Author Topic: New Iranian Foreign Policy Head ‘Approved’ 1994 Terror Bombing  (Read 435 times)

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Offline flowers

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http://freebeacon.com/new-iranian-foreign-policy-head-approved-1994-terror-bombing/

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An Iranian politician known for his role in planning and approving the deadly 1994 terrorist bombing of a Jewish center in Argentina has officially been appointed to helm Iran’s top foreign policy shop, a posting formerly held by current President Hassan Rouhani.

Ali Akbar Velayati, a longtime regime insider who serves as a senior foreign policy adviser to Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was recently selected to head Iran’s Center for Strategic Research (CSR), a think tank closely tied to the country’s Expediency Council, a powerful governing body that reports directly to Khamenei.

Argentinian authorities have singled out Velayati for helping plan and approve the 1994 Argentine Jewish Mutual Association (AMIA) bombing, an Iranian-orchestrated assault that killed 85 people and remains the deadliest terror attack in Argentina’s history.

Velayati’s rise to the upper echelon of Iran’s foreign-policy-making machine has led some observers to criticize Rouhani for elevating extreme hardliners despite promises to act as a moderate reformer.

Velayati’s ties to the AMIA bombing were outlined in a 2006 investigation by Argentinian General Prosecutor Alberto Nisman, who has been barred by his government from discussing his findings with the U.S. Congress.

Velayati was a member of the secretive Iranian committee that gathered in 1993 to design the attack on the AMIA Jewish center in Buenos Aires, according to Nisman’s indictment, which relied on testimony from a former Iranian intelligence official.

“With regard to the committee’s role in the decision to carry out the AMIA attack, [the intelligence official] stated that this decision was made under the direction of Ali Khamenei, and that the other members of the committee were [then-Iranian President Ali Akbar Hashemi] Rafsanjani, Mir Hejazi, Rouhani, Velayati and Fallahijan,” the indictment said.

An Argentine judge issued an international arrest warrant for Velayati in 2006 for his role in planning the terror attack.

Additionally, Velayati has been accused by Ger­man author­i­ties of “plan­ning the 1992 ‘Mykonos Assas­si­na­tion’ attacks in Berlin that killed sev­eral Iran­ian Kur­dish leaders,” according to the Anti-Defamation League (ADL).

Current Iranian President Rouhani also served as a member of the committee that signed off on the attack.

Regional experts say that Rouhani’s peaceful public rhetoric clashes with his internal actions.

“Rouhani’s choice of Velayati to replace him as the head of his personal think tank that helps guide key foreign policy strategy sends a disturbing message that the new president is interested in whitewashing the role of those said to be complicit in the deadly attack rather than holding them accountable,” said Toby Dershowitz, vice president for government relations and strategy at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD).