BEIRUT, Feb 13: Senior Hezbollah commander Imad Moughniyah, who was on the United States’ most wanted list for alleged attacks on Israeli and western targets, has been killed by a bomb attack in Damascus, the Lebanese group said on Wednesday.Syrian authorities had no comment on Tuesday’s attack which took place in an upmarket district that houses an Iranian school, a police station and a Syrian intelligence office.
Witnesses at the scene told Reuters they saw security officers hauling the body away. Scores of police and intelligence officers rushed to the site. A police truck towed away the destroyed car, a new model Mitsubishi Pajero.
Senior Hamas officials, including leader Khaled Meshaal, live in exile in Damascus.
Hezbollah accused Israel of assassinating Moughniyah, who was head of the Hezbollah security network during Lebanon’s 1975-90 civil war, by planting a bomb in his car. Iran also blamed Israel and condemned the attack as an act of “state terrorism”.
In Gaza, Hamas Islamists called for the Arab world to unite against Israel.
Israel denied any involvement in the killing, seen as a major blow to Hezbollah that fought a 34-day war with Israel in 2006.
Moughniyah, 45, was killed late on Tuesday. He had long been on a list of foreigners Israel wanted to kill or capture and the United States had offered a $5 million reward for his capture.
Moughniyah was implicated in the 1983 bombings of the US embassy and US Marine and French peacekeeping barracks in Beirut, which killed over 350 people, as well as the 1992 bombing of the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires and the kidnapping of Westerners in Lebanon in the 1980s.
The United States indicted him for his alleged role in planning and participating in the June 14, 1985, hijacking of a US TWA airliner and the killing of an American passenger.
“For the US administration Imad was the most wanted terrorist before Osama bin Laden appeared,” Magnus Ranstorp, an expert at the Swedish National Defence College, told Reuters.
“For many years, many different teams were looking for him, trying to exact the price for the catalogue of attacks he allegedly carried out.”
Hezbollah, a strong political and military force in Lebanon, announced the assassination and called followers to his funeral on Thursday.
“After a life full of jihad, sacrifices and accomplishments ... Haj Imad Moughniyah ... died a martyr at the hands of the Israeli Zionists,” said Hezbollah.
According to Israeli intelligence assessments, Moughniyah was involved in a cross-border raid blamed on Hezbollah in which two Israeli soldiers were captured. The raid triggered the 2006 war with Israel.—Reuters
BEIRUT, Feb 13: Senior Hezbollah commander Imad Moughniyah, who was on the United States’ most wanted list for alleged attacks on Israeli and western targets, has been killed by a bomb attack in Damascus, the Lebanese group said on Wednesday.Syrian authorities had no comment on Tuesday’s attack which took place in an upmarket district that houses an Iranian school, a police station and a Syrian intelligence office.
