The Simon Wiesenthal Centre said Thursday in Buenos Aires that the armed Islamic organization Hezbollah has dormant cells in South America that are ready to carry out attacks in Argentina, dpa reported.
"A reliable official US source with which we held a meeting last week confirmed to us the existence of dormant terrorist Hezbollah cells in South America, who await signals to come into action in Argentina," Shimon Samuels, international liaisons officer for the Simon Wiesenthal Centre, told the German Press Agency dpa.
Two bloody attacks targeted Jewish facilities in Buenos Aires in the 1990s. In 1992, 29 people died in the bombing of the Israeli Embassy in the Argentine capital, while 85 people were killed two years later in an attack on a Jewish cultural centre in the city. Argentine authorities blamed the latter on Hezbollah.
The Simon Wiesenthal Centre, a Jewish non-governmental human rights organization, on Wednesday called upon the Argentine government to lead a move "to ban Hezbollah from Latin America," in a letter addressed to Argentine Foreign Minister Hector Timerman.
"Hezbollah has twice violated Argentine sovereignty and its sleepers are reportedly awaiting the call for further action on its territory. Such a ban would provide grounds for expulsion of its agents and prohibit all trade and financial assistance to Hezbollah," the letter said.
Samuels was in Argentina, home to the largest Jewish community in Latin America, to take part in a seminar on the Nazi genocide and other crimes against humanity, which was jointly organized by the Simon Wiesenthal Centre and the Argentine Foreign Ministry.