Anti-Jewish Bombings in Argentina Still Unsolved

Nearly two years later, the bombing of the Argentine-Jewish Mutual Assn. and a similar 1992 attack on the Israeli Embassy remain unsolved. For the victims' relatives, the smoke that choked the glass-littered streets around the carnage still clouds an aftermath full of mysteries and conspiracy theories.

"There is no explanation," said Diana Malamud, who was left a widowed mother of two by the blast at the community center. "When your children ask you where are the people who planted the bomb, and you have to tell them that they are walking the streets like anybody else, it shatters all your social values."

Last month, an appellate court released on bail a dozen alleged arms traffickers suspected of peripheral involvement in the community center bombing. Investigators continue hunting through a maze of ephemeral leads, motley suspects and ambiguous coincidences.

"We too are frustrated by the impunity," said Eamon Mullen, a federal prosecutor. "This investigation has been sincere. It has gone wherever it had to go. We have not had the results we wanted. But it is difficult. If we had a conspiracy law for terrorism, we would have 10 suspects in jail for conspiracy right now."

Although the youthful prosecutors and investigative magistrate are well-regarded, they have been hampered by the chaotic, occasionally suspicious conduct of the police. The investigation has uncovered corruption that may or may not be related to the attack, according to prosecutors, who are focusing on the possibility that police officers helped provide the stolen van used by the suicide bomber.

"We have worked with good police and bad police," Mullen said. "We have encountered police corruption. And it is a hypothesis that corrupt police could have been involved, perhaps without knowing the van was to be used in a bombing."

As far as investigators and U.S. and Israeli anti-terrorism experts are concerned, there is little mystery as to the masterminds. Iranian spies directed the sophisticated crimes, officials say. The Hezbollah terrorist organization is said to have carried them out. And prosecutors suspect that a "local connection"--petty gangsters allegedly connected to the security services and right-wing politics--furnished vehicles, intelligence, possibly explosives.

But there is little proof. The justice system lacks the legal tools for such complex cases, officials said.

In a sign of lingering international interest, 22 U.S. congressional representatives sent a recent letter to President Carlos Menem expressing "profound concern over the lack of progress." The bombings evoke the anti-Semitic violence that occurred during bygone military dictatorships, a specter that this image-conscious young democracy wants to erase.

"We spare no effort, in cooperation with foreign agencies, to discover any clue," said Fernando Petrella, the deputy foreign minister. Argentine society embraces a Jewish community of more than 250,000, Petrella said.

Anti-terrorism efforts top Argentina's international agenda, Petrella said. He cited joint training with U.S. law enforcement and a tripartite accord signed last month for tougher vigilance in the lawless area around the border with Brazil and Paraguay. That region is a haven for known Hezbollah operatives, according to Israeli diplomats and others.

International terrorists are difficult to bring to justice. Nonetheless, Sergio Widder of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, an L.A.-based global watchdog group that fights anti-Semitism, criticized the seeming impunity in the Buenos Aires attacks.

"Terrorists strike all over the world, but nowhere in the world are there attacks like this in which the authors enjoy complete success," said Widder, the group's representative in Argentina.

In the most recent frustrating chapter, authorities went after a gang of alleged Argentine arms traffickers. After raiding a military base, investigating magistrate Juan Jose Galeano charged a dozen former and current soldiers who allegedly peddled explosives, bazookas, even old helicopters.

The suspects included members of the "painted faces" group that has launched failed military uprisings here. Some also belonged to a marginal rightist political party, Modin.

Investigators aborted a planned search of the home of a Modin congressman, Emilio Morello, citing his parliamentary immunity. But Morello remains a suspect, according to sources close to the case. Modin leaders say they are convenient scapegoats.

The links to the community center bombing were tenuous but intriguing, according to internal court documents. Telephone wiretaps and undercover witnesses indicated that several suspects said they had information about the attack and were afraid of being implicated, according to the documents.