Sunday, 26 June 2011 17:51 Anna Mahjar-Barducci
Iran is investing in strengthening the political and economical relations with several countries in Latin America. It is also actively engaged in religious proselytizing, particularly aimed for the poorest sectors of the Latin American society. Converts to Islam eventually undergo religious and political training, including in Iran, to prepare these new adherents to become instruments and agents of the Iranian regime.
Mohsen Rabbani, an Iranian mullah and a former cultural attaché in Argentina, is a leading figure in spreading Islam in Latin America, particularly in Brazil. Rabbani, while in the service at the Iranian embassy in Buenos Aires, was involved in the planning and implementation of the deadly terrorist attack on the Asociacion Mutual Israelita Argentina (AMIA) Jewish cultural center of 1994 that resulted in 85 dead and more than 150 injured. Rabbani’s involvement in the bombing was persistently denied by Iranian authorities. In 2007, however, Interpol finally decided to issue a Red Notice for Rabbani, which is an arrest warrant with a view to extradite.
Despite the arrest warrant, Rabbani, who is presently the director of Oriental Thought Cultural Institute in the Iranian city of Qom, continues, unabated, to proselytize in Latin America. According to Brazilian sources, he has traveled several times to Brazil under a false identity in order to recruit new converts to Islam. According to Argentine prosecutor, Alberto Nisman, charged to investigate the AMIA attacks in Buenos Aires, “Rabbani is a serious security threat, including in Brazil. In Argentina, he spread his vision of radical, extremist, and violent Islam, which resulted in dozens of casualties during the Buenos Aires terrorist attacks. Now, based in Iran, he continues to play a significant role in the spread of extremism in Latin America.”
The activity Rabbani is developing in Belo Jardim, in the Brazilian state of Pernambuco, where local police have found evidence that the recruitment of Brazilians, and subsequent traveling to Iran, involves more than spiritual enlightenment through religion, is particularly alarming. Along with the recruits in Belo Jardim, youth from Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, and Mexico are also traveling to Iran.
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