Occupied Jerusalem: While the Israeli government denied involvement in the assassination of a senior Hezbollah military leader in Damascus on Tuesday, Israeli military analysts reacted with relief to his death.
"Israel is looking into the reports from Lebanon or from Syria regarding the death of a senior Hezbollah official, and is learning for the first time the details being reported in the media in the past few hours," read the statement from the office of Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.
"Israel rejects the attempt by terror groups to attribute to it any involvement in this incident. We have nothing further to add," read the statement.
Hezbollah charged that Israeli agents were behind the death of Emad Mughnieh, Chief of Hezbollah Special Operations Unit, reported to have been killed in a car bomb explosion in Damascus, Syria on Tuesday night. The killing was a blow to the Lebanese group, which fought a bitter 33-day war against Israel in 2006.
Dani Yatom, Knesset member and former chief of the Israeli Mossad, did not disguise his joy at Mughnieh's assassination.
"Mughnieh's assassination in Damascus is a success for intelligence services, and means there was a deep security penetration among Hezbollah, which allowed the assassins to reach him and carry out such a complicated and dangerous operation," Yatom said on Israeli radio.
The operation gains special significance because it was carried out in Syria, which is considered an uncomfortable place to work in, Yatom added.
Roni Daniel, Correspondent of the Israeli Channel Two, told Gulf News it was possible that Mughnieh felt safe being in Damascus and dropped some of his precautionary measures, which enabled intelligence services to reach him, otherwise these services received help from Damascus.
"The score has been settled with Mughnieh," Daniel started his report to the channel, to signify how dangerous to Israel he was.
Israeli experts agreed that Mughnieh was wanted by many intelligence services in the world, not only Israel, where he topped the list of most wanted people.
He was even one of the most wanted in the world, equal to Al Qaida leaders Osama Bin Laden and Ayman Al Dhawaheri, according to Yatom.
"We consider him one of the most dangerous terrorists who hurt Israel, because he is responsible for the capture of Israeli soldiers in July 2006, which led to the Israeli war on Lebanon," Yatom said.
"Mughnieh's assassination is not only a painful strike to Hezbollah, but also to Iran, because the military leader was a link between Hezbollah's special operations in the world and Iran," Yatom added.
Both Yatom and Daniel expect Hezbollah to retaliate to the assassination beyond the Israeli-Lebanese border and anywhere in the world.
However, Moche Marsac, former chief of the Israeli Army's Military Intelligence, said: "I believe Hezbollah will not retaliate now, due to the complicated situation in Lebanon, especially after the 2006 war and the presence of Unifil Forces and the Lebanese Army.
"This could prevent Hezbollah from launching attacks against Israel, but it will find the solution in other parts of the world," Marsac said.
Israeli Security services called on Israeli embassies and consulates and all Jewish organisations in the world to be on alert and take more caution because they will be potential targets of Hezbollah.
Looking back: He is linked to deadly events
- Mughnieh was the head of the security apparatus for Hezbollah and was on the FBI list of "most wanted terrorists". Washington had placed a reward of $5 million (about Dh18.25 million) for his capture or conviction.
- Islamic Jihad, a shadowy pro-Iranian group widely believed linked to Hezbollah, kidnapped dozens of Western hostages, including Americans, in Beirut in the mid 1980s at a time when Mughnieh was thought to be the group's commander.
- The group killed some of its captives and exchanged others for US weapons to Iran in what was later known as the Iran-Contra scandal. Among the victims of Islamic Jihad was the CIA's Middle East station chief.
- Islamic Jihad fighters linked to Hezbollah were blamed for a 1983 attack on a US Marine barracks in Beirut that killed 241 people, the bombing of its embassy the same year, in which 63 people were killed and an attack on a French base which killed 58 French paratroopers.
- Mughnieh was also indicted for his role in planning and participating in the June 14, 1985, hijacking of a US plane.
- Four Hezbollah operatives hijacked a TWA flight, travelling between Athens and Rome, to Beirut, beginning a 17-day ordeal in which the plane made two trips to Algeria. They killed US Navy diver Robert Dean Stethem in Beirut.
- Mughnieh was also indicted for the 1994 bombing of a Jewish community centre in Buenos Aires, which killed 85 people, and was the subject of an arrest warrant for the 1992 bombing of the Israeli embassy there, in which 29 people died.
- In October 2001, the FBI put Mughnieh and two fellow Lebanese Shiites, Hassan Izz Al Deen and Ali Atwi on a list of 22 people wanted for "terrorist" acts.
- Mughnieh's inclusion marked his re-emergence as a prominent US "public enemy"..
- Reuters
- http://www.globalsecurity.org/
- www.fbi.gov/wanted/terrorists
