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| Syria-Lebanon-Iran |
| Time: Who Killed Hizballah's Terror Master? |
| 2008-02-14 |
| Imad Mughniyah, who was assassinated Tuesday in Syria, was a man of the Middle East's shadows. He was a terrorist mastermind behind political causes. For him, though, it was as much about the fight as the cause. He shunned the light. He never gave public speeches or lectures. He is not known to have given any press interviews, not even to sympathetic or politically aligned journalists. Western reporters who sought the Lebanese Shi'ite group Hizballah's help to arrange a rendezvous were politely but sternly advised not to go there. So, did the CIA or some other American intelligence agency finally do Mughniyah in? Everyone, including some of his friends, may have had a motive. U.S. officials told TIME today that Mughniyah had traveled to Iraq to train the Shi'ite warlord Moqtada al Sadr’s Mahdi Army. Mughniyah, says one American official, was Hizballah’s "chief of external operations" and "considered the key to their military activity." U.S. officials acknowledge that American spy agencies had intensely been tracking Mughniyah the past five years as he moved between Tehran, Baghdad, Damascus and Beirut. Apart from his ties to Hizballah, Mughniyah was also believed to have worked closely with Iran. A U.S. official confirmed reports that in 2006, Mughniyah accompanied Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on a trip to Syria and met with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. In the 1980s, he had been accused of everything from bombing the U.S. embassy and U.S. Marines barracks in Beirut to the kidnappings of American journalists, academics and the Beirut CIA station chief. More recently, some have claimed that Mughniyeh collaborated with Osama bin Laden. After al-Qaeda's top guns, Mughniyah has the highest price on his head of any terrorist wanted by the FBI — $5 million. Hizballah immediately blamed Israel for Mughniyah's assassination in Damascus, Syria, Tuesday night. Israel's Mossad spy agency is a reasonable suspect, given Israel's determination to bring him to justice for his alleged involvement in the 1990s bombings in Argentina of the Israeli embassy and a Jewish cultural center. Israeli intelligence has a good history of eliminating terrorist masterminds, even when they are located in unfriendly Arab capitals. A U.S. official told TIME that Mughniyah had been linked to the 2002 discovery of 50 tons of weapons by Israeli Navy commandos who intercepted a freighter called Karine A in the Red Sea. More recently, said the U.S. official, Mughniyah was connected to the kidnapping of Israeli soldiers that led to the July 2006 invasion of Lebanon. The Israeli Prime Minister's office issued a statement denying any involvement in Mughniyah's killing. A senior ex-intelligence official told TIME: "The Americans wanted him, so did the Saudis and the Lebanese Christians. We weren't the only ones." Still, the former official, who asked not to be identified, has been hunting Mughniyah for over 20 years and described him as "a fanatical killer." "It was as if a big stone had been removed from my heart," he said. In the John Le Carre world of Middle East terrorism and politics, however, it's impossible to rule out the wildest of conspiracy theories, including that Mughniyah's friends in Syria or Iran may have found his continued existence to be an inconvenience. Or, they may have believed it was politically useful to demonstrate that they can be relied on to control terrorism in the Middle East — as long as the U.S. doesn't try to go after the regimes in Damascus or Tehran. |
| Posted by:gorb |
| #10 Just a figure of speech. He was an evil SOB and he's dead, whoever got him. |
| Posted by: JohnQC 2008-02-14 16:57 |
| #9 Bullshit. Take a good, long look in that nag's mouth - and count the teeth. There are no gifts in this business. |
| Posted by: mojo 2008-02-14 16:51 |
| #8 "One should not look a gift horse in the mouth." |
| Posted by: JohnQC 2008-02-14 16:24 |
| #7 As for WHO killed him... I'm Spartacus! |
| Posted by: OldSpook 2008-02-14 15:02 |
