Argentina seeks arrest of four Lebanese over 1994 Jewish centre bombing

Argentina on Thursday sought an international arrest warrant for four Lebanese citizens suspected of involvement in a 1994 bomb attack on a Jewish centre in Buenos Aires that killed 85 people and injured 300.

A judge granted a prosecutor's request to seek a warrant from Interpol based on reasonable suspicion that the four were "employees or operational agents" of Hezbollah.

The four are Hussein Mounir Mouzannar, Ali Hussein Abdallah, Farouk Abdul Hay Omairi and Abdallah Salman (aka El Reda).

They are thought to reside in either Paraguay, Brazil or Beirut.

El Reda is suspected of "the coordination of the arrival and departure of the operational group" that carried out the attack, according to court documents.

The attack on the AMIA Jewish centre in the Argentine capital was the worst in the country's history, just two years after a bombing of the Israeli embassy killed 29 and wounded 200.

The 1994 attack has never been claimed or solved, but Argentina and Israel suspect Lebanon's Shia Hezbollah group carried it out at Iran's request.

Tehran denies any involvement.

Arrest warrants have been pending against eight Iranians since 2006.

Argentina is home to Latin America's largest Jewish community. It also is home to immigrant communities from the Middle East – from Syria and Lebanon in particular.

Vice President Cristina Kirchner had been investigated for allegedly colluding with Iran to obstruct the investigation into the bombing when she was head of state from 2007 to 2015.

The case against her was later dropped.