Mossad killed terror chief with headrest bomb.

[ForceRecon79]

(from the London Sunday Times)

Israel kills terror chief with headrest bomb

Uzi Mahnaimi in Tel Aviv, Hala Jaber in Beirut and Jon Swain

NOTHING seemed very remarkable about the short, bearded man who mingled with other guests on Tuesday evening at a reception in Damascus, the Syrian capital, to mark the 29th anniversary of Ayatollah Khomeini’s Iranian revolution.

Yet before the night was over he was dead in the twisted wreckage of his car and the inevitable assumption was that Mossad, the Israeli foreign intelligence service, had killed him with an ingeniously planted bomb.

The news spread rapidly that the dead man was Imad Mughniyeh, an elusive figure known as “the Fox” who had been one of the world’s most feared terrorist masterminds.

Robert Baer, a former CIA agent who spent years on his trail, said Mughniyeh was “probably the most intelligent, most capable operative we’ve ever run across”.

As the Israelis rejoiced, Iran and Hezbollah, the militant Shi’ite group, which together had harnessed Mugniyeh’s expertise, mourned his death at a huge funeral in Beirut, where he established his terrorist network.

Mughniyeh’s mother, Um Imad, sat amid a sea of black chadors, a lonely, sombre figure as mourners held their hero’s picture aloft.

“If only I had more boys to carry on in his footsteps,” she sighed, confessing that she did not have any pictures of him, even from his childhood, as he had taken them away. He was the third of her sons to die in a car bombing.

With a price of $25m (£12.7m) on his head, he was always vigilant. Some say he had had plastic surgery to alter his face in an effort to elude the Americans and Israelis who blamed him for plane hijackings and other bloody attacks which killed hundreds of their citizens in the Middle East and as far away as South America.

He had grown accustomed to living dangerously and there was no reason he should have feared for his safety last Tuesday as he sipped fruit juice at the party at the Iranian cultural centre. Mughniyeh was on fairly good terms with everybody present – almost all the leaders of the Damascus-based militant groups were represented.

At 10.35pm he decided to go home. Having exchanged customary kisses with his host, Hojatoleslam Ahmad Musavi, the newly appointed Iranian ambassador, Mughniyeh stepped into the night.

Minutes later he was seated in his silver Mitsubishi Pajero in a nearby street when a deafening blast ripped the car apart and killed him instantly.

According to Israeli intelligence sources, someone had replaced the headrest of the driver’s seat with another containing a small high-explosive charge. Israel welcomed his death but the prime minister’s office denied responsibility. Hezbollah accused the “Zionist Israelis” of killing its “brother commander” but believed the explosive had been detonated in another car by satellite.

One witness said: “I held his head in my hands, kissed him farewell. His face was burnt but intact and he had received serious injuries to his abdomen.”

Whatever the truth about the bomb, Mughniyeh, 45, died as he had lived – violently. He was a product of the Lebanese civil war that transfixed western governments 25 years ago.

Born in a south Lebanon village, the son of a vegetable seller, Mughniyeh joined Force 17, Yasser Arafat’s personal bodyguard, when scarcely out of his teens. After the Palestine Liberation Organisation was forced to leave Lebanon in 1982, he stayed behind and joined Hezbollah, the Lebanese Shi’ite Islamic group that emerged in 1985 as a militant force resisting Israeli occupation.

He came to the attention of Sheikh Mohammed Fadlallah, Hezbollah’s spiritual leader, and rose quickly up the ranks. He was shaped into a remarkably effective terrorist as, under the auspices of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, the organisation grew into one of the deadliest forces fighting Israel and America.

Western terrorism experts say he was the dynamo behind some of Hezbollah’s most lethal operations. These included the bombing of the American embassy in Beirut that killed 63 people and the attacks on the US marine and French paratrooper barracks that left more than 200 dead. It was Mughniyeh’s decision to kidnap Terry Waite, the Church of England envoy, as he tried to broker the release of other captives.

Another notorious act attributed to him was the hijacking of a TWA flight when an American passenger, a US navy diver, was shot and his body thrown onto the runway.

In the 1990s Israel made him a priority target for his involvement in two attacks in Buenos Aires – the 1992 Israeli embassy bombing, which killed 29, and a 1994 suicide bomb attack on a Jewish community centre, in which 85 died. Then he went to ground. The FBI placed him on its most-wanted list but had to use a 20-year-old photograph for its reward posters.

