Imad Mughniyah
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

Imad Fayez Mughniyeh (; 7 December 1962 – 12 February 2008), also known by his
nom de guerre A ''nom de guerre'' (, 'war name') is a pseudonym chosen by someone to use when they are involved in a particular activity, especially fighting in a war. In Ancien régime, ''ancien régime'' Kingdom of France, France it would be adopted by each n ...
al-Hajj Radwan (), was a Lebanese militant leader who was the founding member of
Lebanon Lebanon, officially the Republic of Lebanon, is a country in the Levant region of West Asia. Situated at the crossroads of the Mediterranean Basin and the Arabian Peninsula, it is bordered by Syria to the north and east, Israel to the south ...
's
Islamic Jihad Organization The Islamic Jihad Organization (IJO; (OJI); ) was a Lebanese Shia Muslims, Lebanese Shia militia known for its activities in the 1980s during the Lebanese Civil War. The organization, advocating for the withdrawal of all Americans from Leba ...
and number two in
Hezbollah Hezbollah ( ; , , ) is a Lebanese Shia Islamist political party and paramilitary group. Hezbollah's paramilitary wing is the Jihad Council, and its political wing is the Loyalty to the Resistance Bloc party in the Lebanese Parliament. I ...
's leadership. He is believed to have been Hezbollah's chief of staff and overseer of its military, intelligence, and security apparatus. He has been described as a skilled military tactician and a highly elusive figure. He was often referred to as an ‘untraceable ghost’. U.S. and Israeli officials say Mughniyeh was directly and personally involved in terrorist attacks and the mastermind of many suicide bombings, murders, kidnappings, and assassinations. Mughniyeh formed Unit 121 as Hezbollah's covert assassination squad and he was behind the 1983 Beirut barracks bombing and
1983 United States embassy bombing The April 18, 1983, United States Embassy bombing was a suicide bombing on the Embassy of the United States, Beirut, Embassy of the United States in Beirut, Lebanon, that killed 32 Lebanese, 17 Americans, and 14 visitors and passers-by. The vict ...
, in which over 350 people were killed, as well as the kidnapping of dozens of foreigners in Lebanon in the 1980s. He was indicted in
Argentina Argentina, officially the Argentine Republic, is a country in the southern half of South America. It covers an area of , making it the List of South American countries by area, second-largest country in South America after Brazil, the fourt ...
for his role in the 1992 Israeli embassy attack in Buenos Aires. The highest-profile attacks he was involved in occurred in the early 1980s when Mughniyeh was in his early twenties. U.S. intelligence officials accused him of killing more
United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...
citizens than any other man prior to the 11 September attacks. Mughniyeh was known by his ''nom de guerre'' Al-Hajj Radwan. He was included in the European Union's list of wanted terroristsCOUNCIL COMMON POSITION 2005/847/CFSP of 29 November 200
Official Journal of the European Union
Accessed 17 August 2006
and had a US$5 million bounty on the FBI Most Wanted Terrorists list. To many in his home country, Lebanon and the Middle East, he is a national symbol and hero. As part of a joint CIA
Mossad The Institute for Intelligence and Special Operations (), popularly known as Mossad ( , ), is the national intelligence agency of the Israel, State of Israel. It is one of the main entities in the Israeli Intelligence Community, along with M ...
operation, Mughniyeh was assassinated on the night of 12 February 2008 by a car bomb that was detonated as he passed by on foot, in the Kafr Sousa neighbourhood of
Damascus Damascus ( , ; ) is the capital and List of largest cities in the Levant region by population, largest city of Syria. It is the oldest capital in the world and, according to some, the fourth Holiest sites in Islam, holiest city in Islam. Kno ...
,
Syria Syria, officially the Syrian Arab Republic, is a country in West Asia located in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Levant. It borders the Mediterranean Sea to the west, Turkey to Syria–Turkey border, the north, Iraq to Iraq–Syria border, t ...
.
, "Will Hezbullah avenge the hit on its terror chief?" by Yaakov Katz, 11 February 2011


