aweeeeeee2bad
assassinate lebanese elected officials and ex-prime ministers
and you may find yourself blown to bits in a car as well
this should have happened the next day after former
Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri was assassinated in 2005
Leading Hezbollah official killed by car bomb in SyriaBy Sam F. Ghattas, THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Feb 13, 2008
BEIRUT, Lebanon - Imad Mughniyeh, a top Hezbollah official accused of
involvement in attacks
that killed hundreds of Americans and Israelis, has been killed.
Hezbollah did not disclose where or how Mughniyeh died in announcing his death today.
But it accused Israel of being behind the assassination, an allegation the Jewish state immediately denied.
Various news outlets in the Middle East say he was killed by a car bomb in Syria.
Mughniyeh, who had been in hiding for years, was suspected of masterminding attacks on the U.S. Embassy and the marine base in Lebanon that killed more than 260 Americans in the 1980s.
He was also believed by Israel to be behind bombings of its embassy in Argentina in 1992 that killed 29 people and of a Jewish centre in Buenos Aires in 1995 that killed 95 people.
Mughniyeh was among those indicted in the United States for the 1985 hijacking of a TWA airliner in which a U.S. navy diver was killed.
Mughniyeh, 45, was also the reputed leader of a group that held westerners hostage in Lebanon, among them journalist Terry Anderson, a former Associated Press chief Middle East correspondent who was held captive for six years.
His death is a major blow to Hezbollah, which fought Israel in the summer 2006 war in Lebanon, and its Iranian and Syrian backers.
Mughniyeh was on an FBI wanted list with a $25 million bounty on his head. The bounty is equal to that the U.S. has put for al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden.
"With all pride we declare a great jihadist leader of the Islamic resistance in Lebanon joining the martyrs," said a statement carried on Hezbollah television.
"... The brother commander hajj Imad Mughinyeh became a martyr at the hands of the Zionist Israelis."
The announcement came a few hours after a late night explosion in Damascus destroyed a vehicle.
Witnesses in the Syrian capital said at the time that a passer-by was killed as security forces sealed off the area and removed the body, but authorities there would not give details.
Iran's English-language satellite station Press TV on Wednesday said the person slain in the Damascus explosion turned out to be Mughniyeh. It said an Iranian school and a Syrian intelligence office were in the same area of Kafar Soussa where the explosion occurred.
Press TV reported that
Mughniyeh was leaving his house and about to get into his car when it exploded. However, LBC, a Lebanese television station, said Mughniyeh was attending a ceremony at the Iranian school in Damascus and was killed as he left the function.
Israel denied killing the militant.
"Israel rejects the attempt by terror groups to attribute to it any involvement in this incident. We have nothing further to add," read the statement from Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's office.
Syria has not commented, nor did Hezbollah explicitly link his death to the Damascus bombing, which would be an embarrassment for the government of Syrian President Bashar Assad for hosting him.
Mughinyeh's killing is the first major attack against a leader of Hezbollah since the 1992 helicopter strike that killed Hezbollah's secretary general, Sheik Abbas Mussawi, in southern Lebanon.
If Israel proves to be involved in the assassination it would mark a bold move by the Israelis inside Syria and could draw Hezbollah retaliation.
Hezbollah did not threaten immediate revenge. But its al-Manar television, which broke into Qur'anic verses after the announcement, broadcast another statement from the Shiite Muslim militant group, saying a funeral would be held Thursday.
It urged supporters to turn out in its stronghold in south Beirut to "carry on our shoulders a leader we were proud with his leadership and a martyr we're honoured by his martyrdom."
"Let us make our voice heard by all the enemies and murderers that we will make victory no matter how the sacrifices are," Hezbollah said.
The announcement of his death said Mughniyeh for 20 years has been the target of "Zionists and oppressors" - a reference to Israel and the United States in Hezbollah and Iranian parlance.
Mughniyeh was Hezbollah security chief during a turbulent period in Lebanon's civil war. Little has been known about him since the end of the 15-year conflict and Hezbollah has regularly refused to talk about him.
Wednesday's announcement of his death was the first mention of him in years.
But American intelligence officials have described Mughniyeh as Hezbollah's operations chief, who the claimed moved between Lebanon, Syria and Iran in disguise.
Mughniyeh's last public appearance was believed to be at the funeral of his brother Fuad, who was killed on Dec. 12, 1994, when a booby-trapped car blew up in the southern suburb of Beirut.
http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/War_Terror/2008/02/13/4843950-ap.html