Despite these difficulties, the CIA came close to capturing him. The Israelis were also hot on his trail. “We tried to knock him down several times in the late 1980s,” revealed David Barkay, a former major in unit 504 of Israeli military intelligence who was in charge of Mughniyeh’s file.

“We accumulated intelligence on him, but the closer we got, the less information we gleaned – no weak points, no women, money, drugs – nothing.”

Mughniyeh lost two brothers, Jihad and Fuad, in car bomb explosions in Beirut. In 2000 he was targeted by an Israeli sniper in southern Lebanon. But in Meir Dagan, who became head of Mossad in 2002, he faced a committed opponent under whose leadership the organisation built a strong record in assassinating Israel’s enemies.

Israel fought a bitter 34-day war against Hezbollah in 2006 to eradicate it in southern Lebanon. It believes that Mughniyeh was instrumental in rebuilding the group after the war, rearming it with Iranian-made Fateh 110 rockets which are capable of hitting Tel Aviv and which it fears could be equipped with chemical weapons.

Informed Israeli sources said that at the time of his death Mughniyeh was working for the Syrians on a terrorist attack against Israeli targets. This was to avenge Israel’s airstrike on what was believed to be a secret nuclear site in Syria last year.

Since Mughniyeh’s death, Israeli embassies and Jewish institutions around the world have been on high alert. “I’ve no doubt the Syrians and Iranians will retaliate,” said Barkay.

Hassan Nasrallah, Hezbollah’s general secretary, warned in a fiery oration at Mughniyeh’s funeral that Israel had committed a “major stupid mistake”. It was now “open war”, he said.

In Lebanon, a close friend of Mughniyeh was certain that he would be avenged by Hezbollah in an attack that, ironically, he had prepared himself before his death. “Most likely the retaliation when it comes will be one that had been planned and masterminded by Imad himself,” said Anis Al-Nackash, a Lebanese expert on Hezbollah.

He said Mughniyeh had prepared a variety of “spectacular” attacks to be executed by Hezbollah if one of its top leaders was assassinated. These were now being dusted off and updated.

On the day Mughniyeh was buried, Ehud Olmert, the Israeli prime minister, summoned Dagan from his cottage in Galilee to Jerusalem.

“It was a one-on-one meeting,” said a source. But it is believed that Dagan was complimented by his boss and told that he would stay as head of Mossad until the end of 2009.

Time will tell whether, as Israel fervently hopes, Mughniyeh’s death has gravely weakened his organisation or if the effect has merely been to harden Hezbollah’s resolve.

Taken out

The Israeli security service, Mossad, is thought to have killed six other militants abroad since Meir Dagan became director in August 2002:

December 2002 Ramzi Nahara, Israeli agent who defected to Hezbollah and planned attacks against Israel. Dagan knew him personally. Killed in Lebanon by car bomb

March 2003 Abu Mohammed Al-Masri, Al-Qaeda member building cell to target Israeli border with Lebanon. Killed by car bomb in Lebanon

August 2003 Ali Hussein Saleh, Hezbollah explosives expert. Killed by car bomb in Beirut

July 2004 Ghaleb Awali, Hezbollah official with links to activists in Gaza Strip. Killed by car bomb in Beirut

September 2004 Izz el-Deen al-Sheikh Khalil, Hamas official liaising between headquarters in Syria and members in Gaza and West Bank. Killed by car bomb in Damascus

May 2006 Mahmoud Majzoub, Islamic Jihad official liaising with Hezbollah. Killed by car bomb blast in Lebanon

[ForceRecon79]

Thank god for the Israeli Mossad. The CIA leadership lost the balls to do these kinds of ops back in the 70's (a trend which only reveresed after 9/11). If only our political leadership during the 80's and 90's had the guts to authorize these kinds of missions, instead of trying to "capture" Mugniyah via our "Buddies" the Saudi's and French (what a joke)...this guy would have paid for his crimes long ago, and the horrific bombings in Beunos Aires and Khobar Towers, never would have happened. This should serve as a major lesson to the CIA and Pentagon, that if you want to win the war on terror, you have to get down and dirty with htese kinds of ops...otherwise we are going to lose. Cause as long as we have to play by a bunch of BullS*** rules, and the bad guys don't...we are going to lose.

