Regards, Ivan
Posted on 04/23/2006 1:49:01 AM PDT by MadIvan
Plot for revenge attacks on West
IRAN’S president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, attended a meeting in Syria earlier this year with one of the world’s most wanted terrorists, according to intelligence experts and a former national security official in Washington.
US officials and Israel intelligence sources believe Imad Mugniyeh, the Lebanese commander of Hezbollah’s overseas operations, has taken charge of plotting Iran’s retaliation against western targets should President George W Bush order a strike on Iranian nuclear sites.
Mugniyeh is on the FBI’s “Most Wanted Terrorists” list for his role in a series of high-profile attacks against the West, including the 1985 hijacking of a TWA jet and murder of one of its passengers, a US navy diver.
Now in his mid-forties, Mugniyeh is reported to have travelled with Ahmadinejad in January this year from Tehran to Damascus, where the Iranian president met leaders of Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad and Hamas.
The meeting has been dubbed a “terror summit” because of the presence of so many groups behind attacks on Israel, which Ahmadinejad has threatened to wipe from the map.
Jane’s Intelligence Review cited “reports in recent weeks” of Mugniyeh’s presence alongside the president.
Michael Ledeen, a Middle East expert and former Pentagon and National Security Council official who wrote that Mugniyeh had “probably” been there, said last week senior American officials had confirmed it.
“It’s hard to identify Mugniyeh because he is said to have changed his face and his fingerprints,” Ledeen said. “But senior government officials have told me I was right. He was there.”
Shortly after the Damascus summit Henry Crumpton, head of counter-terrorism at the state department, singled out the elusive Mugniyeh as a threat. The Iranians, Crumpton said, “have complete command and control of Hezbollah. Imad Mugniyeh works for Tehran. And you can’t talk about Hezbollah and not think about Iran. They really are part and parcel of the same problem.”
Mugniyeh lives in Iran and has evaded capture for more than 20 years, despite a $5m American bounty on his head. Western intelligence reports claim he has many connections to terrorist cells in Europe, Africa, Latin America and the US and he is said to have met Osama Bin Laden.
“When and if the Iranians decide to hit the West in its soft belly, Imad will be the one to act,” a western intelligence source said last week.
An Israeli defence source claimed Mugniyeh was in regular touch with the new Iranian intelligence minister, Gholamhossein Mohseni Ezhei. The minister is a long-time confidant of Ahmadinejad and was appointed by him.
“We know that Mohseni Ezhei holds routine meetings with Mugniyeh, who is today Iran’s head of overseas operations,” said the Israeli defence source. “Since we know from previous Iranian terror attacks that it takes about a year to plan a substantial one, we should not be surprised if operations against western targets are already in high gear and Mugniyeh is certainly playing a major role.”
The young Mugniyeh first attracted the attention of the West when he was involved in the kidnapping, torture and mutilation of William Buckley, the CIA station chief in Beirut, in 1984. He kept his victim at the Sheikh Abdullah camp in the Lebanese Bekaa valley and was allegedly the last person Buckley saw before he died.
“Imad had good reason to retaliate,” said a well-informed source. “A car bomb killed his brother Jihad, who had taken Imad’s old job as bodyguard to Hezbollah’s spiritual leader.” Mugniyeh blamed the CIA, and Buckley was chosen to pay the price.
The kidnapping led to the Iran-contra affair, one of the most embarrassing episodes of the Reagan presidency, in which arms were swapped for hostages. But by the time the Americans were negotiating with the Iranians, Buckley was already dead.
Mugniyeh has also been linked to the demolition of the American embassy and marine barracks in Beirut in 1983 and is wanted in Argentina for his role in recruiting the bombers of the Israeli embassy and Jewish centre in Buenos Aires in the early 1990s.
Mugniyeh left Lebanon for Iran in 1994 with his wife and son after an assassination attempt. He is since believed to have played an active role in fomenting trouble in Iraq. Ledeen described him last week as the “spinal column of the terror war against America in Iraq from the beginning”.
According to Robert Baer, a former CIA agent who pursued Mugniyeh in the 1980s, “he is the most dangerous terrorist we have ever faced. Mugniyeh is probably the most intelligent, most capable operative we have ever run across, including the KGB or anybody else.
“He enters by one door, exits by another, changes his cars daily, never makes appointments by telephone — he is never predictable. He is the master terrorist, the grail we have been after since 1983”.