Early life

Mughniyeh was born in the village of Tayr Debba, Tayr Dibba, near Tyre, on 7 December 1962 to a peasant family of Lebanon's southern Shi'a heartland. His father's name was Fayez. He was mistakenly thought to be the son of Jawad Mughniyeh, a religious cleric. His birth date had also been given as July 1962. Mughniyeh had two younger brothers, Jihad and Fouad. About a decade after Mughniyeh's birth, the family moved to southern
Beirut Beirut ( ; ) is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Lebanon. , Greater Beirut has a population of 2.5 million, just under half of Lebanon's population, which makes it the List of largest cities in the Levant region by populatio ...
. CIA South Group records state that Mughniyeh lived in Ayn Al-Dilbah in South Beirut. p. 98–99 Mughniyeh was described a popular boy and a "natural entertainer" who cracked jokes at family weddings and "worked the crowd with a confidence unusual for a youth his age." Mughniyeh and his cousin Mustafa Badreddine joined Fatah at an early age. Mughniyeh was discovered by fellow Lebanese Ali Abu Hassan Deeb (who would later become a Hezbollah leader) and quickly rose through the ranks of the movement. In the mid-1970s, Mugniyeh organized the "Student Brigade," a unit of 100 young men which became part of
Yasser Arafat Yasser Arafat (4 or 24 August 1929 – 11 November 2004), also popularly known by his Kunya (Arabic), kunya Abu Ammar, was a Palestinian political leader. He was chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) from 1969 to 2004, Presid ...
's elite Force 17. Mughniyeh temporarily left Fatah in 1981 due to differences of opinion on the regime of
Saddam Hussein Saddam Hussein (28 April 1937 – 30 December 2006) was an Iraqi politician and revolutionary who served as the fifth president of Iraq from 1979 until Saddam Hussein statue destruction, his overthrow in 2003 during the 2003 invasion of Ira ...
. Mughniyeh, a religious Shiite, was upset by the murder of the Iraqi Grand
Ayatollah Ayatollah (, ; ; ) is an Title of honor, honorific title for high-ranking Twelver Shia clergy. It came into widespread usage in the 20th century. Originally used as a title bestowed by popular/clerical acclaim for a small number of the most di ...
Muhammad Baqir as-Sadr in 1980 as well as a previous attempt by the Iraqi intelligence on the life of Lebanese Ayatollah Muhammad Hussein Fadlallah. Fatah was formally allied with the Lebanese National Movement, which included the pro-Iraqi branch of the
Ba'ath Party The Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party ( ' ), also known simply as Bath Party (), was a political party founded in Syria by Michel Aflaq, Salah al-Din al-Bitar, and associates of Zaki al-Arsuzi. The party espoused Ba'athism, which is an ideology ...
. Mughniyeh was forced to leave Fatah after armed confrontations with Ba’th activists. He and his comrades organized a body guard unit for Ayatollah Fadlallah and other Shiite clerics in Lebanon. Mughniyeh accompanied Ayatollah Fadlallah on a
Hajj Hajj (; ; also spelled Hadj, Haj or Haji) is an annual Islamic pilgrimage to Mecca, Saudi Arabia, the holiest city for Muslims. Hajj is a mandatory religious duty for capable Muslims that must be carried out at least once in their lifetim ...
pilgrimage in 1980 and thus earned his Hajj title. Mughniyeh was briefly a student in the engineering department at the American University of Beirut. After the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982, he rejoined Fatah. He was wounded in the fighting in West Beirut. After the withdrawal of PLO forces from Beirut in September 1982, Mughniyeh played a key role in resisting the Israeli occupation, revealing the location of Fatah arms caches. He remained a Fatah member during this period but also worked the leftist Lebanese National Movement and Islamic resistance groups. In 1984, he joined the newly created Islamic Resistance of
Hezbollah Hezbollah ( ; , , ) is a Lebanese Shia Islamist political party and paramilitary group. Hezbollah's paramilitary wing is the Jihad Council, and its political wing is the Loyalty to the Resistance Bloc party in the Lebanese Parliament. I ...
. However, he remained close to Fatah leader Khalil al-Wazir (Abu Jihad) until the latter's assassination in 1988. He remained committed to the Palestine cause throughout his life and founded Hezbollah's secret "Committee for Elimination of Israel" in 2000. In later years, and especially after the Oslo accords, Mughniyeh and Hezbollah sided with the more militant Palestinian factions such as
Hamas The Islamic Resistance Movement, abbreviated Hamas (the Arabic acronym from ), is a Palestinian nationalist Sunni Islam, Sunni Islamism, Islamist political organisation with a military wing, the Qassam Brigades. It has Gaza Strip under Hama ...
and the Islamic Jihad. Mughniyeh worked as the chief security for Sayyed Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah, a Shiia cleric and a spiritual mentor to many in Lebanon's Shi'a community, whose political consciousness was on the rise. Fadlallah held no formal political role, "opposed violence and sectarian division, and defied growing Iranian influence in Lebanon."


