebook page in 2023 but did not name the journalist or specify the threats. According to the reports, the investigation was titled “Salafist Brothers,” a reference to the fundamentalist movement of Sunni Islam.

Patricia Bullrich, Argentina’s minister of security, tweeted footage from the raids, which were conducted at private homes, the Cristo Redentor Border Crossing that connects Argentina and Chile and at the International Airport of Ezeiza in Buenos Aires. The footage showed guns, knives and ammunition as well as Islamic literature and material.

“We are going to get rid of each and every one of these criminals who try to sow fear in Argentines and they will pay,” Bullrich tweeted.

A man walks past a banner reading ''Memory and justice'' and the names of the victims of the 1994 bombing attack on the Argentine Israelite Mutual Association (AMIA) community centre a day after Argentina's highest criminal court blamed Iran for the attack, in Buenos Aires, Argentina April 12, 2024. (credit: REUTERS/AGUSTIN MARCARIAN)

AIMA memorial

The arrests come shortly after the 30th anniversary of the AMIA Jewish community center bombing in Buenos Aires, which killed 85 and was until Oct. 7 the deadliest single attack on Jews since the Holocaust. Argentina’s new president, Javier Milei, has vowed to take decisive action against Iran, widely understood to have been behind the AMIA bombing, and its proxies.

Some 3,000 Jews live in Mendoza, a province of 1.9 million. Argentina overall has the largest Jewish population in Latin America, with an estimated 180,000. Despite alarm in the Jewish community after the arrests, communal activities went on without interruption this weekend.