Israel figured it out long ago, it's high time the CIA did.

Dagan and Barak should be given medals, and a pat on their asses.

[KettleWhistle]

It's from Sunday Times. This rag routinely publishes assorted made-up garbage about Israel and attributes it to secret sources or some "officials". Syrians are saying that he was killed by bomb in a car parked nearby, and I don't see any reason for them to lie about this.

[Abital]

Here's another article:

Top Hezbollah militant killed in Syria

DAMASCUS, Syria - One of the world's most wanted and elusive terrorists, Imad Mughniyeh, was killed in a car bombing in Syria nearly 15 years after dropping from sight. The one-time Hezbollah security chief was the suspected mastermind of attacks that killed hundreds of Americans in Lebanon and of the brutal kidnappings of Westerners.

The Lebanese Shiite militant group Hezbollah and its top ally, Iran, blamed Israel on Wednesday for the assassination. Israel denied any involvement, but officials made no effort to conceal their approval of his death.

Mughniyeh was also on the FBI's list of most wanted terrorists, and the U.S. State Department had offered a $5 million reward for information leading to his arrest or conviction. He was indicted in the U.S. for his role in planning the 1985 hijacking of a TWA airliner in which a U.S. Navy diver was killed.

The United States welcomed Mughniyeh's death.

"The world is a better place without this man in it," State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said. "One way or the other, he was brought to justice."

The hijacking was the only attack on Americans for which Mughniyeh was charged, but he carried out or directed a series of terrorist spectaculars aimed at the United States and Jewish targets.

Mughniyeh's death was the latest in a series of blows to major terror figures in recent weeks. Abu Laith al-Libi, a senior al-Qaida leader, was killed in Pakistan in late January by a missile fired from a U.S. drone. This week, Pakistani security forces critically wounded and captured Mansour Dadullah, a top Taliban figure, in a firefight near the Afghan border.

But Mughniyeh, a Shiite Muslim not known to be connected to the Sunni al-Qaida or Taliban, harkened back to an earlier era of terror. A secretive, underground operator whose name was not even known for years, he was one of the first to turn Islamic militancy's weapons against the United States in the 1980s.

Mughniyeh emerged during the turmoil of Lebanon's 1975-1990 civil war, rising to become Hezbollah's security chief, and the dramatic suicide bombings he is accused of engineering in Beirut were some of the deadliest against Americans until al-Qaida's Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.

He vanished in the early 1990s, reportedly undergoing plastic surgery and moving between Lebanon, Syria and Iran on fake passports. But Western intelligence agencies believe he then took his terror attacks abroad, hitting Jewish and Israeli interests in Argentina, among other places.

One Western official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence matters, said Wednesday that Mughniyeh was linked to the 1996 bombing of the Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia, an attack which killed 19 Americans.

Mughniyeh continued to head external operations for Hezbollah and was "very active and very dangerous," the official said.

His slaying could raise tensions between Israel and Hezbollah, as well as with the militant group's allies, Syria and Iran. Israel and Hezbollah fought a bloody war in the summer of 2006, and some Lebanese figures close to the Shiite militant group called Wednesday for attacks against Israel in retaliation for Mughniyeh's death.

It could also worsen the turmoil in Lebanon, where Hezbollah is locked in a power struggle with the U.S.-backed government.

Hezbollah called for a huge turnout at Mughniyeh's funeral in south Beirut on Thursday. The same day, government supporters are planning a rally of hundreds of thousands in downtown Beirut to mark the third anniversary of the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.

With fears growing of street violence between the two camps, the U.S. Embassy strongly encouraged American citizens in Lebanon to limit all but essential travel Thursday.

Hezbollah announced on its Al-Manar television that Mughniyeh "became a martyr at the hands of the Zionist Israelis." The station played Quranic verses in memorial and aired a rare, apparently recent picture of Mughniyeh — showing a burly, bespectacled man with a black and gray beard wearing military camouflage and a military cap.

Syrian Interior Minister Brig. Gen. Bassam Abdul-Majid said Mughniyeh was killed Tuesday night in a car bombing in the upscale Damascus neighborhood of Kfar Sousse, the state news agency SANA reported.