Personal life

In 1983, Mughniyeh married his cousin, Saada Badr Al Din, who is the sister of Mustafa Badreddine. Mughniyeh had three children according to his mother: Fatima (born August 1984), Mustafa (born January 1987), and
Jihad ''Jihad'' (; ) is an Arabic word that means "exerting", "striving", or "struggling", particularly with a praiseworthy aim. In an Islamic context, it encompasses almost any effort to make personal and social life conform with God in Islam, God ...
(estimated to have been age 25 at death). In September 1991, Mugniyeh's wife and children were sent to Tehran for security reasons. Later his family began to live in south Lebanon. Mughniyeh also married an Iranian woman, Wafaa Mughniyeh, with whom he lived in
Damascus Damascus ( , ; ) is the capital and List of largest cities in the Levant region by population, largest city of Syria. It is the oldest capital in the world and, according to some, the fourth Holiest sites in Islam, holiest city in Islam. Kno ...
. On 21 December 1994 a car bomb in Chyah, Beirut, killed Mughniyeh's brother, Fuad. Two other people were killed in the explosion and sixteen wounded. Mughniyeh's younger son, Jihad, was killed in the January 2015 Mazraat Amal incident in the Syrian Golan sector on 18 January 2015. Five other Hezbollah members and an Iranian Quds Force general were also killed in the attack.


Personality

According to former CIA agent Robert Baer, "Mughniyah is probably the most intelligent, most capable operative we’ve ever run across, including the KGB or anybody else. He enters by one door, exits by another, changes his cars daily, never makes appointments on a telephone, never is predictable. He only uses people that are loyal to him that he can fully trust. He doesn't just recruit people." He was described as "tall, slender, well-dressed and handsome ... penetrating eyes," speaking some English but better French. "Both bin Laden and Mughniyeh were pathological killers," 30-year veteran CIA officer Milton Bearden said. "But there was always a nagging amateurishness about bin Laden—his wildly hyped background, his bogus and false claims. … Bin Laden cowered and hid. Mughniyeh spent his life giving us the finger." Nasrallah also stated that, "Hajj Imad is among the best leaders and commanders in the Lebanese arena. He had an important role during the occupation f southern Lebanon by Israelby 2000. But as for his relationship with Hezbollah, we maintain the tradition of not discussing names." After his death, Mugniyeh acquired a storied and folkloric persona. To many in his home country, Lebanon, and in the Middle East, he symbolizes resistance to foreign military occupation, a hero and a mastermind who single-handedly drove out the American and Israeli armies. The man behind the stabbing of Salman Rushdie, had a fake driver's license with the name Hassan Mughniyah, which suggests a mix between the forename and surname of Hassan Nasrallah and Imad Mughniyeh, respectively. According to his family, he was a dedicated father and had a reputation for modesty, respect and humility, to the extent that his neighbors in Syria thought he was a driver for the Iranian embassy.


