Death by Car Bomb in Damascus

Late Tuesday night in Damascus, Imad Mugniyah, senior terrorist of Hezbollah, was killed in a car bomb explosion. It was a fitting death for a founding father of Islamic terrorism, a man who himself had built many bombs. If you had not heard of Mugniyah before, there is a good reason. Terror chieftains like Osama bin Laden and Ayman al Zawahiri seek the limelight with their frequent and widely disseminated diatribes. Not Mugniyah. Until recently, only a handful of photos of him were publicly available, and he never gave interviews. Instead, he was something of a ghost, confined to the terrorist underworld since the early 1980s, quietly doing the bidding of his masters, the Assad family in Syria and the mullahs in Iran.

Mugniyah, however, was well known in counter-terrorism circles. His role in the kidnapping and torture death of William Buckley, CIA station chief in Beirut in 1984, had earned him special enmity. Indeed, law enforcement and intelligence agencies around the globe hunted Mugniyah for nearly 30 years. But until last week he always escaped, leaving behind him a bloody trail. Finally, someone--we cannot be sure who, as of this writing--got him.

The assassination of Mugniyah has been widely reported in the press. Most accounts have gotten the details of his early career right. They have noted Mugniyah's role in some of the first Islamist terrorist attacks against the United States, including the bombings of the U.S. embassy and U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut in 1983 and a series of hijackings and kidnappings throughout the 1980s and early 1990s. But what virtually all of the coverage in the major media in recent days omits is this: Imad Mugniyah was a vital ally of Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda.

Who's been proven wrong? The Democrats, the Blame-America-Firsters, Barack Obama, the MSM, the Liberals have all been proven wrong. Shia terrorist works with Sunni terrorist. Iran works with Sunni terrorist enablers in Sudan. Bin Laden works with Iran and with Shia terrorists and adopts their methods and accepts their help.

Again, to pound my old theme, is that I understand why many Americans believe we are not in a war and that our current military efforts are over-blown and created by Bush for political reasons. Of course, you must be willfully ignorant to buy this, but ordinary people, who catch their news via the MSM and Democrats, the evil manipulating the willfully ignorant.

I blame the non-communicative Bush Administration and the politically incompetent Republican Party. What happened to targeting countries that harbor terrorists? Why didn't we join Israel last summer to bomb the hell out of Hezballah and Damascus for that matter? When are we going to do the inevitable and take out Iran, which declared war on us in 1979? Bush doesn't treat this as a serious war, so why should anyone else. In many ways, Bush is a continuation of the Clinton years. McCain blows by Clinton's left. Thank you GOP politicians for enabling the socialization of America. Good job, some of you will be re-elected, so I guess it's worth it.

I read some interesting speculation at Arutz-sheva this morning:

Egyptian Researcher: Assassination was Staged
Egyptian researcher Majdi Kamal, who recently published a book on senior Hizbullah terrorist Imad Mughniyeh, has announced that he believes Mughniyeh’s death was staged. Mughniyeh evaded 42 security services in nations worldwide, Kamal pointed out and expressed the belief that it was not logical that Mughniyeh would be killed by something as simple as a car bomb.
“Mughniyeh either died a natural death a while ago, or is still alive,” Kamal told Al-Arabiya television. He pointed out that Mughniyeh was reported dead just one day before the three-year anniversary of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, an outspoken opponent of Syrian intervention in Lebanon.
Whether Hizbullah faked the death in order to throw intelligence agencies off of Mughniyeh’s trail or Mughniyeh actually died, Hizbullah chose the timing of the “assassination” in order to ruin Hariri’s memorial ceremonies, Kamal contended.

ML/NJ

Last Tuesday as he sipped fruit juice at the party at the Iranian cultural center to mark the 29th anniversary of Ayatollah Khomeini’s Iranian revolution. Almost all the leaders of the Damascus-based militant groups were present.

At 10:35pm he decided to go home after exchanging kisses with his host, Hojatoleslam Ahmad Musavi, the new Iranian ambassador.

He was seated in his silver Mitsubishi Pajero in a nearby street when a blast ripped the car apart and killed him instantly.

According to Israeli intelligence sources, someone had replaced the headrest of the driver’s seat with another containing a small high-explosive charge.

Another theory that I first picked up was that a satchel charge was placed in the back seat floor. It is now known that he died from massive abdomenal injuries which tends to discredit the headrest bomb. Also, the damage to the car came from the rear seat outward.

In any case, my compliments, he was the most intelligent, most capable operative we’ve ever run across. They will not replace him easily.

This is an excellent article.

Your comments, however, against Bush are way off the mark. He and his Administration are doing a first-class job against terrorism - so much so that the many of the unthinking in the U. S. and the Western world, with all the daily entertainments and wishful thinking, have the grossly mistaken impression that international terrorism has miraculously been eliminated.

Then there are all the America-haters within America who, pathologically, seek their own destruction.

Islamic terrorists know that Bush is their No. 1 enemy - and they yearn for a Hillary or Obama.

Time will tell. Bush has done nothing about the border. He hasn't done, what he said he would do, go after states harboring terrorists, sponsoring terror and associating with terrorists. If Syria and Iran do not count there, I don't know who does. Bush has completely fallen down on the job in informing and educating the American People about what is happening, what he is doing and how it is going.

Due to Bush's failings, we may end up with Hillary or Obama.

Question for you, have you heard about the Merida plan? This has come out in the past couple of days. Bush got together with Calderon, the Mexican President, put together a package to get Mexico a billion plus dollars for Mexico to improve their security on their southern border. Gee, suddenly border security is important, unfortunately, it's not the American border we're talking about.

So, after trying to sneak "immigration reform" through Congress in the dark of night in 2006 and again in 2007, smearing opponents as 'nativists' etc, our President Bush is trying to hide a billion dollars for Mexican border security. American security is less important to President Bush than some Mexican deal. Border security is part of national defense.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.