Witnesses in the Syrian capital said the explosion tore apart the silver Mitsubishi Pajero, killing a passer-by and leaving only the front of the SUV intact. Security forces sealed off the area and removed the body. The Lebanese television station LBC said Mughniyeh was leaving a ceremony at an Iranian school and was approaching his car when it blew up. By Wednesday, the area had been cleared and there was no indication a car bombing had taken place.

The killing is deeply embarrassing to Syria, showing that the wanted fugitive was hiding on its soil. The United States has accused Syria, home to a number of radical Palestinian leaders, of supporting terrorism.

Iran blamed Israel for the assassination, with Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammad Ali Hosseini calling the bombing "yet another brazen example of organized state terrorism by the Zionist regime."

In the past, when Israel has been fingered — rightly or wrongly — as responsible for attacks on targets beyond its borders, it has generally responded with impenetrable silence, for example over last September's airstrike on an as-yet undisclosed target in Syria.

This time Israel was quick to deny any role, possibly because it could pay a price for public claims.

"Israel rejects the attempt by terror groups to attribute to it any involvement in this incident. We have nothing further to add," Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's office said in a statement.

Hezbollah captured two Israeli soldiers on the border between the two countries in July 2006, sparking an Israeli incursion into south Lebanon and a 34-day war. While Hezbollah has not come forward with evidence that the soldiers are alive, Israel regards them as such until it is proved otherwise and would not want to jeopardize their return.

Mughniyeh might have been killed by a rival group and not by a Western intelligence service, said Eliezer Tsafrir, who was the Mossad's Beirut station chief in 1983 and 1984, the time of the first attacks against U.S. targets in which Mughniyeh was implicated.

"These people make a lot of internal enemies. So it doesn't necessarily have to be Israel or America," Tsafrir said.

But regardless of whether it was behind the attack, experts say Israel may benefit from a perception its Mossad spy agency has recovered its ability to hit top terror targets.

Mughniyeh was born on Dec. 7, 1962 in the south Lebanon village of Tair Debba. He joined the nascent Hezbollah in the early 1980s and formed a militant cell known as Islamic Jihad or Islamic Holy War. The cell was said to be Hezbollah's strike arm, but the group denies any link to it.

He is accused of masterminding the first major suicide bombing to target Americans: the April 1983 car bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Beirut that killed 63 people, including 17 Americans. He is also blamed for a more devastating attack six months later, when suicide attackers detonated truck bombs at the barracks of French and U.S. peacekeeping forces in Beirut, killing 59 French paratroopers and 241 American Marines.

He was indicted in the United States for the 1985 hijacking of TWA flight 847, during which Shiite militants shot Navy diver Robert Stethem, who was a passenger on the plane, and dumped his body on the tarmac of Beirut airport. The hijacking produced one of the most iconic images of pre-9/11 terrorism: a photo of the 727's pilot leaning out the cockpit window with a gunman waving a pistol in front of his face.

In the 1980s Mughniyeh was also believed to have directed a string of kidnappings of Americans and other foreigners in Lebanon. The hostages included The Associated Press's chief Mideast correspondent Terry Anderson, who was held for more than six years until his release in 1991; and CIA station chief William Buckley, who was tortured by his captors and killed in 1985.

(and there's a bit more in the article)

[tandem]

Ironically on the day of Mughniyeh's assassination Israel's channel 10 showed a computer animation that showed Mughniyeh getting into the car and the bomb being placed in the driver's headrest. Perhaps that's where the writer took the idea for the article from. Or maybe it's indeed true and channel 10 was first to reveal it.

[ForceRecon79]

Even the Sunday Times isn't as bad as the BBC. One of their reporters tried to compare Mugniyah with Hariri. Nice to know we can always count on the BBC for their anti-American, Anti-Israeli views.

Also. Personally I don't care who killed Mugniyah, I'm just glad the SOB is toast. It's long overdue, and I would argue we aren't done yet. These assassinations of Hezbollah leaders should continue.

I kind of wish it had been the CIA, becuase it would help restore my faith in the American willingness to finally take a "Pro-Active" role in the war on terror....sadly, I don't think the CIA has the balls to order a hit like this....which is a sad commentary on how irrelevant and unimaginative the once vaunted agency has become since the end of the cold war.