Tehran Sends Archterrorist Mughniyeh to Rescue Hizballah

[Gershon]

"Hajj" is his alias, and he has been called in to head the Hizbollah southern command before it falls to Israel. Hajj "is important enough to take orders from no-one ranking lower than Iran’s supreme ruler, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Those orders come through the Revolutionary Guards commander Gen. Rahim Safavi."

Hajj has the distinction of making the FBI's top 22 most wanted, and is credited with killing at least 279 Americans. Hajj "is important enough to take orders from no-one ranking lower than Iran’s supreme ruler, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Those orders come through the Revolutionary Guards commander Gen. Rahim Safavi."

Tehran Sends Archterrorist Mughniyeh to Rescue Hizballah
DEBKAfile’s Exclusive Military Report
August 5, 2006, 4:57 PM (GMT+02:00)
In the middle of the fourth week of the Lebanon War, the tide began to turn in Israel’s favor. DEBKAfile’s military sources report the battlefield finally responded to the effect of Israel’s air might, its tank columns, the pounding by mobile artillery and naval craft and its repeated armored infantry assaults.
After losing 44 fighting men, more than 30 civilians, many thousands of wounded and billions of dollars of damage, finally, the Israeli military was given the chance to do what it does best: focus its firepower instead of spreading it out thin over too many targets.
The setbacks of the first three weeks were partly due to tactical incompetence and laggard decision-making on the part of prime minister Ehud Olmert and defense minister Peretz. Israeli troops therefore spent too long in abrading combat against stubborn Hizballah resistance in such places as Maroun er Ras and Bint Jubeil. But as soon as Israeli ground forces shifted to the massive, long-distance firing mode which they knows best, the impact on the warfront was immediate. The battle went their way with a minimum of casualties. In places where Israeli troops adhered to the close combat tactics practiced in the first three weeks, they continued to suffer high casualties.
Hizballah soon showed signs of distress. Lacking the weapons and resources to stand up to IDF’s precise-shooting juggernaut, their commanders quickly pulled their men out most combat sectors of South Lebanon and ordered them to regroup in five places:
1. The Western Sector and the center of Tyre.
2. The Wadi Hajar pocket east of Tyre.
3. The Central Sector surrounding Bint Jubeil, where the outcome is still unresolved after many days of fighting.
4. The Wadi Saluki area northwest of the northernmost Israeli town of Metullah.
5. The Eastern Sector, including al Khiam, the Shabaa Farms and Mt Dov, which has seen little fighting - although last week Israeli forces began - then stopped - a major offensive before it got underway.
These pockets are now the main launching-pads for rockets fired into Israel.
Outside, there is no ground fighting in South Lebanon but for Israeli air strikes.
Hizballah also has also been using the Tapuach and al-Haroub areas south and northeast of Sidon for shooting rockets. It is from this region that Hizballah fired the long-range Khaibar-1 missiles at Hadera Friday night, August 4, which came 45 km short of Tel Aviv. Saturday morning, Sidon’s 200,000 inhabitants and its outlying villages up to the Zahrani River were warned to leave their homes and head north to escape the coming Israeli air offensive.
Until the Khaibar attack on Hadera, the concentration of Hizballah’s rocket launchers and stores in and around Sidon had been immune from Israeli attack – largely because Olmert and his senior ministers refused to increase the number of ground troops deployed in Lebanon. The military commanders had to do their best with the limited numbers available.
In other words, with the right manpower level, Hizballah’s abilty to fire rockets can be dented, notwithstanding claims by Israel officials and generals that there is no way to do this when most of Hizballah’s 13,000-rocket stockpile remains intact.
But even cutting down on the daily 200-plus rocket blitz on northern Israel is
not plain sailing because:
First, Neither the Israeli Air Force nor any other air force is capable of completely halting rocket fire from the ground. In the relatively small distances between Lebanon and Israel, the short-range Katyusha rockets have the effect of medium-range weapons, while the short-to-medium range rockets perform like long-range missiles.
Second, Israel does not have enough infantry on the ground to make substantial inroads on Hizballah’s rocket-firing capabilities.
Third, Iran and Syria are constantly restocking Hizballah’s diminishing supplies of rockets of all types, launchers and operating manpower by a round- the-clock airlift from Iran via Syrian military air fields. Some of the incoming supplies are destroyed by Israeli air attacks as they cross into Lebanon, but a substantial part is conveyed to Hizballah by smuggling networks employing mules to traverse Lebanese mountain paths. Even if 2,000 have been wiped out and a similar amount has been fired, no one knows how many are left in stock because it is replenished. As long as that corridor is not severed by bombing the Syrian stopover air facilities, Iran will continue to top up Hizballah’s stockpile. Therefore, the rocket offensive cannot be reduced by very much.
Fourth, Israeli forces do not operate in all parts of South Lebanon.
Hizballah’s withdrawal to five pockets in South Lebanon affords the IDF certain tactical advantages - although liabilities too.
The Advantages:
It is now possible to carve the region the Israeli army controls into three sections, western, central and eastern, a tactic familiar from the Gaza Strip, for encumbering Hizballah guerrilla movement between the sections. The goal is to confine Hizballah to the five pockets and place them under blockade. They can then be made to capitulate or face liquidation.
The Liabilities:
Leaving the two banks of the Litani River, the Nabatea plain and Hazbaya to the north of the river in Hizballah hands leaves a route open for its reinforcements to come through and to strike Israeli forces from the rear.
Nonetheless, by Thursday, August 3, Hizballah was showing signs of being in trouble.
A. Local Hizballah village commanders signaled repeated appeals for more manpower and ammunition. The appeals were not met because outside forces cannot break through the defense lines held by the advancing Israeli troops. The village commanders were therefore told by their superiors to fight to the last man and last bullet and reserve the last grenade for suicide.
B. Hizballah’s shadowy leader, the long-wanted Imad Mughniyeh, was hurriedly appointed commander of the southern front as a last resort to save South Lebanon from falling to Israel.(picture from the 1980s)
DEBKAfile’s military and counter-terror sources maintain that this appointment raises the conflict to a new and dangerous level on several counts.
Mughniyeh, wanted for a quarter of a century by the FBI for the huge bombing attacks he orchestrated on the US embassy in Beirut and American and French troops, as well as a spate of hijackings and murders, is important enough to take orders from no-one ranking lower than Iran’s supreme ruler, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Those orders come through the Revolutionary Guards commander Gen. Rahim Safavi.
Therefore, placing Mughniyeh at the head of Hizballah forces in South Lebanon confronts prime minister Olmert uncomfortably close to Iran’s supreme leader; ranges defense minister Peretz opposite his Iranian counterpart Mustafa Najer and chief of staff Lt. Gen Dan Halutz opposite Gen. Safavi, while on the warfront, Israel’s war leaders face the formidable Mughniyeh, Tehran’s secret weapon for rescuing Hizballah from collapse.
Informed circles in the West have a high opinion of Mughniyeh’s military, intelligence and tactical skills. His hand was seen in the transformation of al Qaeda’s 2001 defeat in Afghanistan into a launch pad for its anti-US campaign in Iraq and many other ventures in the terror war against America. After the death of Abu Musab al Zarqawi, Mughniyeh is rated the world Islamic terror movement’s most outstanding field commander.
Therefore, while the appointment is a measure of Israel’s belated military success in the Lebanese war, it also brings the conflict ever closer to two dangerous orbits – Tehran and al Qaeda. Mughniyeh is the only undercover agent in the Middle East who enjoys the complete personal trust of Khamenei and Osama bin Laden, on both of whom he is in a position to call for aid.
On the diplomatic front, even if the United States and France can get together on a unified UN Security Council ceasefire resolution, DEBKAfile’s military sources report that neither Iran nor Hizballah has any intention of complying with a resolution dictated by the United States, France and Israel.

