| ADVERTISEMENT
 |
Posted on 02/15/2008 12:10:19 PM PST by Ernest_at_the_Beach
BEIRUT (Reuters) - Lebanon's Hezbollah has appointed a successor to its senior guerrilla commander Imad Moughniyah who was assassinated in Syria this week, a Lebanese security source said on Friday.
| ADVERTISEMENT
|
The source said the appointment was made hours after the announcement of Moughniyah's death in a car bomb in Damascus on Tuesday. He did not identify the successor who would now command Hezbollah's formidable and well-armed guerrilla army.
A joint investigation into the bombing by Syrians, Iranians and Hezbollah was well under way and suspects had been arrested in the Syrian capital, the source said.
Hezbollah and its main backer Iran have accused Israel of killing Moughniyah, who was among the United States' most wanted men. The Israeli government has denied any links, though its Mossad spy service had been hunting him for two decades.
"A successor to Imad Moughniyah has been appointed, which is natural," said the source, who requested anonymity. "That's how Hezbollah works, they move quickly to choose successors of fallen leaders."
The source said the successor was not one of the two names being circulated in the Israeli media. Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah has threatened Israel with "open war" in retaliation for the killing.
Moughniyah had been in charge of Hezbollah's security organ. He gained legendary status in Hezbollah for a string of attacks on Israeli and Western targets in Lebanon in the 1980s.
An Iranian Arabic television station released mobile phone footage of the scene minutes after the blast that killed Moughniyah, chief of the forces of a group that fought a 34-day war against Israel in 2006.
It showed the car on fire and people running past it.
The source said the investigation showed Moughniyah was killed by a car bomb parked close to his car. It was detonated remotely as he walked past after leaving a building he had been visiting.
Early reports said the bomb had been placed inside Moughniyah's car.
JOINT INVESTIGATION
The suspects arrested were mostly Palestinians residing in Syria, the Lebanese source said.
Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki agreed with Syrian officials during a visit to Damascus on Thursday to set up a joint team to investigate the killing, Mottaki's deputy Alireza Sheik-Attar said on Friday.
Mottaki had attended Moughniyah's funeral in Beirut.
Moughniyah commanded the Islamic Jihad, a shadowy pro-Iranian group which emerged in Lebanon in the early 1980s and was believed to be linked to Hezbollah.
The group claimed many kidnappings and bombings but disappeared after the release of the last Western hostages in Lebanon shortly after the end of the civil war in 1990.
Moughniyah was implicated in the 1983 bombings of the U.S. embassy and U.S. Marine and French peacekeeping barracks in Beirut, which killed more than 350 people.
Israel accuses Moughniyah of planning the 1994 bombing of a Jewish centre in Buenos Aires that killed 85 people and of involvement in a 1992 bombing of the Israeli embassy in the Argentine capital that killed 28.
The United States indicted him for his role in planning and participating in the 1985 hijacking of a TWA airliner and the killing of an American passenger.
(Editing by Robert Woodward)
I like your thinking.
How can he spend much time rationally thinking of his own fate, when he is consumed 24/7 with his hatred of Jews, and by extension, his hatred of God?
Christ certainly didn't say "kill, kill, kill". His words were much to the opposite, in fact.
So the question is, how does the world deal with this without merely being dragged into the cycle of killing, retribution, revenge, followed by more yet more killings, to no end, which I'm guessing Satan takes great delight in?
So far, I'm seeing no way out...it's going to hit the fan, the jihadists INSIST upon it! For they, themselves, certainly don't want to find a way to forgive, to live & let live. But if THEY only attempted to begin to do that [real efforts towards peace], then they would find near immediate response!
Britian tried welcoming them onto their shores, into their culture [with it's many socialist monetary benifits!] and what has that brought them, but a contiuation and consolidation of hatred directed against them and their open, welcoming culture, even by those whose lives have been materially and otherwise, greatly benifited by being in Great Britian? We know that not all muslims are Islamist extremists, but still ----
The West has already tried, over and over, to find ways to accommodate the Islamists, peacefully, or at least incrementally, with some hope for peace in the future being the long term goal.
Like Arafat before them, they'll have none of it. No change of heart...not even the briefest moment of consideration, that this intense hatred of theirs, just might be wrong ---and even against the deepest desires, of God Himself! But then I suppose, that my speaking to you in this fashion, is akin to "preaching to the choir".
Dude! Mugniyah is freakin' dead!
Something is being done about it.
My prayers are with the Mossad agents that take out this piece of garbage. Too bad they cannot take out the Iranian Thug and Chavez while they are at it.
Uh-oh. That would explain the letter in Arabic I got yesterday. I was kinda hoping for Ed McMahon...
I mean that we’re not holding Syria accountable, though we always threaten to.
(And besides, I’m a Dudette.;-))
Hard to tell. McCain has opposed Gitmo and Waterboarding, but he has been a strong proponent of the Iraq presence.
I agree with dog's comments about someone having to be there when the bomb went off. Not only did that take guts, but it was a master stroke of identification and killing.....and in the dark. Good things are happening.
January 4 2008 is when someone unleashed the dogs of covert war.
Clearly, we’ve been far more aggressive with the Pakistanis. that Predator attack on the target near their very own military base was extraordinary. Somewhere along the way, in the past three or more months, we seem to have picked up some quality intel and we are acting on it. It appears to be covering a lot of fronts.
Another target who moved freely...even going into a Pakistani prison hospital to see wounded AQ fighters...killed right under his protectors noses.
Imad killed 150 feet from the Syrian intelligence offices ...
See a pattern starting to come into focus.
DUDE.
GREAT! hand over the bulleye shirt to this guy so we can blow him up too.
Imad killed 150 feet from the Syrian intelligence offices ...
See a pattern starting to come into focus."
Yup. The message is loud. The message is being repeated. The message is clear.
You're not paying attention. The U.S. just slapped additional sanctions onto Syria this week, and someone just blew up two of Assad's allies right in front of Syrian Intelligence HQ.
This ain't tiddly winks. Blood is being spilt. Businesses are being ruined. Messages are being sent.
I also find it interesting that Zbignew Brzinzki is reported to be in Syria right now. He’s the Clinton’s guy. Despite the fact that he’s no ally of Israel, I can’t help but wonder whether Mr. Bush or whoever killed this guy isn’t delivering a message that suggests Bush is still in charge right now and while Zbig is there, why not scare the sh...stuff out of him too. I’m not sure that was the point, but if someone had eyes on a HVT like this guy, whoever said “go” had to have thought through the implications of a former US diplomat being in Syria at the time. I’m just glad the guy is gone. We are sending valuable deadly messages right now.
Brzinzki = Brzezinski.....must.....get...coffee
Well, the car-bombing MO is certainly Palestinian...it wasn’t even that long ago that the Palis hit one of our diplomatic convoys with a car bomb in the Gaza Strip.
But why would Palis blow up Mugniyah? In Syria. Right next to Syrian intelligence HQ.
And then I think back to the deceased al-zarqawi in Iraq. He had a “big plan” to trick the U.S. into going to war against Iran by killing Iranians and placing their bodies at the scene of a large attack against U.S. forces in Iraq.
His idea was that Al-Qaeda was stronger in Iraq with Iran fighting the U.S. than with Iran officially nuetral and no U.S. bombers being retasked away from Iraq in order to instead hit Iran.
So it isn’t out of the question that Al Qaeda has revisited al-zarqawi’s old “get Iran into the war” plan...but with the twist of forcing Syria into the war this time, instead.
If so, then the idiotic and suicidal Palis would clearly be Al Qaeda’s go-to guys for such a mission inside Syria.
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.