HUGE MORAL LOSS FOR HEZBOLLAH

Top Hezbollah Commander Killed in Syria

U.S. Target Accused of Masterminding Suicide Bombings, Hijackings

By Anthony Shadid and Alia Ibrahim

Washington Post Foreign Service
Wednesday, February 13, 2008; 11:01 AM

BEIRUT, Feb. 13 -- Imad Mughniyeh, a senior but shadowy Hezbollah commander accused by the United States and Israel of masterminding suicide bombings, hijackings and hostage-takings that spanned 25 years, was killed by a car bomb in the Syrian capital of Damascus, the Shiite Muslim group and other officials said Wednesday.

Hezbollah accused Israel of carrying out the attack on Mughniyeh, a charge that Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's office denied. In the past, Israeli officials have rarely confirmed or denied their involvement in assassinations abroad.

A State Department spokesman welcomed the news of Mughniyeh's death, but said he did not know who was responsible for it.

"The world is a better place without this man in it. He was a cold-blooded killer, a mass murderer and a terrorist responsible for countless innocent lives lost," said State Department spokesman Sean McCormack. "One way or another, he was brought to justice."

The elusiveness of Mughniyeh, long a target of U.S. and Israeli intelligence agencies , rivaled only that of Osama bin Laden and stretched over many more years. Until Sept. 11, 2001, the attacks for which the United States blamed him represented some of the deadliest strikes against Americans, at home or abroad. Along with bin Laden, he was included on the list of 22 "most wanted terrorists" released by President Bush a month after the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

Although Hezbollah has always denied a role, the United States accused him of orchestrating two bombings of the U.S. Embassy in Beirut -- in 1983 and 1984 -- killing 72 people. Among the victims was Robert Ames, then the CIA's top Middle East expert. Even more devastating were the suicide truck bombings organized against U.S. Marines and French paratroopers in Beirut in October 1983. Together, those attacks killed 300 people.

Israel accused Mughniyeh, 45, of masterminding the 1994 bombing of a Jewish center in Buenos Aires that killed 87 people and of a role in a 1992 bombing of the Israeli Embassy in the Argentine capital that killed 28. He was wanted by the authorities there.

"With pride and honor, we announce the martyrdom of a great resistance leader who joined the procession of martyrs in the Islamic resistance," said a statement read on al-Manar, Hezbollah's television station, and published on its Web site. "The martyr, may his soul rest in peace, has been a target of the Zionists for more than 20 years."

Hezbollah planned a show of strength on Thursday in its stronghold in the capital's southern suburbs to mark the death of Mughniyeh, whose nom de guerre was Hajj Radwan. Al-Manar interrupted programming to mark his death with Koranic recitation and called on supporters to begin paying condolences in the neighborhood Wednesday. By afternoon, al-Manar broadcast footage of a line of men in civilian clothes or the turbans and robes of the clergy paying their respects.

"Let us make our voice heard by all the enemies and murderers that we will make victory, no matter the sacrifices," the group said in a statement.

Syria had no comment. Its authoritarian government prides itself on the internal security it maintains, in Damascus, the tightly controlled seat of government.

In Iran, a key source of Hezbollah's support, a Foreign Ministry spokesman also accused Israel of involvement.

Bruce O. Riedel, a former CIA Middle East analyst and now at the Brookings Institution's Saban Center, said the fact that Mughniyeh was killed by a car bomb in downtown Damascus limits the possibilities.

The Israelis "have done it before in downtown Damascus," said Riedel. "He was also very much on their radar screen."

Riedel said Hezbollah will almost certainly seek to retaliate for Mughniyeh's death, giving whoever was behind it incentive to deny involvement.

"Some kind of retaliation is almost certain and for killing Mughniyeh, one of Hezbollah's founding architects, will be very serious," he said.

Al-Alam, the Iranian-owned Arabic-language television station, broadcast grainy footage of the car bombing scene from the upscale neighborhood of Kafar Sousah in Damascus, near an Iranian school, police station and an office for Syrian intelligence. It showed an ambulance and people milling around the site, although the targeted car was not visible. News agencies reported that the vehicle was a new model Mitsubishi Pajero.

Mughniyeh's elusiveness over the years had given him a ghost-like aura. His whereabouts were always the matter of speculation -- in the southern Lebanese village of Teir Dibba, where he was born to peasant parents, or somewhere in Iran, whose government had reputedly issued him a diplomatic passport. Few pictures of him existed, and he was said to have undergone plastic surgery more than once to conceal his identity.

After announcing his death, al-Manar broadcast what appeared to be a recent picture of Mughniyeh. It showed a burly man with glasses dressed in green military camouflage and a green baseball hat. He wore a full beard, streaked with gray.

Mughniyeh's name first emerged after the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon, then mired in civil war. He was reputed to be the commander of Islamic Jihad, a pro-Iranian group widely believed to be linked to Hezbollah, which had yet to officially emerge.

He was blamed for kidnapping many of the more than 50 Americans, Frenchmen, Britons, Germans and other foreigners held during the civil war's grimmest days. One of the most prominent hostages was William Buckley, the CIA station chief in Beirut, who was seized in March 1984. He was tortured by his Lebanese and Iranian interrogators and died in captivity, apparently from lack of medical attention.

Mughniyeh was indicted for his role in the hijacking of a TWA flight from Athens to Rome in 1985. The hijackers killed a U.S. Navy diver after taking the plane to Beirut. The United States had offered a $25 million reward for his capture or conviction.

His name emerged again in 2006, when he was said to have played a role in organizing Hezbollah's defenses during the war with Israel that year.

"This is a loss of a major pillar in resistance work. He was an expert at making victories and building fighting capacities against Israel," said Ali Hassan Khalil, a member of parliament with Amal, another Shiite Muslim group allied with Hezbollah. "He played an essential role in all resistance activities, especially the last war."

Over the years, both Israeli and American agencies had relentlessly pursued Mughniyeh. In 1994, Mughniyeh's brother was killed by a car bomb in Beirut, and reports at the time suggested Imad Mughniyeh had been the target.

A year later, FBI officials traveled to Saudi Arabia to take custody of him during a stopover of a Middle East Airlines flight from Khartoum, Sudan, to Beirut. Before they could, Saudi officials decided not to cooperate and refused to allow the plane to land, angering U.S. officials.

Washington Post staff writer Robin Wright in Washington and correspondent Samuel Sockol in Jerusalem contributed to this report.

Take that, you bastards! Using myths to justify the killing of people and marginalize anybody who doesn't think like you! Shame on you, shame on Iran for giving you financial and moral support, and may you all rot in shallow graves! "Martyrdom" my ass, hope the worms find you extra tasty!