BEIRUT: A senior Hezbollah military commander, one of the world's most wanted men for his alleged links to a string of bombings, hijackings and kidnappings during the 1980s and 1990s, has been killed, Hezbollah said Wednesday. The Shiite group accused Israel of orchestrating the killing.
Security officials in Lebanon said the man, Imad Mughniyeh, who was believed to be behind attacks in 1983 on the U.S. Embassy and Marine barracks in Beirut and the terrorist hijacking of a TWA jetliner in 1985, died in a car bomb in Damascus on Tuesday night. His organization may have also been involved in the bombing of the Khobar Towers military residence in Saudi Arabia in 1996, in which 17 Americans were killed.
"With pride and honor we announce that a great Jihadi leader has joined the procession of martyrs in the Islamic resistance," said a statement read on Hezbollah's Al Manar television station. "The martyr was killed at the hands of the Israeli Zionists."
Israel officially distanced itself from the killing and, without specifically naming Mughniyeh, said it was looking into the attack in Syria. But some former Israeli security officials did not hide their satisfaction at Mughniyeh's assassination.
Dani Yatom, a Labor lawmaker and former chief of the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad, called Mughniyeh's death "a great achievement for the free world in its fight on terror." At one point, Mughniyeh had a U.S. price tag on his head of $25 million.
U.S. officials assert that Mughniyeh was behind the bombings in Beirut in 1983. A car bomb at the U.S. Embassy in April that year killed 63 people, including 17 Americans, while a truck bomb in October at a Marine compound killed 241 American troops.
The United States have also asserted Mughniyeh was behind the torture and murder of William Buckley, the CIA station chief in Beirut, in 1984; the kidnapping and murder of Lieutenant Colonel William Richard Higgins of the Marines, who was on peacekeeping duty in Lebanon in 1988; and, through the Islamic Jihad Organization, the seizure of Western hostages in Beirut during the 1980s.
Mughniyeh is also wanted for the hijacking in June 1985 of a TWA flight. During the hijacking, an American was killed and 39 Americans were held hostage for 17 days. It is the only terrorist action for which he has been indicted in the United States.
In a statement, the office of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert of Israel said: "Israel rejects the attempt by terrorist elements to ascribe to it any involvement whatsoever in this incident." Gideon Ezra, a minister from the governing Kadima party and former deputy chief of the Shin Bet internal intelligence agency, told Israel Radio on Wednesday that many countries had an interest in killing Mughniyeh but that "Israel, too, was hurt by him, more than other countries in recent years."
Ezra said, "Of course I don't know who killed him, but whoever did should be congratulated." According to witnesses, the bombing of the car took place just after 10:30 p.m. Monday in Tantheem Kafer Souseh, an upscale neighborhood of Damascus, close to an Iranian school and a police station.
The car, believed to be a black sport-utility vehicle, was badly damaged in the attack, "like a shredded metal can," according to Housham Nasaiseh, who works in a candy shop nearby and arrived at the scene a few minutes after the explosion. At least nine other cars were damaged.
By Wednesday morning, the destroyed car had been towed away, the scene had been cleared and the only signs of the attack were a black mark on the ground and damage to nearby buildings.
As well as being described as an archterrorist with strong links to Iran, Mughniyeh was believed in Israel to be a master of disguises who may have undergone several rounds of plastic surgery in order to evade capture.
