The Argentine authorities announced today the arrest, at the end of December, in Buenos Aires and its suburbs, of three foreigners, citizens of Syria and Lebanon, who are charged with suspicions of “planning a terrorist act in the country”.

The suspects, one of whom holds Venezuelan and Colombian passports, were arrested on December 30 while authorities “followed the trail of a package” from Yemen, the security minister said on her X account, announcing the neutralization of a ” possible terrorist cell”.

The suspects were brought before a judge this morning, the country’s official Telam news agency reported, citing judicial sources.

The security minister told reporters that investigators are trying to ascertain the “real identities” of the suspects, as “some of them were in possession of different passports than the ones they used to enter Argentina.”

The suspects were arrested, one in Buenos Aires, the other in the suburb of Avelaneda and the third at an airport. “No international arrest warrant had been issued against any of them,” he clarified.

“The arrests,” continued the security minister, “were made following information from various sources, provided by the US and Israel” and another information from Colombia.

Argentina, Patricia Bullrich pointed out, has been particularly cautious these days on the issue of security, as it hosts until January 4 the Pan-American Maccabean Games, an international Jewish sports event held every four years. President Javier Millay, who is open to the Jewish community, inaugurated this event last week.

The existing context of the war in the Middle East also caused the “special attention” of the Argentine authorities to the risk of terrorism, added the Minister of Security.

Argentina, home to Latin America’s largest Jewish community, has previously been the target of two attacks against the community.

The Israeli embassy was targeted in 1992 by a bomb attack, killing 29 and injuring 200. Two years later, another attack against Amia (Common Union of Israelis of Argentina) claimed the lives of 85 people and resulted in the injury of 300 people, in the deadliest attack in the country’s history.

Before the Dec. 30 arrests, “one of the things that worried us was that the hotel (where the three suspects were going to stay) was two blocks from the Israeli embassy,” Bullrich noted.

The three men were alleged recipients of a package from Yemen, “a package weighing 35 kilograms”, according to the Ministry of Security, for which the responsible minister did not go into details.