FHC feared terrorist action in southern Brazil.
Documents produced by the intelligence service mention suspected terrorist activity in the Tri-Border Area with Argentina and Paraguay, and cite a possible attack by Osama bin Laden three years before the September 11, 2001 attacks.
247 – Brazil feared that Osama bin Laden would attack the Tri-Border Area with Argentina and Paraguay three years before the September 11, 2001 attacks. This is indicated by previously unpublished documents from the intelligence service of the Fernando Henrique Cardoso government, released by Folha. Read more:
Previously unpublished documents produced by the intelligence service of the Fernando Henrique Cardoso government (1995-2002) reveal that Brazil suspected the existence of terrorist activities in the Tri-Border Area with Argentina and Paraguay.
They also cite the risk of terrorist Osama bin Laden attacking on national territory – three years before the September 11, 2001 attacks that made the Saudi the West's number one enemy.
The reports made available for consultation yesterday at the National Archives in Brasília, under the Access to Information Law, contradict Brazil's official position, which has always denied possessing evidence of terrorist activity in the area.
The government said that suspicions about the region were a "demonization" spread by the governments of the United States and Israel. The area has a large Arab presence, especially Lebanese.
A report prepared in 1999 by agents of the successor to the SNI, the SAE (Secretariat of Strategic Affairs), linked to the Presidency, addresses an alleged restructuring in the activities of Hezbollah, a Lebanese Shiite extremist group.
A meeting of Hezbollah in 1999 in Ciudad del Este (Paraguay) is mentioned, which, according to the spies, brought together members of the group and an envoy from the organization's leadership.
"Brazil and Paraguay have taken on special importance, becoming bases for combatants who would choose targets, especially in Argentina and Uruguay," the document states.
In another passage, the SAE states that the activities are concentrated in Ciudad del Este and São Paulo, and raises the possibility of a “joint action with radical groups of Egyptian origin, which have a presence on the border between Brazil and Uruguay.”
Three years earlier, in 1996, the SAE (Secretariat for Strategic Affairs) spoke of Hezbollah bases in at least five Brazilian cities: Foz do Iguaçu and Curitiba, in Paraná, Ponta Porã (MS), Tabatinga (AM) and São Paulo.
In 1998, Argentine intelligence informed Brazilian intelligence that it was investigating with Americans the possibility that the 1994 bombing of the Argentine Israelite Mutual Association had been planned from a base located in Brazil.
The attack killed 85 people and is considered the worst of its kind in the Southern Cone. Argentine prosecutors accuse Iran of planning the attack, using Hezbollah, which it arms and protects, as the executor. The Iranian government and the group deny this.
In the same year, 1998, a document mentions Bin Laden, who had just attacked American embassies in Africa and been the target of retaliatory bombings against his training camps in Afghanistan, which was still dominated by the Taliban.
The scenario, the spies said, raised "the possibility of attacks occurring on Brazilian territory, as well as in South America."
There are also documents that record evidence of the activities of members of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) in the country. According to the texts, there is evidence that FARC members were involved in drug trafficking in Brazil.