Likely Mastermind Of Tower Attacks

Insight ^ | Dec. 7, 2001 | Kenneth R. Timmerman

[Plummz]

He has blown up U.S. embassies and car-bombed a U.S. military barracks. He has hijacked U.S. commercial airliners and murdered Americans. He has kidnapped and tortured a top CIA officer and vowed through terror to drive the United States from his country. Do you know who he is?

If you guessed Osama bin Laden, you're wrong. The correct answer is Imad Fayez Mugniyeh (pronounced MOOG-NEE-YEH), a Lebanese Shiite long considered one of the world's most ruthless and elusive killers. The CIA has been tracking him since 1984 when he masterminded the kidnapping in Beirut of CIA station chief William Buckley, apparently on orders from Iran. Now evidence is beginning to mount that Mugniyeh has deep ties to bin Laden and his al-Qaeda network and may have been directly involved in planning the Sept. 11 attacks.

"We know Mugniyeh has a relationship to bin Laden. We know that," one U.S. official tells Insight. "Did he have a role in planning the outrages of September 11? We can't rule it out. Hezbollah is part of bin Laden's International Islamic Front for Jihad on the Jews and Crusaders, and Mugniyeh is the head of Hezbollah's special-operations branch."

Twice the United States spotted Mugniyeh on international flights and sought to have him arrested. In 1986, he was leaving Charles de Gaulle Airport after several days of secret negotiations with the French government. Although the CIA provided a copy of the passport he was using, the French declined to stop him. Nine years later, he was flying back to Beirut from Khartoum after a meeting with bin Laden in the Sudan. The United States arranged for his Middle East Airways plane to make an unscheduled stopover in Jedda, Saudi Arabia, but the Saudi authorities refused to force him to leave the plane. Neither the French nor the Saudis wanted him on their hands.

"Imad Mugniyeh is one of the most demonic of the militant Islamic leaders," says Daniel Pipes of the Middle East Forum in Philadelphia. "He appears to serve as a bridge between the 1980s, when the violence was primarily Shiite, and today, when it is primarily Sunni."

Mugniyeh and his Iranian backers are Shiite Muslims; bin Laden and his followers are Sunnis. Most terrorism analysts and Islamic scholars insist that the two Muslim sects are on less-friendly terms than Catholics and Protestants in Belfast. But when it comes to terrorism, they are dead wrong.

The eldest of four children, Mugniyeh was born in the village of Tir Dibba in the mountains above the Lebanese coastal city of Tyre on July 12, 1962. His father, Sheik Muhammad Jawad Mugniyeh, was praised as "one of Shia Lebanon's best jurists" by American Islamic scholar Fouad Ajami.

As a high-school dropout, Mugniyeh was recruited by Yasser Arafat's Fatah faction and later joined the elite Force 17, Arafat's personal security service. Once the Palestinians were kicked out of Lebanon in 1983, Mugniyeh and his two brothers, Fuad and Jihad, joined a new organization set up by Iran called Hezbollah (Party of God). Its goal was to drive the Western powers out of Lebanon.

Imad Mugniyeh became Hezbollah's star recruit, reporting directly to Ali Akbar Mohtashemi-Pour, Iran's ambassador to Syria. His terrorist pedigree began with a bang when he organized the April 18, 1983, bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Beirut that killed 63 people, including Robert Ames, the CIA's top Middle East operations officer, and many of his best agents.

In October 1983, Mugniyeh was back at work. This time, with Iranian and Syrian help, he plotted the twin suicide truck-bomb attacks in Beirut that took the lives of 242 U.S. Marines and 58 French troops.

For many years Mugniyeh's personal involvement in those early bombings remained obscure. It wasn't until he kidnapped the new CIA station chief to Beirut, William Buckley, in April 1984 that the U.S. intelligence community began to get a fix on him.

David Jacobsen was one of a dozen Americans and Frenchmen kidnapped in Beirut in the 1980s by Mugniyeh and his pro-Iranian militiamen. At one point he shared a cell with Buckley at an undisclosed location and remembers his ordeal well. "I was chained to the floor; I was blindfolded. The person at my feet, I later learned, was Terry Anderson, and the person at the head was Bill Buckley."

Mugniyeh's guards tried to keep them from speaking to one another. "One of the chilling moments for me and for Terry Anderson was to hear Bill Buckley cough," says Jacobsen. "He was very, very sick. He was delirious. I heard him say, 'I don't know what happened to my body; it was so strong 30 days ago.'"

The CIA now believes that Buckley was tortured to death by Mugniyeh personally, who extracted whatever secrets he could and then murdered him. Buckley was honored by CIA director William H. Webster at a posthumous ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery on May 13, 1988, and a star in his honor was carved into the wall of CIA headquarters — the 51st.

Mugniyeh burst onto the international scene with the brash June 1985 hijacking of TWA Flight 847 from Greece to Beirut, where he held 39 Americans hostage for 17 days. Wearing a ski mask, Mugniyeh prowled the aisles of the aircraft looking for U.S. military personnel and discovered U.S. Navy diver Robert Stethem. He tortured and shot Stethem, then dumped his body out on the runway in full view of international TV cameras. Later, the FBI was able to identify Mugniyeh's fingerprints in the rear lavatory of the aircraft and indicted him for Stethem's murder.

