Argentina has designated Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps a terrorist organization, broadening a years-long effort by Buenos Aires to hold Tehran and its proxies responsible for the deadliest attacks in the country’s history.
In a statement issued on Tuesday, President Javier Milei’s office said Argentina had added the IRGC to its public registry of individuals and entities linked to terrorism and its financing, a move that allows financial sanctions and operational restrictions.
“The National Government has declared the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) a terrorist organization,” the statement said.
Argentina tied the decision directly to the 1992 bombing of the Israeli Embassy in Buenos Aires, which killed 29 people and wounded more than 200, and the 1994 bombing of the AMIA Jewish community center, which killed 85 people and wounded more than 300.
“The Republic of Argentina was the victim of two of the most serious terrorist attacks in history, perpetrated in the 1990s by the operational arm of the IRGC in the region, the Hezbollah organization,” the statement said.
It added that judicial investigations and intelligence work had found that both attacks were “planned, financed and executed with the direct participation of senior officials of the Iranian regime and operatives of the Revolutionary Guard.”
The announcement also renewed attention on Ahmad Vahidi, the IRGC chief commander and former Iranian defense minister, who has long been sought by Argentine authorities over the AMIA case.
Argentina said Interpol red notices had been issued for several Iranian citizens, “among them former Defense Minister Ahmad Vahidi, who was recently appointed to lead the IRGC.”
The move goes beyond Argentina’s earlier designation of the Quds Force, the IRGC’s extraterritorial arm responsible for operations abroad.
A State Department cable earlier this month showed Secretary of State Marco Rubio had instructed US diplomats to press foreign governments to designate both groups as terrorist organizations.
Milei’s office cast the decision not only as a security measure, but as a moral and political one.
“The President Javier Milei hopes that this decision will settle a historic debt of more than 30 years with the families of the victims,” the statement said.
It added that his government remained committed to “recognizing terrorists for what they are.”
Milei’s statement ended in broader ideological terms, saying the government was determined to align Argentina with “Western civilization” while confronting those “who want to destroy it.”
