Hezbollah Terrorist Imad Mughniyeh Assassinated in Damascus, Syria

Some very interesting news in the War on Terror today, as another terrorist bites the dust. Hezbollah terrorist Imad Fayez Mughniyeh has been assassinated in Damascus, Syria.

WHAT HAPPENED TO IMAD MUGHNIYEH?

Last night (February 12, 2008) around 10:30PM, Mughniyeh ("The Fox") was getting into his car in the upscale Kfar Sousse neighborhood after leaving a meeting at the offices of the chief of Syrian intelligence, Asif Shuwekat, who is President Bashar Assad's brother-in-law, when a powerful car bomb detonated his parked Mitsubishi Pajero.



Someone had managed to booby-trap his car from under his security's nose. An inside job? Seems likely. Indeed, Hezbollah quickly blamed Hamas for the breach that led to Mughniyeh killing, but also, without missing a beat or noticing the contradiction, holds Israel totally responsible for Mughniyeh's assassination.

Differing reports say that he was leaving the Syrian intelligence office; leaving his house; leaving a ceremony at the Iranian school; and witnesses say only one person was killed in the blast, after which security forces quickly sealed off the area and removed the body, giving no details. Other reports say that Hajj Hussein Khalil, Hezbollah's Deputy Secretary-General for Political Affairs was also killed in the blast with Mughniyeh.

The TimesOnline.com reports that Israel's Mossad killed Mughniyeh with a headrest bomb, which someone had ingeniously planted by replacing the headrest of the driver's seat with another containing a small high-explosive charge.

At 10:35PM , Mughniyeh decided to go home, after sipping fruit juice at a party at the Iranian culture center, hosted by Hojatoleslam Ahmed Musavi, the newly appointed Iranian ambassador. Minutes later, Mughniyeh was seated in his silver Mitsubishi Pajero in a nearby street when a deafening blast ripped the car apart and killed him instantly.

From HotAir.com:

"One witness, who declined to give her name, said the explosion occurred about 10:15 p.m. and blew parts of the car into her apartment. Her husband said the blast hurled Mughniyah’s body into the building entrance about 15 feet away, severing his arms and legs. He was dead by the time rescue workers arrived, she said. Other residents told her that the bomb detonated as Mughniyah opened the car after visiting Iranians who live on the building’s second floor. “We hadn’t seen him here before,” she said."

WHO WAS IMAD MUGHNIYEH?

Mughniyeh, also known as Hajj Radwan, was born in a south Lebanon village in 1962, the son of a vegetable seller. As a young man, he joined Force 17 as a sniper and Yasser Arafat's personal bodyguard, then moved on to the Palestine Liberation Organization and later Hezbollah. He rose up through the ranks of Hezbollah, and built his reputation as a remarkably effective and lethal terrorist.

Ironically, car bombs were his specialty, and during his 25 years as a terrorist, he used explosives-laden cars and trucks to blow up embassies, military barracks, and even a community center.

The pudgy, gray-bearded 46-year old Mughniyeh was responsible for many deadly attacks, including:

1983 - simultaneous truck bombings in Beirut of US Marine barracks and the US embassy there, killing 241 Marines, 58 French soldiers, and 17 Americans.

1985 - hijacking of TWA flight 847 flying from Athens to Rome, resulting in the beating death of Robert Stethem, a Navy diver whose body was thrown onto the tarmac.

Mid-1980s - William Buckley, the CIA station chief in Beirut who was kidnapped, tortured and killed.

1992 - bombing of Israel's embassy in Buenos Aires killed 29 people.

1994 - 85 killed in the bombing of a Jewish Community Center in Buenos Aires.

At least 500 died in his attacks in just over a decade.

He was probably the most wanted and most elusive terrorist, with a $25 million bounty on his head.

Rarely seen in public and even more rarely photographed, the ultra-secretive Mughniyeh had undergone at least two plastic surguries to conceal his identity.

Here (below) is the last known photo of Mughniyeh before his death, conferring with Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah:

On his 40th birthday, he underwent plastic surgery in a private clinic in East Berlin to help him evade his hunters, the kidon of Mossad. His surgeons had once worked for the Stasi, East Germany's infamous secret service. They rebuilt his cheeks and jaw to make him look leaner and reshaped his eyes.

Some say he even had his fingerprints removed, and one has to wonder if perhaps he has faked his own death, becoming even more invisible.

His official title was Special Operations Command of Hezbollah, and as its military chief, he was a de facto state-sponsored terrorist of Iran.

As far away as Canada, he was linked to a Hezbollah procurement network that bought night-vision goggles and army surplus gear in Vancouver and sent it to Lebanon. In 1994, Mughniyeh survived a booby trapped car bombing/assassination attempt that killed his brother Fuad, whose funeral marked his last public appearance. He never appeared on Arab television, never strayed outside his comfort zone of the adjoining countires of Lebanon, Iran and Syria, frequently traveling in disguise.

