Ahmadinejad's ministerial nominee was an Interpol target in 1994

Cairo (Egypt), Aug 22(ANI): Ahmad Vahidi, who has been nominated by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to serve as Iran's Defense Minister, is wanted by Interpol in connection with the 1994 bombing of a Jewish cultural center in Argentina's capital city of Buenos Aires.

According to reports, Vahidi was the head of the secret Quds Force. The Federation of American Scientists, in a document from 1998, says the primary mission of the Quds Force is to organize, train, equip, and finance foreign Islamic revolutionary movements.

In a statement issued by the Anti-Defamation League, it said that Vahidi was one of five Iranian officials sought by Interpol on Argentine charges of "conceiving, planning, financing and executing" the 1994 attack, The New York Times reports.

Though a possible hand of Tehran was suspected in the Buenos Aires investigation, some criminal justice experts have recently raised questions about Iran having had a direct role in the attack, saying that it was more likely the work of an Iranian proxy group, Hezbollah, and others in South America.

Ahmadinejad's list of 21 nominees to the Parliament, may prove to be an element for another conflict, as following complaints about Vahidi, leaders in the conservative-dominated Parliament, which must approve all cabinet appointments, have said that they expect to reject as many as five nominees as unqualified. (ANI)