Allegations

U.S. and Israeli officials have implicated Mughniyeh of many terrorist attacks, primarily against American and
Israel Israel, officially the State of Israel, is a country in West Asia. It Borders of Israel, shares borders with Lebanon to the north, Syria to the north-east, Jordan to the east, Egypt to the south-west, and the Mediterranean Sea to the west. Isr ...
i targets. These include 18 April 1983 bombing of the United States embassy in Beirut, Lebanon, which killed 63 people including 17 Americans whom among them were 7 CIA officers which included Robert Ames, the head of the Near East Division. Mughniyeh was also accused of planning and organising the 23 October 1983 truck bombings against French paratroopers and the U.S. Marine barracks, attacks which killed 60 French soldiers and 240 Marines. While a student at the American University of Beirut (AUB) on 18 January 1984, Mughniyeh allegedly assassinated Malcolm H. Kerr (father of former NBA player/current coach Steve Kerr), the school's president. On 20 September 1984, he is alleged to have attacked the US embassy annex building. The United States indicted Mughniyeh (and his collaborator, Hassan Izz al-Din) for the 14 June 1985
hijacking Hijacking may refer to: Common usage Computing and technology * Bluejacking, the unsolicited transmission of data via Bluetooth * Brandjacking, the unauthorized use of a company's brand * Browser hijacking * Clickjacking (including ''likej ...
of TWA Flight 847, in which he tortured and murdered the U.S. Navy
Seabee United States Naval Construction Battalions, better known as the Navy Seabees, form the U.S. Naval Construction Forces (NCF). The Seabee nickname is a heterograph of the initial letters "CB" from the words "Construction Battalion". Dependi ...
diver Robert Stethem. p. 77 Mughniyeh and his men allegedly tortured Stethem for hours, before killing him and dumping his body onto the airport tarmac. U.S. and Israeli officials have also alleged that Mughniyeh was involved in numerous kidnappings of Americans in Beirut during the 1980s, most notably the kidnapping of Terry Anderson,
Terry Waite Sir Terence Hardy Waite (born 31 May 1939) is a British human rights activist and author. Waite was the Assistant for Anglican Communion Affairs for the then Archbishop of Canterbury, Robert Runcie, in the 1980s. As an envoy for the Church of ...
, and William Francis Buckley, who was the CIA station chief in Beirut. Some of these individuals were killed by Mughniyeh directly, such as Buckley, who was subjected to extreme psychological and medical torture under the supervision of the
psychiatrist A psychiatrist is a physician who specializes in psychiatry. Psychiatrists are physicians who evaluate patients to determine whether their symptoms are the result of a physical illness, a combination of physical and mental ailments or strictly ...
Aziz al-Abub. The remainder were released at various times, with the last one, Terry Anderson, released in 1991. On 30 September 1985, Mughniyeh allegedly organised the kidnapping of four diplomats from the Soviet Embassy in Beirut, one of whom he personally killed. The result of the kidnapping was Soviet pressure on Syria to stop its operations in Northern Lebanon in exchange for the release of the remaining three hostages. Mughniyeh was formally charged by
Argentina Argentina, officially the Argentine Republic, is a country in the southern half of South America. It covers an area of , making it the List of South American countries by area, second-largest country in South America after Brazil, the fourt ...
for his alleged involvement on 17 March 1992 bombings of the Israeli embassy in
Buenos Aires Buenos Aires, controlled by the government of the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires, is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Argentina. It is located on the southwest of the Río de la Plata. Buenos Aires is classified as an Alpha− glob ...
, which killed 29, and of the AMIA cultural building in July 1994, killing 85 people. In March 2007, the Interpol issued " red notices" for his and others' alleged roles in the attack. In addition, Mughniyeh allegedly planned the killing of Micha Tamir, the IDF general in Lebanon, and two IDF soldiers on 6 April 1992. U.S. and Israeli officials have also alleged that Mugniyeh was the mastermind of the Khobar Towers bombing in 1996, which killed 19 American air force personnel and a Saudi civilian. Israeli officials accuse Mughniyeh of orchestrating the October 2000 capture of three IDF soldiers in northern Israel, and of the kidnapping of IDF colonel Elchanan Tenenbaum. They also accuse Mughniyeh of overseeing the 2006 cross border raid that killed eight soldiers and abducted two during Israel's 2006 incursion into Lebanon.