From HotAir.com:

Lebanese officials, exploiting a monitored telephone call, traced Mughniyah to Paris in 1985, only five months after the hijacking of a TWA jetliner, to which he had been linked. He was staying at the Hotel de Crillon, a luxurious hotel across the street from the U.S. Embassy. Tipped off by the Lebanese, U.S. officials asked French police to arrest him and turn him over. Instead, as previously reported in The Washington Post, French agents met with him several times over a six-day period, according to a source closely involved, and worked out an agreement to release him in return for the freedom of a French hostage.

He reportedly met with Iranian Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in Syria in 2006.

From Arutz Sheva, which reports Mughniyeh was in the midst of planning a mass terror attack:

A Kuwaiti newspaper reports that Hizbullah terrorist chief Imad Mughniyeh, who was killed in a car-bomb attack in Damascus on Tuesday, was in the midst of planning major terrorist attacks in moderate Arab countries when he was killed.

Al-Watan reports that American intelligence had learned that Mughniyeh arrived in Damascus three days earlier with instructions from, and in coordination with, the Iranians. His objective was to meet with Hizbullah leaders and coordinate a mass attack, for which he was to receive help from Syrian intelligence.

The American involvement in the killing is explained as being in retaliation for a recent car bomb attack that targeted a U.S. Embassy vehicle, killing three passersby.

Another Kuwaiti newspaper, Al-Siasa, reports that Mughniyeh took part, shortly before he was killed, in a secret meeting in the Iranian School in Damascus. Also participating in the meeting were Syrian Intelligence Chief Gen. Aisaf Shwackath, Hamas chief Khaled Mashaal, and an Islamic Jihad representative.

On the agenda: planned attacks in Arab countries that refuse to take part in the coming Arab League summit in Damascus. The newspaper entertains the possibility that the meeting was merely a camouflage for Syrian involvement in Mughniyeh's killing.

At his funeral, Mughniyeh's mother, Umm Imad (meaning Mother of Imad), sighed,"If only I had more boys to carry on in his footsteps," and later "My son is not a terrorist. These are silly allegations. My son is a fighter."

He is the third, and presumably the last, of her sons to die in car bombings. Mughniyeh's brothers Jihad and Fuad were killed in car bomb explosions in Beirut in the '80s and '90s.

In addition to his mother, Mughnineh is survived by two sisters, his wife and their three children, two boys and a girl.

Saudi Arabia’s newspaper “Okaz” has reported that the widow of Hezbollah’s slain leader Imad Mughniyeh who was assassinated on February 12 in Damascus Syria , left Damascus as soon as her husband was murdered.

"The newspaper also reported that Mughniyeh’s widow, who is Iranian was extremely angered by the murder of her husband and blamed it on “treason and treachery” without expanding what she meant and whom she had in mind as the traitors.

Mughniyeh’s widow requested immediate departure from Syria to either Lebanon or Iran, but the Iranian embassy decided to take her to Tehran away from the Lebanese media," according to Okaz.

The Mughniyeh family home is in Tayr Debba, Lebanon, and is "a one-story building at the end of a green field overlooking a valley that stretches to the Mediterranean."

WHO IS RESPONSIBLE FOR MUGHNIYEH'S ASSASSINATION?

DID PRESIDENT BILL CLINTON ALLOW IMAD MUGHNIYEH TO REMAIN FREE?

The Israelis deny they were involved in the killing, but of course no one else could have brought off the bombing so skillfully. Some believe it was the work of Mossad's special covert operations unit known as Caesarea. Israel anticipates retalitory attacks, and is bracing and preparing for them.

Some experts say that Mughniyeh's assassination proves that Israel has successfully infiltrated Hezbollah, and probably has Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah in the crosshairs. Realizing he is on Israel's hit list, Nasrallah conducts his operations from underground, and must be wondering who tipped off Mughniyeh's location and who might also reveal his own whereabouts.

However, Mughniyeh had so many enemies, all of them skilled bombmakers, that it is difficult to know exactly who is responsible so early in the investigations.

Interestingly, several Palestinians have already been arrested for suspected involvment in the killing.

Reportedly, the Mossad team members of the kidon had tracked him to Paris, but he managed to escape just as they were closing in on him. He turned up in Saudi Arabia, then in Tehran.

The hunt began anew when three Mossad agents, using Iranian passports, arrived in Damascus on different flights from Rome and Athens. One rented a car, and they drove around Damascus posing as tourists. Later they rented a lock-up garage where they wired two powerful bombs inside the chassis of the rental car.

Another report: Hizbollah probe claims Israel used Palestinian contacts for Mughniyeh hit. (below)

DEBKAfile’s counter-terror sources stress that, above all Hizballah was keen to clear itself of suspicion that Mughniyeh was betrayed by an insider planted by Mossad, and this report points at Palestinians who are accused of giving him away.

Their investigators claim that the Israeli Mossad tracked him down through the Palestinian operatives with whom he recently rendezvoused in Beirut and Damascus to coordinate a new wave of terror against Israel.

