#4 From In From the Cold:
MughniyehÂ’s death represents a major blow for Hizballah. Along with his skills in organizing terrorist operations, Mughniyeh was credited with organizing the groupÂ’s defenses during the 2006 war with Israel. He also served as a primary liaison between the group and its patrons in Iran. In fact, Mughniyeh also held a position in the Iranian Quods Force, which provides extensive training and support for Hizballah.
Tuesday’s car bombing is also an embarrassment for Damascus, at least officially. A number of terror groups maintain offices in the Syrian capital, and operate there with relative impunity. As the Washington Post observed, the successful effort to eliminate Mughniyeh represents a “major breach” in Syria’s police-state security apparatus.
Still, that doesnÂ’t answer the question of who dispatched Imad Mughniyeh. Israeli operatives are the most logical suspects; as Bill Roggio notes, MughniyehÂ’s assassination bears an uncanny resemblance to a 2004 Mossad operation against a top Hamas operative in Damascus. In both cases, the terrorists were killed by a well-placed car bombs that devastated the driverÂ’s compartment, but did little damage to the rest of the vehicle, and surrounding buildings.
But car-bombing is also a favored assassination technique of Syrian security organizations, employed on numerous occasions against Lebanese politicians. Had Mughniyeh run afoul of his Syrian hosts, or were Bashir AssadÂ’s security forces simply asleep at the switch?
Mughniyeh died in a Damascus neighborhood that’s home to an Iranian school and the headquarters of the Syrian intelligence service; in that location, as Meir Javedanfar writes at PJM, you’d think that security would be tighter. Mr. Javedanfar believes that the successful “hit” against Mughniyeh indicates that western intelligence has penetrated Iran’s security services, allowing them to successfully track--and target—a Hizballah official who was known for his attention to personal security. |