| #6 “But what made these two-bit thugs… All that time, money and effort and we still kicked their butts with both hands tied behind our back.” G&T 1838, Nothing personal but Mughniyah was not just another “two-bitter”. And the term “Terrorist mastermind” doesn’t even begin to describe this mans pedigree. Even as his cadaver rots, this dark soul is the enemy. Clearly he embraced the most wicked of ideologies and aligned himself with the most despotic regimes but make no mistake he served neither a god nor government. In the last 24 hours I’ve watched the talking heads ignorantly recount his ‘alleged” reign of terror only to wrap up their report with inane rhetorical questions. Almost as if he is nothing but an interesting sound-byte to segue between Roger Clemmons’ possible steroid use and Hillary Clintons’ current lack of political momentum. I say this because, today, the countries that will officially declare Mughniyah as a martyr are the same countries that politicians in the US have advocated "initiating dialogue" with as way to “change” our foreign policy. I say this because there will be some that will continue to denounce the Bush Admn. for not capturing UBL seven years after 9/11 simply as a way to try and score political points. And most, if not all of them, have never even heard of Mughniyah much less understand his history. I say this because there are still many in the Israeli government that arrogantly refuses to admit they underestimated the strength of Hezbollah last year. And finally, not to get all religious but if you subscribe to the good vs. evil thingy, this guy was evil-incarnate. And it’s past the time that the civilized world fights this war with that understanding. |
| Posted by: DepotGuy 2008-02-14 10:45 |
| #5 Because Time Magazine are the sleuths to solve this mystery. I bet Anderson Cooper gets there first. |
| Posted by: Excalibur 2008-02-14 09:53 |
| #4 add the Kurds and the Druze to the list that wanted him dead and also there is a chance that because he was becoming a burden to Syria and Iran (because of the intel that he was involved in the Hariri investigation), these two might have agreed to set him up. |
| Posted by: mhw 2008-02-14 09:07 |
| #3 The minute pressure is taken off them, they'll recuperate, no question about it. Why? Because the philosophical underpinnings of jihad are still standing. In a just world, our films would ridicule their beliefs, our politicians would stop them at every turn, and our writers would systematically dismantle their arguments. Due to political correctness and multiculturalism, all of these weapons sympathize with the enemy and actually wish it was us that was dead. |
| Posted by: gromky 2008-02-14 03:29 |
| #2 nicely put Grailing and Tenille1838.. But what made these two-bit thugs powerful was the fact that they were a coordinated international army with funding, training, and backing from foreign governments. You'd think that the gutless wonders in Congress who are SWORN to protect the USA FIRST, Citizen Lives FIRST, Borders FIRST Sovernty FIRST, Constitution FIRST, National Interests FIRST, BEFORE all the happy horse shit posing and yapping up a storm and BEFORE the almighty pork barrel projects... LOL, it's sorta hopeless with the bunch we have now eh? The Israeli Prime Minister's office issued a statement denying any involvement in Mughniyah's killing. A senior ex-intelligence official told TIME: "The Americans wanted him, so did the Saudis and the Lebanese Christians. **We weren't the only ones." Still, the former official, who asked not to be identified, has been hunting Mughniyah for over 20 years and described him as "a fanatical killer." "It was as if a big stone had been removed from my heart," he said. ** a huge Tell |
| Posted by: RD 2008-02-14 02:48 |
| #1 Yeah, yeah, everyone wanted him dead. All that matters is that he is dead and these "masterminds" continue to get killed on a daily basis. It is falling apart for the Islamic warriors. Their command structure, is badly broken. They have been infiltrated and they are unravelling. Despite the fact that our mass media refuses to tell us, it appears to me that we are now entering the mop up phases of this war. Sure, they are still very dangerous. Anyone who has a chance of planting a nuke in NYC has to be taken seriously. But what made these two-bit thugs powerful was the fact that they were a coordinated international army with funding, training, and backing from foreign governments. All that time, money and effort and we still kicked their butts with both hands tied behind our back. They might want to consider what we might be like unleashed, should they ever decide to light off a nuke in one of our cities. |
| Posted by: Grailing and Tenille1838 2008-02-14 00:30 |