Last update - 00:00 16/02/2008
Hezbollah chief's threats raise alarm among Jewish groups worldwide
By The Associated Press
Every day for the last 14 years, Sergio Burstein has thought of his wife Rita, one of 85 victims of a terrorist bombing that reduced a seven-story Jewish community center to a pile of bloody rubble.
When Hezbollah - the main suspect in that attack - vowed this week to attack Jewish targets worldwide in retaliation for the killing of one of its commanders, Burstein's longing turned to fear.
"Without a doubt a threat of this kind doesn't leave us very peaceful," he said. "It just can't happen that a terrorist group declares war on the world."
Argentina's community of 200,000 Jews, the largest in South America, has already been hit twice. A 1992 attack on the Israeli Embassy, which killed 29, came a month after Israel assassinated Hezbollah leader Abbas Musawi. The 1994 bombing of the community center came weeks after Israel captured a Hezbollah leader in Lebanon.
On Tuesday, Hezbollah security chief Imad Mughniyeh, who Argentine prosecutors suspect was a key organizer of the 1994 bombing, was killed by a car bomb in Syria. Hezbollah blamed Israel. And while the Jewish state denied involvement, a Hezbollah chief vowed to retaliate against Israeli and Jewish targets worldwide - a strike analysts expected to come outside of Israel.
Israel put its embassies on high alert and urged Jewish institutions around the globe to be vigilant. In the United States, the FBI ordered its Joint Terrorism Task Forces nationwide to look for any signs of ramped-up Hezbollah activity, and many Jewish groups took it as a reminder to keep up their already strict security measures.
"Security for Jewish organizations and Jewish institutions around the world is a 365-day concern and has been for a long time," said Michael Salberg, director of international affairs for the Anti-Defamation League in New York.
As Argentine newspapers splashed the threat in banner headlines, local Jewish leaders would not comment on specific security measures. But it was clear they were worried.
Diana Malamud, whose husband died in the 1994 attack, worries that Argentina is more vulnerable today than it was then, because the government has aggressively sought to prosecute Hezbollah leaders, including Mughniyeh.
"I believe this is fertile ground just as it was 15 years ago, regrettably so," Malamud said.The community center - called the Israel Argentine Mutual Association, or AMIA - was rebuilt years ago with fortress-like blast walls, under a black sign listing victims' names and reading: The pain never ceases.
Security has remained heavy. On Friday, a burly private guard flanked by a policeman was watching shoppers and their bags. Three other officers guarded the building's rear.
"We cannot let a threat like this go by unnoticed," said community leader Angel Schindel.
But most people in the surrounding district, dotted with synagogues, didn't appear too concerned. Vegetable shops, Internet cafes and clothing boutiques all bustled with shoppers. An orthodox Jew in black hurried down the sidewalk ahead of the Sabbath.
Elsewhere in the world, Jewish leaders were worried about the threat as well. In Los Angeles, Rabbi Marvin Hier, founder of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, said Israelis and Jewish groups must be wary everywhere that the Jihadists have a reach.
The threat stirred old memories for Jose Lois, 73, who was working at a nearby coffee shop in 1994 when the blast shattered the shop's windows and threw one waiter so hard he still has hearing damage.
"There's always a possibility something can happen again," he said. "God willing, it won't."
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