[Illuminatus]

....so now the Lebanese Republic whose economy is in shambles welcomes yet another Islamo-Terrorist to live, operate, receive funds, and commit acts of terrorism within its borders.

Lebanon should be proud.

^_^

[2 cents]

Lebanon should be proud

and Israel should be thanked

[MGB8]

For what, continuous attacks for 6 years on its people while arming a sub-state terror group in Lebanon with 13,000 rockets, including heavy grade long range missles?

You are kidding yourself.

The Mullah's are evil. There is no other word. You want to pretend that they are not, that they can be ignored. The world ignored Hitler's rise, too.

Forget these resolutions. The real resolutions should condemn Syria and Iran and Hezbollah and it should be made clear that Israel has a free hand until the soldiers are returned and their is a plan to disarm hezbollah.

Iran and Syria aren't ready for a full scale confrontation. They'd back down. But the weakness displayed by the west emboldens them, as we have been seeing.

Hezbollah must be destroyed!

[Leon]

More on the guy

Imad Fayez Mugniyah (born December 7, 1962) is a senior member of the Lebanese group Hezbollah. He is alternatively described as the head of its security section, a senior intelligence official and as a founder of the organization. He's widely believed to be heading the international branch of the Hezbollah. This discrepancy can be traced to the limited information known about him. He uses the alias of Hajj. Mugniyah is also included in the EU list of wanted terrorists [1].

According to this Lebanese passport application, Imad Mughniyah was born in 1962, in Tayr Dibba, a poor village in southern Lebanon [1]. This is occasionally disputed by CIA South Group records, which state that his proposed place of residency is really a cover-up for an illegal residence in Ayn Al-Dilbah, a ghetto in South Beirut.[citation needed] His father was a vegetable seller and during the civil war, his house was on the green line.

Little is known about his adolescence as he did not attract the attention of analysts until 1976 when he joined Yasir Arafat's Force 17. His role at that time was as a sniper on the green line, targeting Christians across the green line. At some point he spent a year at the American University of Beirut also, his uncle was an Islamic scholar.