Organizational affiliation

In 2002, Mughniyeh was linked to the Karine A incident in which the
Palestinian Authority The Palestinian Authority (PA), officially known as the Palestinian National Authority (PNA), is the Fatah-controlled government body that exercises partial civil control over the Palestinian enclaves in the Israeli occupation of the West Bank, ...
was accused of importing fifty tons of weapons. He was a member of Force 17, an armed branch of the Fatah movement charged with providing security for
Yasser Arafat Yasser Arafat (4 or 24 August 1929 – 11 November 2004), also popularly known by his Kunya (Arabic), kunya Abu Ammar, was a Palestinian political leader. He was chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) from 1969 to 2004, Presid ...
and other prominent PLO officials. In mid-February 1997, the pro-Israeli South Lebanese Army radio station reported that Iran's intelligence service had dispatched Mughniyeh to Lebanon to directly supervise the reorganisation of Hezbollah's security and military apparatus concerned with Palestinian affairs in Lebanon and to work as a security liaison between Hezbollah and Iranian intelligence. Mughniyeh also reportedly controlled Hezbollah's security apparatus, the Special Operations Command, which handles intelligence and conducts overseas terrorist acts. Allegedly, although he used Hezbollah as a cover, he reported to the Iranians. According to Jeffery Goldberg, writing in the ''New Yorker'', "It is believed that Mugniyeh takes orders from the office of Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, but that he reports to a man named
Qasem Soleimani Qasem Soleimani (; 11 March 1957 – 3 January 2020) was an Iranian military officer who served in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). From 1998 until Assassination of Qasem Soleimani, his assassination by the United States in 2020, h ...
, the chief of a branch of the
Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), also known as the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, is a multi-service primary branch of the Islamic Republic of Iran Armed Forces, Iranian Armed Forces. It was officially established by Ruhollah Khom ...
called Al Quds, or the Jerusalem Force—the arm of the Iranian government responsible for sponsoring terror attacks on Israeli targets." In January 2002, a US cable also stated that Mughniyeh left Hezbollah and got closer to Iran. However, Mughniyeh was a member of Hezbollah's jihadist council until his death in February 2008. After the July 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah, he was assigned by Hezbollah to improve the military capabilities of the resistance in Lebanon; Damascus was his centre for this activity. The European Union listed him as "Hezbollah's Chief of Staff".


