Argentina Detains Mideast Nationals for Alleged Terror Plot Against Jewish Sporting Event

Argentina on Wednesday announced the arrest of three foreign nationals, specifically citizens of Syria and Lebanon, who were suspected of planning a “terrorist act” at the Pan-American Maccabi Games.

Security Minister Patricia Bullrich said her office received intelligence from the U.S. and Israel that led to the December 30 arrest of the three suspects, who were staying at a hotel two blocks from the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires. Their proximity to the embassy was concerning because it was the target of an infamous terrorist attack in 1992.

An Iraqi national with allegedly falsified Argentine documents was also arrested outside the Israeli embassy in October after a week of bomb threats were phoned into the embassy.

Bullrich said the suspects were “waiting for a package that came via the delivery system from Yemen,” which she described as a “strong wake-up call,” given that much of Yemen is controlled by the Iran-backed Houthi terrorists who have been attacking ships in the Red Sea.

She said the package, which weighed about 35 kilograms (about 77 pounds), had been seized and examined by the authorities.

Bullrich said the detainees’ identities would be kept confidential for the moment because the investigation is under “summary secrecy” orders and because confirming their identities could be difficult. She noted one of the detainees carried “passports of a different nationality” than the one used to gain entry to Argentina.

“If a person has a Syrian passport, a Colombian passport, and a Venezuelan passport and enters with different passports, what is their real identity? What is their nationality?” she wondered.

The Colombian government issued a statement Wednesday, naming one of the detainees as Chassan Naem Chatay, a Colombian citizen by adoption since May 2022. The statement from Colombia said consular assistance would be provided to Chatay but offered no further details about his origins.

Bullrich said the detainees arrived on different flights and were arrested in different locations. One was taken into custody after arriving at Jorge Newbery Airport on a flight from Colombia, one was detained in downtown Buenos Aires, and the third at the nearby town of Avellaneda.

Bullrich said Argentina’s new president, Javier Milei, directed security services to pay special attention to the Pan-American Maccabi Games in light of the ongoing war between Israel and the Hamas terrorist organization.  

The games, which began on December 27 and run through January 5, are hosted by the Maccabi World Union, the world’s largest Jewish sports and education organization. The annual global Maccabi Games, sometimes referred to as the “Jewish Olympics,” is often the largest sporting event in the world after the Olympic Games. 

The organization also hosts regional events, such as the Pan-American and European Maccabi Games. The 2023 Pan-American Maccabi Games brought an estimated 4,000 participants and observers to Buenos Aires from North, Central, and South America. One of the goals of these sporting tournaments is to help young Jews in other countries learn more about Israel and their heritage.