Assassination
Imad Mughniyah was killed on 12 February 2008 by a car bomb blast around 11:00 pm local time in the Kfar Suseh neighborhood of Damascus, Syria. He had been the target of Israeli Mossad assassination attempts since the 1990s. Furthermore, The Times states that Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert met privately with Mossad Director-General Meir Dagan on the day of Mughniyeh's burial, reportedly to congratulate him. On February 27 Al-Quds Al-Arabi reported that several Arab states helped the Mossad carry out the bombing. Accounts cited by the Jerusalem Post state that Mughniyeh was assassinated in revenge for the 2006 Lebanon War, which he had a role in instigating. Mossad tasked the Kidon Division, a unit of assassins which operates under the Caesarea Branch, with the mission. An account stated that a team of operatives entered Damascus, where they waited for Mughniyeh. When Mughniyeh walked past a car which had been loaded with explosives, it was detonated. The blast caused the entire street to shake, and Mughniyeh’s body parts were later found scattered across the street. His assassination took Hezbollah completely by surprise, particularly Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, the organization’s leader. Israel officially denied being behind the killing. The U.S. Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell suggested that was is also possible that internal Hezbollah factions or Syria may be to blame for the killing.
Without naming a source, the German newspaper Die Welt said a story had been circulated amongst German diplomatic staff that it was possible that associates of late Assef Shawkat had assassinated Mughniyah in revenge for having tipped the Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, about coup plot against him, which the Syrian government had foiled a couple of days before Mugniyah's assassination. Releasing the story in advance of going to print, Die Welt said the Syrian embassy in Berlin had rejected the coup story as utterly untrue.
At Mugniyah's funeral, Hassan Nasrallah appeared via video link and in the lengthy eulogy he delivered for his fallen comrade, he declared: "You crossed the borders. Zionists, if you want an open war, let it be an open war anywhere."
Lebanese senior cleric Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah said that "the resistance has lost one of its pillars." Iran condemned the killing as: "yet another brazen example of organised state terrorism by the Zionist regime".
According to The Sunday Times, Mughniyah was at a reception marking the 29th anniversary of the Iranian Revolution hosted by Iranian ambassador to Syria, Hojatoleslam Ahmad Musavi. Mughniyah left at 10:35 pm and went to his silver Mitsubishi Pajero nearby. The driver seat headrest had been replaced by one with a high-explosive, which detonated when Mughniyah entered the vehicle.
The Syrian investigation found that he was killed by a car bomb parked nearby and detonated by remote.
The Kuwaiti newspaper Al-Rai reported that Hezbollah sources said they would retaliate for Mughniyah's death by assassinating Israeli leaders.
The Bush administration welcomed news of his death. A spokesman of the U.S. State Department said: "The world is a better place without this man in it. He was a coldblooded killer, a mass murderer and a terrorist responsible for countless innocent lives lost. One way or another he was brought to justice." Danny Yatom, former head of the Israeli Mossad said: "He was one of the most dangerous terrorists ever on Earth."
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