Beirut: Lebanese group Hezbollah says one of its leaders, Imad Mughniyeh, has been killed in a bombing in Damascus, and blamed Israel for assassinating him.
Hezbollah-owned Manar TV in Beirut announced the death saying: "With all pride we declare a great jihadist leader of the Islamic resistance in Lebanon joining the martyrs... the brother commander hajj Imad Mughinyeh".
Mughniyeh is widely believed to be behind a wave of Western hostage-taking in Lebanon in the 1980s. Correspondents say he had been in hiding for years and was high on US and Israeli wanted lists.
Syrian police kept media and other onlookers well away from the scene of the blast in the affluent district of Kafar Soussa.
"Scores of police and intelligence officers rushed to the site. People in the neighbourhood are shocked. We are not used to such things in Syria," said one resident.
Mughniyeh was among several suspects indicted in the US for the 1985 hijacking of a TWA airliner in which a US Navy diver was killed.
