The United States is offering a $5 million award for information leading to the arrest of any individual who abetted the 1994 bombing of a commercial flight in Panama believed to have been carried out by Hezbollah, the U.S. State Department announced on Tuesday.
Alas Chiricanas Flight 901 from Colón to Panama City crashed approximately 10 miles from France Field airport on July 19, 1994, after a bomb went off aboard shortly after takeoff. All 21 passengers, including three U.S. citizens, were killed.
Following the attack, one of the dead passengers, Ali Hawa Jamal, was identified as the person who had carried the bomb aboard.
The bombing took place just one day after a vehicle-borne improvised explosive device was detonated at the Argentine Israelite Mutual Association (AMIA) building in Buenos Aires, Argentina, killing 85 people and injuring 300. A group calling itself Ansar Allah, which the U.S. government has determined was an alias for Hezbollah, issued a statement in Lebanon a few days later claiming responsibility for both attacks.
Since its inception in 1984, the State Department Reward for Justice program has paid out over $250 million to more than 125 people across the globe who provided information that has helped resolve threats to U.S. national security.