Arrest warrants and attempted assassination

Various law and
intelligence Intelligence has been defined in many ways: the capacity for abstraction, logic, understanding, self-awareness, learning, emotional knowledge, reasoning, planning, creativity, critical thinking, and problem-solving. It can be described as t ...
enforcement agencies attempted to capture Mughniyeh. The United States tried to secure his capture in France in 1986, but were thwarted by French officials' refusal to arrest him. The United States tried to capture him several times afterward, beginning with a 1995 US special forces Delta Force operation that was put in place after the CIA was tipped off that Mughniyeh was flying a Middle East Airlines charter flight
Airbus A310 The Airbus A310 is a wide-body aircraft, Aircraft design process, designed and manufactured by Airbus Industrie GIE, then a consortium of European aerospace manufacturers. Airbus had identified a demand for an aircraft smaller than the Airbus ...
from
Khartoum Khartoum or Khartum is the capital city of Sudan as well as Khartoum State. With an estimated population of 7.1 million people, Greater Khartoum is the largest urban area in Sudan. Khartoum is located at the confluence of the White Nile – flo ...
to
Beirut Beirut ( ; ) is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Lebanon. , Greater Beirut has a population of 2.5 million, just under half of Lebanon's population, which makes it the List of largest cities in the Levant region by populatio ...
after a meeting with several Hezbollah leaders, and was scheduled to make a stop-over in
Saudi Arabia Saudi Arabia, officially the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), is a country in West Asia. Located in the centre of the Middle East, it covers the bulk of the Arabian Peninsula and has a land area of about , making it the List of Asian countries ...
. But Saudi security officers refused to allow the plane to make its stop-over, thwarting American attempts to arrest Mughniyeh.Katz, Samuel M. "Relentless Pursuit: The DSS and the manhunt for the al-Qaeda terrorists", 2002 The following year, the U.S. Navy planned to seize him from a Pakistani ship in Doha, Qatar, but the operation was called off. The plan, dubbed Operation RETURN OX, was carried out by ships and sailors of Amphibious Squadron Three ( USS Tarawa, USS Duluth, USS Rushmore), Marines of the 13th Marine Expeditionary Unit, and
Navy SEAL The United States Navy Sea, Air, and Land (SEAL) Teams, commonly known as Navy SEALs, are the United States Navy's primary special operations force and a component of the United States Naval Special Warfare Command. Among the SEALs' main funct ...
s assigned to the U.S. Fifth Fleet. The operation was underway, but was cancelled at the last minute when it could not be fully verified that Mughniyeh was on board the Pakistani ship. On 10 October 2001, Mughniyeh appeared on the initial list of the FBI's top 22 Most Wanted Terrorists, which was released to the public by President Bush, with a reward of up to $15 million offered for information leading to his arrest. The reward was later increased to $25 million. This reward remained outstanding as of 2006.Federal Bureau of Investigatio
www.globalsecurity.org
Accessed 17 August 2006
Mughniyeh was on 42 countries' wanted lists. The Israeli intelligence service
Mossad The Institute for Intelligence and Special Operations (), popularly known as Mossad ( , ), is the national intelligence agency of the Israel, State of Israel. It is one of the main entities in the Israeli Intelligence Community, along with M ...
made numerous attempts to assassinate Mughniyeh. His brother Fuad, a car shop owner, was killed in a 1994 Beirut car bombing, and another brother, Jihad, was killed in a car-bombing assassination attempt on the life of Hezbollah founder Sheikh Fadlallah in 1985, the work of the CIA via the South Lebanese Army. Israel planned to assassinate Mughniyeh when he attended the funeral of his brother Fuad, but he failed to show up. Jeffrey Goldberg suggested that Mughniyeh, representing Hezbollah in Lebanon, attended a high-level meeting between Iranian President
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (born Mahmoud Sabbaghian on 28 October 1956) is an Iranian Iranian principlists, principlist and Iranian nationalism, nationalist politician who served as the sixth president of Iran from 2005 to 2013. He is currently a mem ...
and Syrian President
Bashar al-Assad Bashar al-Assad (born 11September 1965) is a Syrian politician, military officer and former dictator Sources characterising Assad as a dictator: who served as the president of Syria from 2000 until fall of the Assad regime, his government ...
.


