Imad Mughniyah

Imad Mughniyah

Imad Fayez Mughniyah (7 December 1962 – 12 February 2008), also transliterated Mughniyya, Mughniyeh, Mogniyah (Arabic: عماد فايز مغنية‎), alias al-Hajj Radwan (الحاج رضوان), was a senior member of Lebanon's Hezbollah organisation. He was alternatively described as the head of its security section, a senior intelligence official and as one of the founders of the organisation. Mugniyah has been associated with the Beirut barracks bombing and US embassy bombings, both of which took place in 1983 and killed over 350, as well as the kidnapping of dozens of foreigners in Lebanon in the 1980s. He was indicted in Argentina for his alleged role in the 1992 Israeli embassy attack in Buenos Aires. The highest-profile attacks for which it is claimed he is responsible took place in the early 1980s, shortly after the founding of Hezbollah. He is thought to have killed more United States citizens than any other militant before the 2001 US attacks, and the bombings and kidnappings he is alleged to have organized are credited with all but eliminating the US military presence in Lebanon in the 1980s.

Information about him is limited. He is reported by the US FBI to have used the alias of Hajj, and to have been called Abu Dokhan, Arabic for "smoke-bearer" or "father of smoke"—according to US fiction writer Richard Couch because of his skill at disappearing when being pursued. Mughniyah was included in the European Union's list of wanted terrorists. and had a US$5 million bounty on the FBI Most Wanted Terrorists list.

Imad Mughniyah was killed on 12 February 2008 by a car bomb, planted inside the driver's headrest, around 11:00 pm local time in the Kfar Suseh neighborhood of Damascus, Syria. As Mughniyah passed the car on foot, the bomb was detonated. Mughniyeh’s body parts were later found scattered.