Mugniyah has been implicated in many of terrorist attacks in the 1980s and 1990s, primarily American and Israeli targets. These include the April 18, 1983 bombing of the United States embassy in Beirut, Lebanon, which killed 63 people including 17 Americans. He was later blamed for the October 23, 1983 simultaneous truck bombings against the French paratroopers and US Marine barracks (see: Marine Barracks Bombing). The attacks killed 58 French soldiers and 241 Marines. Almost a year later on September 20, 1984, he attacked the US embassy annex building. The United States indicted him for the July 14, 1985 hijacking of TWA Flight 847, which resulted in the death of U.S. Navy diver Robert Stethem. He was also linked to numerous kidnappings of Westerners in Beirut through the 1980s, most notably that of Terry Anderson. Some of these individuals were later killed such as U.S. Army Col William Francis Buckley. The remainder were released at various times until the last one, Terry Anderson was released in 1991.

Contents [hide]
1 Relationships to al-Qaeda and other groups
2 Actions of law enforcement
3 References
4 External links



[edit]
Relationships to al-Qaeda and other groups
Mugniyah has been accused of being an ally of the terrorist organization al-Qaeda. According to the testimony of Ali Mohamed, he arranged security for a meeting between Mugniyah and al-Qaeda operatives in 1993. This connection has lead some to believe he was also behind the 1996 attack on the Khobar Towers complex, which resulted in the deaths of 19 American service members, 1998 attacks on the U.S. embassies in East Africa and the USS Cole bombing in 2000.

Many foreign policy experts including Michael Ledeen have speculated that Mughniyah has had a strong working relationship with Al Qaeda and Abu Musab Al Zarqawi, especially in recent years with the invasion of Iraq. However, other experts speculate that Zarqawi's intense hatred towards Shia Islam, which Mughniyah belongs to, would have prevented such an alliance.

He has also been linked to Palestinian actions, such as the Karine A incident in 2002, where the Palestinian Authority was accused of importing fifty tons of weapons. He was previously a member of Force 17, an armed branch of the Fatah movement charged with providing security for Yasser Arafat and other prominent PLO officials.

[edit]
Actions of law enforcement
Various law enforcement agencies have attempted to capture Mugniyah. The United States tried to secure his capture in France in 1986, but were thwarted by French refusal to detain him.

The United States tried to detain him several times afterwards, the first being a 1995 attempt to detain him as the plane he was traveling on was supposed to stop in Saudi Arabia. However Saudi officials refused to allow the plane to land and he was not captured. The next year US military personnel planned to seize him off a ship in Doha, Qatar, but the operation was called off.

On October 10, 2001 Mugniyah appeared on the initial list of the FBI's top 22 Most Wanted Terrorists, which was released to the public by President Bush. A reward of $25 million dollars was offered for information leading to his arrest.

The Israeli government has also made several alleged attempts to assassinate Mugniyah. His brother Fuad Mugniyah was killed in 1994 by a Lebanese allegedly working for Israel. [citation needed]

In 1999, the Argentinean government issued an arrest warrant for Mugniyah for his involvement in the 1994 AIMA culture center bombing.

Mugniyah has been formally charged by Argentina with participating in the March 17, 1992 bombings of the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires, which killed 29 and the AMIA cultural building in July 1994, killing 86 people. He has been accused of orchestrating the 2000 abductions of three Israeli soldiers in the southern part of Lebanon and abduction of Israeli Colonel Elchanan Tenenbaum, and the more recent attack on israel, killing 8 soldiers and abducting two.

Recent articles by the Counter-terrorisim Blog, and by the New Yorker Magazine, suggest that Imad Mugniyah recently attended a meeting between Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Mugniyah was there representing Hezbollah in Lebanon. According to the same articles, Mugniyah has been informed that he is currently at the top of a US Military and CIA assassination list. For this reason he is said to avoid certain areas of Beirut for fear of being killed by CIA SAD paramilitary operatives, or US Special Operations Hunter/Killer teams.

[Leon]

The fact that he was a senior member of force 17 and Arafat's body guards, doesn't suprise me

[farmall]

"Hezbollah must be destroyed!"
That does not go nearly far enough.
Guerillas swim like fish in the sea.
Dry up the sea.
Lebanon is s skirmish in much bigger war. The sooner that war can be changed to a form that favors Western technology, and where the West no longer sees a need to bother with preserving mortal enemies, this can be settled in the proper manner. It took a couple of World Wars to be rid of the German problem, (the second taking care of Japan as well), and only the threat of nuclear war combined with political and military actions throughout the Cold War contained Russia until it imploded.
If a few countries have to be devastated, then that's a price we'll have to pay and a cost we'll have to impose.
There is no longer a need for peace, or more than cynical gestures towards resolution. If you really want civilization to triumph, it behooves you to stop thinking in a local manner and make common cause with every enemy of Jihadism.
Advocate increased military spending on both strategic and tactical systems, educate the ignorant on the full dimensions of the struggle, and work for the election of candiidates who will defend our shared culture instead of grovelling before our enemies.

""Civilizations die from suicide, not by murder."
Arnold Toynbee