Assassination

Imad Mughniyeh was killed on 12 February 2008 by a car bomb blast at around 23:00 in the Kafr Sousa neighborhood of
Damascus Damascus ( , ; ) is the capital and List of largest cities in the Levant region by population, largest city of Syria. It is the oldest capital in the world and, according to some, the fourth Holiest sites in Islam, holiest city in Islam. Kno ...
,
Syria Syria, officially the Syrian Arab Republic, is a country in West Asia located in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Levant. It borders the Mediterranean Sea to the west, Turkey to Syria–Turkey border, the north, Iraq to Iraq–Syria border, t ...
. According to ''
The Sunday Times ''The Sunday Times'' is a British Sunday newspaper whose circulation makes it the largest in Britain's quality press market category. It was founded in 1821 as ''The New Observer''. It is published by Times Newspapers Ltd, a subsidiary of N ...
'', Mughniyeh was at a reception marking the 29th anniversary of the Iranian Revolution hosted by the Iranian ambassador to Syria, Ahmad Musavi. Mughniyeh left the party shortly after 22:30 and walked to his Mitsubishi Pajero. The spare tyre had been replaced by one with a
high explosive An explosive (or explosive material) is a reactive substance that contains a great amount of potential energy that can produce an explosion if released suddenly, usually accompanied by the production of light, heat, sound, and pressure. An exp ...
, which was detonated as Mughniyeh walked past. The blast completely destroyed the car, left minimum damage on nearby buildings and killed only Mughniyeh. A Syrian government investigation found that he was killed by a car bomb that was parked nearby and that was detonated remotely. Israel officially denied being behind the killing, but Mughniyeh reportedly had been a target of
Mossad The Institute for Intelligence and Special Operations (), popularly known as Mossad ( , ), is the national intelligence agency of the Israel, State of Israel. It is one of the main entities in the Israeli Intelligence Community, along with M ...
assassination attempts since the 1990s. On 27 February 2008, ''
The Jerusalem Post ''The Jerusalem Post'' is an English language, English-language Israeli broadsheet newspaper based in Jerusalem, Israel, founded in 1932 during the Mandate for Palestine, British Mandate of Mandatory Palestine, Palestine by Gershon Agron as ''Th ...
'' reported that '' Al-Quds Al-Arabi'' had written that anonymous "Syrian sources" had claimed that "several Arab nations conspired with Mossad" in the assassination of Mughniyeh. The U.S. Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell has suggested that it was also possible that Syrian intelligence was responsible for the killing. Ba'athist dissident and former
Vice President A vice president or vice-president, also director in British English, is an officer in government or business who is below the president (chief executive officer) in rank. It can also refer to executive vice presidents, signifying that the vi ...
Abdul Halim Khaddam stated in 2008 that Syrian intelligence orchestrated the killing of Mughniyeh under orders from the Assad regime. According to Khaddam, Assad's removal of Assef Shawkat as Syria's
intelligence Intelligence has been defined in many ways: the capacity for abstraction, logic, understanding, self-awareness, learning, emotional knowledge, reasoning, planning, creativity, critical thinking, and problem-solving. It can be described as t ...
chief was due to Shawkat's investigation claiming that an explosion "had taken place inside the car" which went against official line toed by Assad, which was that the death was caused due to "the explosion of a gas tank". Without naming a source, the German newspaper '' Die Welt'' wrote that a story had been circulated amongst German diplomatic staff that it was possible that associates of late Assef Shawkat had assassinated Mughniyeh. This would have been in revenge for Mughniyeh tipping off Syrian President Bashar al-Assad regarding a coup plotted against him, which the Syrian government had foiled a couple of days before his assassination. Releasing the story in advance of going to print, ''Die Welt'' said the Syrian embassy in Berlin had rejected the coup story as utterly untrue. Lebanese politicians Walid Jumblatt and Saad Hariri as well as Mughniyeh's Iranian widow also accused Syrian officials. His widow, after returning to Iran from Damascus, stated "This is why the Syrian regime has refused the help of Iran and Hizbollah in the investigation of the murder... The Syrian traitors assisted in my husband’s murder." However, later she denied her statements. According to a leaked US official report, top Syrian officials were stunned by the assassination of Mughniyeh and engaged in an internecine struggle to blame each other for the breach of security that resulted in Mughniyeh's death. The Kuwaiti newspaper '' Al Rai'' reported that Hezbollah intelligence sources said they would retaliate for Mughniyeh's death by assassinating Israeli leaders. ''Newsweek'' reported that in 2007 Mossad's director general, Meir Dagan, tipped the CIA off about the location of Mughniyeh in Kafr Sousa, Damascus. The two Mossad agents had the roles of monitoring his movements and confirming Mughniyeh's identity using advanced facial recognition technology, while the CIA officer later detonated the bomb.


