Iran’s Foreign Ministry on Wednesday declared Argentina’s navy and air force “terrorist organizations,” a retaliatory move against Buenos Aires after Argentina designated Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as a terrorist organization earlier this year.
The Iranian ministry offered little justification for the designation beyond calling it a matter of “reciprocity,” and did not explain why the Navy of the Argentine Republic (ARA) and the Argentine Air Force (FAA) were singled out while the Argentine army was left off the list.
“It is evident that the responsibility for all consequences arising from this matter will lie with the Argentine government,” the Iranian statement said.
The move follows a decree signed in January by the government of President Javier Milei that added the IRGC’s Quds Force, the unit responsible for the Guard’s foreign espionage and infiltration operations, to Argentina’s Public Register of Persons and Entities Linked to Acts of Terrorism and Their Financing (RePET).
“The Quds Force is a division of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, specializing in training for carrying out terrorist attacks in other countries,” Milei’s January decree stated, noting that “the Argentine Republic was a victim of its operations in the 1990s through the attacks on the Israeli Embassy in Buenos Aires in 1992 and the AMIA Jewish community center in 1994.”
The 1992 bombing of the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires killed 29 people. The 1994 truck bombing of the AMIA Jewish community center killed 85 people and wounded 300 more, making it the deadliest terrorist attack in Argentine history.
Background on the AMIA case
Milei’s decree named Quds Force commander Ahmad Vahidi as a suspect in the 1994 bombing and noted that Iran has “failed to cooperate” with an Interpol red notice issued for his arrest in 2007. Rather than facing prosecution, Vahidi was later promoted to deputy commander of the IRGC.
The same 2007 Interpol notice also named Mohsen Rezai, who now serves as secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council and remains one of the more combative voices in Iranian foreign policy.
The Milei government cited the same set of offenses on April 1, when it formally added the entire IRGC to Argentina’s list of designated terrorist organizations. That April decree also pointed to Iran’s backing of the Lebanese group Hezbollah, which Argentina designated a terrorist organization in 2019 over its role in the AMIA bombing — the suicide bomber who drove the explosive-laden truck into the building was a Hezbollah member.
In announcing the April designation, the Argentine presidential office said the government was “determined that the Argentine Republic should once again align itself with Western civilisation, while firmly condemning and confronting those who seek to destroy it.”
Argentina’s move mirrors earlier actions by other Western governments. The United States designated the IRGC a terrorist organization in April 2019, the United Kingdom did the same in 2016 following a series of arson and vandalism attacks against Jewish targets linked to the Guard, and the European Union formally designated the IRGC in February 2026.
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