The Palestinians he met did not know his real identity, they claim. He posed as a senior Iranian intelligence officer called Hajj Radwan, who was based inside the Hizballah command.

This information was leaked to the Mossad networks said to be working under cover in Beirut and Damascus, who then tipped Mossad HQ in Tel Aviv. They too did not immediately identity Mughniyeh, say the Hizballah investigators – until a description was built up of his habits and connections. One of these was Hamas politburo chief Khaled Meshaal. The Israeli agents, it is said, then put two and two together and came up with the dangerous terrorist Israel and the US had been hunting for two and a half decades.

Two pieces of information clinched the fix, says the Hizballah report.

One was the type of terror operations he discussed with his Palestinian colleagues: “Hajj Radwan” laid before Palestinian terror planners mass high-quality attacks inside Israel in conjunction with Iran and Hizballah. They talked about scale, targets, funding, weapons and manpower.

No one but Imad Mughniyeh was believed to have the breadth and skill to put together a complex Palestinian operation of this type and its detailed cooperation with Tehran and Beirut.

The other clincher was the fact that the “Iranian officer” turned up for all his meetings without bodyguards. In this Mughniyeh was unique. No other Middle East terror chief moves without bodyguards, but the Lebanese terror mastermind trusted nothing and no one but total secrecy. For the Mossad, his lone wolf habits were a telltale trademark.

The Shiite group’s investigators went on to claim that when the Mossad realized that Mughniyeh was within their grasp, they ordered two hit teams waiting in West Europe to set out for Damascus and Beirut.

The Hizballah finds support for its conclusion in the resemblance between the alleged Mossad modus operandi for killing Mughniyeh and the way Ali Hassan Daib in 1999, Ali Hussein Salah in 2003 and Ghalb Alawi in 2004, were killed. All three were Hizballah liaison men who collaborated with Palestinian terror groups on joint attacks against Israel.

Caroline Glick of the Jerusalem Post writes this very interesting piece, Mughnineh's True Legacy:

"It is quite possible that terror master Imad Mughniyeh was not killed Tuesday night in Damascus for his past crimes, but to prevent him from carrying out additional attacks in the future.

On January 30, French security services raided a Paris apartment and arrested six Arab men. Three of the men - two Lebanese and one Syrian - were travelling on diplomatic passports.

According to the Italian Libero newspaper, the six were members of a Hizbullah cell. Documents seized included tourist maps of Paris, London, Madrid, Berlin and Rome marked up with red highlighter to indicate routes, addresses, parking lots and "truck stopping points." The maps pointed to several routes to Vatican back entrances.

Libero's report explained that the "truck stopping points" aligned with information the French had received the week before from Beirut. There, Hizbullah chief Hassan Nasrallah had convened a conference of his senior terror leaders where he ordered them to activate Hizbullah cells throughout Europe to kidnap senior European leaders.

The day of the arrests, French Defense Minister Herve Morin was meeting with his American counterpart, Defense Secretary Robert Gates, and with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in Washington on a previously unannounced visit.

During his public appearances, Morin criticized US National Intelligence Estimate on Iran's nuclear program from November. Morin said, "Coordinated information from a number of intelligence services leads us to believe that Iran has not given up its wish to pursue its [nuclear] program," and is "continuing to develop" it.

Other recent reports relayed French concern that their embassy in Beirut is being targeted for attack by Hizbullah. On January 15 terrorists attacked a US Embassy car in Beirut, killing four and wounding 16. This week, French President Nicholas Sarkozy's chief of staff told L'Express newsweekly that the threat of terror against France "remains quite high."

All of the feared terror attacks against French and European targets have the classic earmarkings of Hizbullah operations chief and Iranian Revolutionary Guards officer Imad Mughniyeh. Mughniyeh was the pioneer of embassy bombings and high-profile kidnappings."

At any rate, one more terrorist has been liquidated, and instead of enjoying the delights of the 72 dark-eyed virgins, Imad Mughniyeh / Hajj Radwan / "The Fox" is probably sizzling and roasting on the Lake of Fire for all eternity. All good.

Why No Cheers for Terrorist's Death?
After the well-deserved demise of one of the world's most lethal terrorists, we'd have expected joy on the part of freedom-loving peoples everywhere. Instead, as one report put it, the reaction was "mixed."

Click here to see a video from a mobile phone of the aftermath and burning car from the liquidation of Mughniyeh

Another Video:

Bomb Kills Top Hezbollah Leader

DID PRESIDENT BILL CLINTON ALLOW IMAD MUGHNIYEH TO REMAIN FREE? Jack Cashill says it sure looks that way.

Links and Sources for More Information:
http://theneinblog.blogspot.com/2008/02/cause-for-celebration-hezbollah.html

http://www.nationalpost.com/news/story.html?id=306565

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120294922638366823.html

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3506535,00.html

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/954800.html

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/125258

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=7a6_1202918951

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article3382343.ece

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5jlDGoMvuggf-jrXPtqBNPiMavBnAD8UTUKJ80