AMERICA and Israel were jubilant last night after one of the world's most wanted bombers, hijackers and kidnappers was killed in a car bomb attack in the Syrian capital, Damascus.
Imad Mughniyeh – the Osama bin Laden of the 1980s – headed the special operations unit of Hezbollah and his violent death is a major blow to the militant Lebanese Shia Islamic group.
Nicknamed the Fox, the bearded 46-year-old was blamed for the de
aths of hundreds of Americans and the agonising hostage ordeals of Britons Terry Waite and John McCarthy among others.
"The world is a better place without this man in it. He was a cold-blooded killer, a mass murderer and a terrorist responsible for countless innocent lives lost," said US State Department spokesman Sean McCormack. "One way or another he was brought to justice."
Short and stocky with piercing green eyes and a squeaky voice, Mughniyeh was a master of disguise who had plastic surgery so he could flit safely between Iran, Syria and Lebanon, his home country.
American spies and special forces who long tried to capture or kill him called him the "faceless terrorist".
Unlike Osama bin Laden, Mughniyeh shunned publicity. Yet in his murderous heyday he was as notorious as the legendary Venezuelan terrorist Carlos the Jackal and the ruthless Palestinian renegade, Abu Nidal. The first is now behind bars in France, the second died of gun-shot wounds in Baghdad six years ago.
Mughniyeh helped build Hezbollah's military wing into a well-trained and fearless machine that battled the Israeli army to a standstill in Lebanon in 2006. Israel believes he helped plan that war, which began with the cross-border abduction of Israeli soldiers.
Hezbollah declared Mughniyeh a "martyr" and a "great Jihadist leader" and lost no time in blaming Israel. "He has been a target of the Zionists for 20 years," the organisation declared. Iran also accused Israel of Mughniyeh's assassination, calling it an act of "state terrorism".
Israel promptly denied that, although it reportedly tried to assassinate Mughniyeh in Beirut in the 1990s.
If the Israeli secret service Mossad was responsible for Mughniyeh's death it will be a major coup for the organisation.
Israeli media were quick to predict that Hezbollah would attempt revenge attacks. One Hezbollah leader described the killing as a declaration of war and vowed revenge.
Dany Yatom, a former Mossad chief, said he did not know who had "liquidated" Mughniyeh. "But it was a success for the intelligence community. He was one of the biggest terrorists in the world, in the same league with Osama bin Laden," he added.
The attack would demonstrate a remarkable ability to liquidate fugitives in the heart of an enemy Arab dictatorship which has pervasive security and intelligence services.
It is also an embarrassment that a terrorist with a $5 million American bounty on his head was apparently being harboured by Syria.
Syria gives sanctuary to Khaled Meshal, the political leader of the radical Palestinian group, Hamas. Also based in Damascus is Ahmed Jibril, leader of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine – General Command, the group originally blamed for Lockerbie.
Mughniyeh led the Islamic Jihad organisation – one of several shadowy terror groups that operated under the Hezbollah umbrella – which kidnapped at least 40 westerners in Lebanon in the 1980s.
Islamic Jihad killed some and exchanged others for American weapons for Iran in what was later known as the Iran-Contra scandal which tarnished the administration of Ronald Reagan.
The grandson of a Shia Muslim mullah in Lebanon, Mughniyeh was a high-school drop-out but began attracting attention when he underwent a training programme with Yasser Arafat's faction of the PLO in the late 1970s.
His commanders were highly impressed by his personal courage and his expert handling of weapons and explosives.
Eventually he fell out with Arafat's Fatah group, and in 1982 he joined Hezbollah just as it was being formed.
It is believed Mughniyeh – fearing for his life – moved to Iran in the late 1990s where he was kept on a tight leash by the authorities in Tehran.
He was allowed to run an import-export business and lived a flashy, caviar lifestyle. He was also given an Iranian passport.
"Mughniyeh is probably the most intelligent, most capable operative we've ever run across," said Robert Baer, a former CIA operative who hunted the terrorist for years.
"He enters by one door, exits by another, changes his cars daily, never makes appointments on a telephone, never is predictable," Mr Baer told a US television station a few years ago.
Mughniyeh was last seen in public at the funeral of his brother, Fuad, who was killed in December 1994 when a booby-trapped car blew up in Beirut. Many believed Mughniyeh himself had been the intended target. Another of his brothers was killed in a car bombing ten years earlier.
Mughniyeh will make his final appearance today in southern Beirut when Hezbollah gives him a big funeral.
THE HAND OF MUGHNIYEHAPRIL 1983
A suicide bomber rams a van packed with explosives into the US embassy in Beirut, killing 63 people, including 17 Americans.
OCTOBER 1983
Suicide attackers carry out near-simultaneous truck bombings against barracks of French and US peacekeeping forces in Beirut, killing 241 American marines and 58 French paratroopers.
MARCH 1984
Lt-Col William Buckley, CIA station chief in Beirut, is kidnapped and eventually killed in the beginning of a spate of kidnappings of foreigners linked to Hezbollah.
MARCH 1985
Associated Press chief Mid-East correspondent Terry Anderson is kidnapped and held for the next six years.
JUNE 1985
Lebanese Shiite militants hijack TWA flight 847 from Athens to Rome, flying it back and forth between Beirut and Algiers. At Beirut airport, the hijackers shoot US navy diver Robert Stetham, a passenger on the plane, and dump his body on the runway. Most of the 150 passengers were released over the course of the three-day hijacking, with the remainder freed about two weeks later.
17 APRIL, 1986
British TV journalist John McCarthy is abducted. He was set free after more than five years.
20 JANUARY, 1987
Anglican Church envoy Terry Waite is taken hostage and held for almost five years.
MARCH 1992
A pick-up truck packed with explosives smashes into the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires, Argentina, killing 29 people.
JULY 1994
A van packed with explosives levels a seven-storey Jewish centre in Buenos Aires, killing 95 people. Argentina issued an arrest warrant for Mughniyeh in 1999.
13 FEBRUARY, 2008
Mughniyeh dies in car bomb attack in the Syrian capital, Damascus.
The full article contains 1107 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
