Imad Mughniyeh: Difference between revisions

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Imad Fayez Mugniyah (also spelt Moughnieh) (Template:Lang-ar; born December 7, 1962 - Feb 12, 2008 ) was a senior member of the Hezbollah militant organization. He was alternatively described as the head of its security section, a senior intelligence official and as a founder of the organization. Sometimes described as a "master terrorist",^[1] Mugniyah had been implicated in the 1983 bombings of the U.S. Embassy, and U.S. Marine and French peacekeeping barracks, which killed over 350, as well as the 1992 bombings of the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires and the kidnapping of dozens of foreigners in Lebanon in the 1980s.

Limited information is known about him. He used the alias of Hajj. Mugniyah is included in the European Union's list^[2] of wanted terrorists.^[3][4]

According to his Lebanese passport application, Mughniyah was born in Tayr Dibba, a poor village in southern Lebanon. CIA South Group records state that he lived in Ayn Al-Dilbah; a ghetto in South Beirut.^[5] His father was a vegetable seller and during the civil war, his house was on the Green Line.

Little is known about his adolescence as he did not attract the attention of analysts until 1976 when he joined Yasir Arafat's Force 17. His role at that time was as a sniper, targeting Christians across the Green Line. At some point he spent a year at the American University of Beirut.

Mugniyah has been implicated in many of terrorist attacks in the 1980s and 1990s, primarily American and Israeli targets. These include the April 18, 1983 bombing of the United States embassy in Beirut, Lebanon, which killed 63 people including 17 Americans. He was later blamed for the October 23, 1983 simultaneous truck bombings against the French paratroopers and US Marine barracks (see: 1983 Beirut barracks bombing). The attacks killed 58 French soldiers and 241 Marines. Almost a year later on September 20, 1984, he attacked the US embassy annex building. The United States indicted him for the June 14, 1985 hijacking of TWA Flight 847, which resulted in the death of U.S. Navy diver Robert Stethem. He was also linked to numerous kidnappings of Westerners in Beirut through the 1980s, most notably that of Terry Anderson. Some of these individuals were later killed such as U.S. Army Col William Francis Buckley. The remainder were released at various times until the last one, Terry Anderson was released in 1991.

He had been described as "tall, slender, well-dressed and handsome ... penetrating eyes," speaking some English but better French.^[6]

He was killed in a car bombing in Damascus on 12 February 2008 ^[7].

Various law enforcement agencies have attempted to capture Mugniyah. The United States tried to secure his capture in France in 1986, but were thwarted by French refusal to detain him.

The United States tried to detain him several times afterwards, the first being a 1995 attempt to detain him as the plane he was traveling on was supposed to stop in Saudi Arabia. However Saudi officials refused to allow the plane to land and he was not captured. The next year US military personnel planned to seize him off a ship in Doha, Qatar, but the operation was called off. This 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 SEALS assigned to the U. S. Fifth Fleet. The operation was underway, but was canceled at the last minute when it was not verified that Mughniyah was actually on board the Pakistani ship.

On October 10, 2001 Mugniyah appeared on the initial list of the FBI's top 22 Most Wanted Terrorists, which was released to the public by President Bush.^[8] This reward remains outstanding.^[9][10]

The Israeli government has also made several alleged attempts to assassinate Mugniyah. His brother Faud Mugniyah was killed in a 1994 Beirut car bombing. (Another brother, Jihad, was killed in a car-bombing assassination attempt on the life of Hezbollah founder Sheikh Fadlallah in 1985, this one rumored to be the work of the CIA via the South Lebanese Army.)

In 1999, the Argentinean government issued an arrest warrant for Mugniyah for his involvement in the 1994 AMIA culture center bombing.

According to Robert Baer, . “Mugniyah 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 related to him that he can trust. He doesn’t just recruit people. "[[2]]

Recent articles by the Counter-terrorisim Blog, and by The New Yorker Magazine^[11][12], suggest that Imad Mugniyah recently attended a meeting between Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Mugniyah was there representing Hezbollah in Lebanon. According to the same articles, Mugniyah has been informed that he is currently at the top of a US Military and CIA assassination list. For this reason he is said to avoid certain areas of Beirut for fear of being killed by CIA SAD paramilitary operatives, or US Special Operations Hunter/Killer teams.

Imad Mughniyah was killed on February 12, 2008 by a car bomb blast at around 11:00 pm local time in the neighborhood of Kfar Suseh in Damascus, Syria.^[13][14] He had been the reported target of the Israeli Mossad in the 1990s,^{[15] [14]}

• Rewards for Justice Site
• Mugniyah profile at FBI Most Wanted Terrorists
• "Hizbullah Terrorism in Argentina" (a Federation of American Scientist editorial of the Free Europe Radio service
• In The Party Of God: Hezbollah sets up operations in South America and the United States
• In The Party Of God: Are Terrorists In Lebanon Preparing For A Larger War
• Mind of Mugniyeh
• "Deadly infiltrator's trail" ("Washington Times" commentary)
• "U.S. renews bid to catch Beirut bombing suspect" (CNN, 10/10/01)
• 60 Minutes II article about Mugniyah and an attempted seizure of him back in 1996
• 1/2002 article by the British newspaper Telegraph linking him the Karine A incident
• PBS Frontline website for its show on the Hizbullah
• Another Frontline website- interview with a former CIA officer about Mugniyah
• Michael Ledeen on Abu Musab al-Zarqawi
• [3]-Mugniyah engineered the kidnapping of the two Israeli soldiers which sparked the current fighting
• [4] How Mugniyah met with French officials to secure the release of French hostages