Reactions

Mughniyeh's body was taken to
Beirut Beirut ( ; ) is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Lebanon. , Greater Beirut has a population of 2.5 million, just under half of Lebanon's population, which makes it the List of largest cities in the Levant region by populatio ...
and buried in Rawdat al-Shahidain Cemetery. A funeral was organized by Hezbollah on 14 February. Senior Iranian officials attended the service;
Ali Akbar Velayati Ali Akbar Velayati ( ; born 24 June 1945) is an Iranian conservative politician and physician. He is currently a member of the Expediency Discernment Council. Velayati is a distinguished professor at Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Scien ...
representing the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and Foreign Minister Manuchehr Mottaki representing President
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (born Mahmoud Sabbaghian on 28 October 1956) is an Iranian Iranian principlists, principlist and Iranian nationalism, nationalist politician who served as the sixth president of Iran from 2005 to 2013. He is currently a mem ...
. At the funeral, Hassan Nasrallah appeared via video link and in the eulogy delivered for his fallen comrade, declared: "You crossed the borders. Zionists, if you want an open war, let it be an open war anywhere." Lebanese senior cleric Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah said that "the resistance has lost one of its pillars." Iran condemned the killing as "yet another brazen example of organised state terrorism by the Zionist regime" (Israel). A symbolic tomb was erected for Mughniyeh in the Behesht-e-Zahra cemetery of
Tehran Tehran (; , ''Tehrân'') is the capital and largest city of Iran. It is the capital of Tehran province, and the administrative center for Tehran County and its Central District (Tehran County), Central District. With a population of around 9. ...
. Later the Iranian government named a street in Tehran after Imad Mughniyeh as well. The assassination of Mughniyeh was condemned in some parts of the world. Then Italian Foreign Minister Massimo D'Alema termed the assassination "terror" in an interview, while Gideon Levy of the Israeli newspaper ''
Haaretz ''Haaretz'' (; originally ''Ḥadshot Haaretz'' – , , ) is an List of newspapers in Israel, Israeli newspaper. It was founded in 1918, making it the longest running newspaper currently in print in Israel. The paper is published in Hebrew lan ...
'' claimed the assassination actually undermined Israel's security. The Bush administration welcomed news of Mugniyeh's death. A spokesman of the U.S. State Department said: "The world is a better place without this man in it. He was a coldblooded killer, a mass murderer and a terrorist responsible for countless innocent lives lost. One way or another he was brought to justice." Danny Yatom, former head of the Israeli Mossad said: "He was one of the most dangerous terrorists ever on Earth." After Mughniyeh's killing, Hezbollah's elite Intervention Unit was renamed the Redwan Force after his operational alias Hajj Radwan (الحاج رضوان) in April 2008. On the 10th anniversary of Mugniyeh's killing, Iranian Major General
Qasem Soleimani Qasem Soleimani (; 11 March 1957 – 3 January 2020) was an Iranian military officer who served in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). From 1998 until Assassination of Qasem Soleimani, his assassination by the United States in 2020, h ...
, commander of the Quds Force of
Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), also known as the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, is a multi-service primary branch of the Islamic Republic of Iran Armed Forces, Iranian Armed Forces. It was officially established by Ruhollah Khom ...
, described Mugniyeh as "the legend of our time," grief caused by whose loss was only second to that of
Ruhollah Khomeini Ruhollah Musavi Khomeini (17 May 1900 or 24 September 19023 June 1989) was an Iranian revolutionary, politician, political theorist, and religious leader. He was the founder of the Islamic Republic of Iran and the main leader of the Iranian ...
, the leader of the 1979 Iranian Revolution. Soleimani said that what made Mugniyeh unique was not his expertise in guerrilla warfare but "his attachment to something superterrestrial." Soleimani stressed that "the enemy must recognize that avenging Mughniyah's death won't be fulfilled by launching a missile or killing someone in response, but bloods like these will be only avenged by full destruction of the Zionist regime" which he said was "a definite Divine promise." (Less than two years later, Soleimani himself was assassinated in a targeted U.S. drone strike in January 2020 in
Baghdad Baghdad ( or ; , ) is the capital and List of largest cities of Iraq, largest city of Iraq, located along the Tigris in the central part of the country. With a population exceeding 7 million, it ranks among the List of largest cities in the A ...
.)


See also

* 2000–06 Shebaa Farms conflict *
Hezbollah Hezbollah ( ; , , ) is a Lebanese Shia Islamist political party and paramilitary group. Hezbollah's paramilitary wing is the Jihad Council, and its political wing is the Loyalty to the Resistance Bloc party in the Lebanese Parliament. I ...
* List of assassinated Lebanese people


References


External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Mugniyah, Imad 1962 births 2008 deaths Hezbollah bombers Lebanese Islamists Hezbollah hijackers FBI Most Wanted Terrorists Deaths by car bomb Lebanese people murdered abroad Assassinated Lebanese politicians 21st-century Lebanese politicians Assassinations in Syria People murdered in Syria Targeted killing People killed in Mossad operations People killed in Central Intelligence Agency operations Assassinated Hezbollah members Hezbollah members Asian politicians assassinated in the 2000s Politicians assassinated in 2008 Deaths by explosive device People of the Lebanese Civil War American University of Beirut alumni