Agencia AJN (By Daniel Berliner*).-

Agencia AJN.  As you may already know, your article generated a lot of commotion in Argentina and some misinterpretation, what do you think about this?

Ronen Bergman: It is not for me to discuss other publication. I’ll be happy to discuss the NYTimes story.

AJN. Could you at least tell us what your note essentially wanted to convey?

The Mossad believes that Iran approved and funded the attacks, supplied training and equipment. The operation itself, on the ground, was executed by a secret Hezbollah unit called 910. Also, and very important are Mossad’s finding that the perpelrtrators were not abetted knowingly by any Argentine citizens or officials.

AJN. To be clear, the perpetrators of the attacks in Buenos Aires were members of Hezbollah.

That’s right, the perpetrators who came to Buenos Aires to carry out the attacks were Hezbollah operatives, and what has been done now, as a result of information that has been received in recent years, is to understand what really happened in the attacks.

AJN.- Could you tell us who was involved?

In the Mossad report there are names of many people, people who are alive today, found refuge in Beirut and even rose through the ranks within Hezbollah. Against some of them the Interpol issued a Red Notice, some not, and they were involved in the attack itself, in Buenos Aires.

Mossad also quoted information came from prosecutor Alberto Nisman’s materials refering to the decision-making process between Iran and Hezbollah.

AJN. In Argentina, it was surprising that the report talks about the non-participation of a local connection.

When the Mossad says that there was no local connection, this refers to the direct involvement of government officials or Argentine citizens in the two terrorist attacks. The Mossad did not investigate everything that happened after the attack, including various accusations against local government officials for helping to cover up the investigation or disrupting it.  If there were any Argentine citizens who rented a vehicle or had an interaction with the Lebanese, according to Mossad, they had no knowledge that they were helping Hezbollah in a future attack. Therefore, according to the Mossad’s investigation, whoever sold the cars used for the attacks to Hezbollah did not do so knowingly and no evidence was found that extremist nationalists in the local government aided the attack.

Let me point out that the AMIA bombing, was one of the deadliest anti-Semitic attack in the world since the end of World War II.

AJN. How would you define Hezbollah?

It is an organization that was created in 1982 by the Iranian regime, through the Revolutionary Guard and since it was founded it has been influenced by Iran, which finances political, military and social activity. Hezbollah is an organization that functions as a state within a state in Lebanon, Hezbollah’s activity requires a lot of money and resources. For a long time, although Iran spoke about its support for Hezbollah, it did not recognize that it helped in military matters, but in recent years it began to do so and today it expresses it clearly.

AJN. Are Hezbollah and Iran two sides of the same coin?

Iran’s support for Hezbollah, unlike other organizations that Tehran supports, such as the Palestinian movements Hamas or Islamic Jihad, is very different. Hezbollah’s existence as the main political, social and military force in Lebanon is dependant on Iran. Iran and Hezbollah are Shiites and for this reason there are not only closeness of interests, but a much deeper issue, I would say that they see each other as very close and trusted allay. While Hezbollah leaders received religious education in the same religious institutes as the ones from Iran and the Lebanese organization shares the same political ideology as Iran.

*Director of AJN News Agency.

Collaboration of Fernando Olschansky and Martín Solzi for English and Hebrew translation.