The world is on high alert following yesterday’s Brussels terror attacks, while President Obama continues on his Latin American tour, through which he hopes to remake the United States’ image in this region of the world.
While many of us continue to scratch our heads at the president’s apparent downplaying of the growing global terror threat, President Obama himself narrowly averted coming in close proximity with a terror threat as he arrived in Argentina today.
Via Yahoo News:
A man claiming to have a bomb threatened to blow up a building six blocks from the Argentine presidency hours before US President Barack Obama visited it on Wednesday, witnesses said.
Police arrested the man and evacuated the building housing a state radio station, employees of the broadcaster told media. No one was reported hurt.
The man threatened to blow up the National Radio building in central Buenos Aires, where security forces were on high alert a day after deadly Islamist bombings in Brussels.
“There was a scuffle and yelling in the lobby. He got to the entrance of the studios and yelled, ‘We are going to blow you all to hell,'” one employee of the station, identified as Enrique, told television channel CN5.
“He had what looked like a detonator in his hand, with a trigger.”
Another of the company’s journalists, Eduardo Anguita, said: “He came into the radio station pretending to have a bomb belt. That caused anxiety. It was to scare people after the Brussels attacks and while Obama is here.”
Representatives of the radio station said the police detained a man in his 50s.
The station went off the air.
The building is located six blocks from the Casa Rosada presidential palace. Obama met there later with Argentine President Mauricio Macri.
It’s unclear whether this man indeed did have any explosives in tow and whether he was connected with any particular organization or a lone loony toon. Thankfully, Argentinean authorities appear to be on top of things.
Scary times we live in.
[Note: This article was written by Michelle Jesse, Associate Editor]