# Elite Iranian army officers who arrived in south Lebanon this month have taken command of thousands of rockets aimed at cities across Israel. They are believed to have been given control of the missiles by Hezbollah to deter possible Israeli attacks against Iran’s nuclear facilities.
Regards, Ivan
Ping!
WorldNetDaily.com: "AHMADINEJAD RECRUITS HEZBOLLAH TERROR CHIEF 'When the Iranians decide to hit the West in its soft belly, Imad will be the 1 to act'" (ARTICLE SNIPPET: "Mugniyah and the Iranian president met with leaders of Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad and Hamas in Damascus in what has been called a "terror summit" because of the number of groups that have carried out attacks on Israel and Israelis over the years.") (April 23, 2006)
NYSUN.com: "A MOST-WANTED TERRORIST IS SPOTTED IN SYRIA" (ARTICLE SNIPPET: "One of the American government's most wanted terrorists visited Syria late last week with Iran's President Ahmadinejad, according to a former Reagan administration national security official and Iran watchers on Capitol Hill.")(January 25, 2006) (NOTE: This url may expire.)
stepping back in time..."fayrouz.blogspot.com/2004_09_01_fayrouz_archive.html#109415983198622045" - "IRAN AND AL-ZARQAWI" - "posted by Fayrouz 9/2/2004" (ARTICLE - TRANSLATION - SNIPPET: "A former corps chief said Abu-Mosaab Al-Zarqawi escaped to Turkey last year, after being in Iran and entered Iraq more than a year ago. He confirmed to the newspaper that a meeting was held last June between Al-Zarqawi and a Lebanese fugitive, Emad Mughania, at one of Al-Quds corps centers in Kermanshah providence in western Iran. The source said Mughania played an influential role in forming the Al-Mahdi Army. Al-Mahdi Army belongs to the strict Shia religious cleric, Muqtada Al-Sadr, and trains its members in camps inside Iran. He also mentioned the entrance of Shia fighters from Lebanon to Iraq dressed as religious studies students. These fighters then join Al-Madi Army under the supervision of Emad Mughania. Mughania underwent a cosmetic surgery recently in a sanitarium for the revolutionary guards in northern Iran to change his face. This is the 5th surgery for Mughania, who's been chased by Western and Arabic intelligence organizations for a number of years now. The source said Mughania kept his relationships with Aymen Al-Thawahiri, the number-two man in Al-Qaida organization despite the difficulty of contacting him lately. He added that Mughania submitted a report early this year to chief of the revolutionary guards intelligence after a visit to Iraq. The report outlined the importance of expanding a framework of collaboration between Al-Mahdi Army and Al-Zarqawi's group. Muqtada has lost his standing among the Iraqi shia, especially Al-Najaf, while gaining more supporters in the Sunni triangle.")
Mugniyeh may be clever, but he is only a human being. Human beings make mistakes, and he will too.
And when he does, it will be a fatal mistake.
If this report is accurate, you have to wonder what kind of reprisals they have in mind. Should Iran be attacked, I doubt they have plans to retaliate with individual suicide bombers, despite what they've said about their thousands of supposed volunteers. I'm more concerned with the fact they've met with people in Syria, where Saddam's chemical weapons were supposedly moved. Access to that type of munition could put teeth into their bluster. With their seeming eagerness to start a regional conflagration, I wouldn't put it past them.
This is what all the talk about asynchronous warfare is about, a damn cruise missile in the middle of their little party.
ping
ping
ping
What do you have in mind?
If roles were reversed and it was Britain or the USA trying to obtain nuclear weapons against the wishes of other governments what would be your position?
As much as I hate and detest Bill Clinton...he was absolutely correct in his assertion that "we can always kill them tomorrow".
In reality there is legally nothing we can do to stop Iran from acquiring nuclear warheads.
Since the world seems to hate our guts....we need a Gulf of Tonkin or a Pearl Harbor as a catalyst to attack them.
Hope it's not an attack on Israel or our troops in the Gulf Region.
The attack will be in the USA...
And you "know" this how......???
"Should Iran be attacked, I doubt they have plans to retaliate with individual suicide bombers, despite what they've said about their thousands of supposed volunteers."
The suicide bombers will probably make their way to the West Bank and Gaza for strikes against Israel, and throughout the Persian Gulf for strikes against American forces as well as our embassies and consulates.
Just a hunch...You know, plan for the worst, hope for the best...
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