Mugniyeh also murdered for personal reasons, including the release of a family member. The man who initiated him in the art of bomb-making was his brother-in-law, Mustapha Badr-el-Din, whose crippled legs prevented him from joining a Beirut militia. Badr-el-Din plied his trade by designing the bombs used in a series of devastating attacks against Kuwait. He was arrested and sentenced to death for his crimes by the Kuwaiti government.

In April 1988, Mugniyeh orchestrated the hijacking of a Kuwait Airlines flight to Bangkok. On board were three members of the Kuwaiti royal family. In exchange for their freedom, Mugniyeh demanded the release of his brother-in-law and 16 other Shiite prisoners in Kuwait, known collectively as the "Ad-Dawaa 17."

The plane made a three-day stopover in the eastern Iranian city of Mashad, where some sources believe Mugniyeh personally boarded the aircraft and brought on additional hijackers and weapons. Next, they flew to Cyprus, where two Kuwaiti passengers were murdered and dumped onto the runway in a stunning replay of the TWA hijacking three years earlier. They ended up in Algiers, where negotiators from the Iranian and Algerian governments, as well as Yasser Arafat's Palestine Liberation Organization, arranged safe passage for all the hijackers.

Intelligence officials believe Mugniyeh is seeking personal vengeance on the United States and Israel for the deaths of his brothers, which explains in part his willingness to lend his expertise to operations organized by other groups. Mugniyeh's brothers were killed in retaliatory attacks in Lebanon believed to have been carried out by Israeli and U.S. operatives.

"Bin Laden is a schoolboy in comparison with Mugniyeh," an Israeli-intelligence officer told Jane's Foreign Report recently. "The guy is a genius, someone who refined the art of terrorism to its utmost level. We studied him and reached the conclusion that he is a clinical psychopath motivated by uncontrollable psychological reasons, which we have given up trying to understand. The killing of his two brothers by the Americans only inflamed his strong motivation."

His brother, Jihad Mugniyeh, died in 1985 when a car bomb intended for Hezbollah leader Sheik Muhammad Hussein Fadlallah killed 75 people outside Fadlallah's home in Beirut. Hezbollah blamed the CIA for the attack. His other brother, Fuad Mugniyeh, died in December 1994 when another car bomb exploded near the mosque where Fadlallah preached his weekly sermon, directly outside of a shop owned by Fuad. The car-bomb attack reportedly was ordered by Israel in reprisal for the bombing of the Jewish Community Center in Buenos Aires earlier that year which killed 86.

In the 1990s Mugniyeh shifted focus from Lebanon and the Persian Gulf to launch a series of dramatic international operations. On March 17, 1992, a Hezbollah strike team leveled the Israeli Embassy in Buenos Aires, killing 29 persons and wounding 242. Hezbollah said the attack was intended to avenge the killing of Lebanese Hezbollah leader Sheik Abbas Musawi, whose convoy was obliterated by Israeli helicopter gunships in South Lebanon one month earlier.

Next was the Argentine Israeli Mutual Association (AMIA) community-center bombing in July 1994. Investigating Judge Juan Jose Galeano told Insight recently, "There was lots of Iranian diplomatic activity just before the attack which remains unexplained. They all got out before the bomb went off."

U.S. and Israeli intelligence sources believe Mugniyeh was involved in the planning of the AMIA attack and may have parachuted into Argentina on an Iranian service passport at the last minute to activate sleeper networks and handle logistics for the bomb. "Hezbollah claimed responsibility for that attack," a State Department counterterrorism analyst tells Insight, "and Mugniyeh heads the terror wing of that organization."

Media Credit: Charles Hazard/Insight

Mugniyeh has pledged to drive the United States out of the Arab world using terror as his tool.

Army reserve Brig. Gen. Shimon Shapira, previously a senior military-intelligence officer who tracked Mugniyeh's career, told Israeli journalist Ronen Bergman: "This man isn't working alone. All his power comes from his reliance on the Iranian intelligence service. None of his operations could have been executed without their infrastructure. This infrastructure is very wide, ranging from embassies [and] commerce delegations to all other Iranian state activities. No one is overstating Mugniyeh's work because it represents the whole of Hezbollah."

In 1996, Mugniyeh wanted to hit another commercial airliner, this time from El Al. The name on the expertly forged British passport used by Mugniyeh's operative was Andrew Jonathan Neumann. El Al's much-vaunted security failed to notice anything suspicious about him or to detect the kilogram of military-grade RDX explosive he was carrying when he entered Israel in April 1996 on a Swissair flight from Zurich.

Neumann wasn't British. He was a Lebanese Shiite named Hussein Mohammad Mikdad. Luckily for his intended victims, he failed Bomb-making 101. While mixing his deadly brew in an East Jerusalem hotel room, Mikdad blew off his lower body. From his hospital bed he said he had been trained in Iran to become "a heroic human flying bomb," detonating the explosive while traveling on an El Al flight departing from Tel Aviv. "The operation was a special gift" to Israel from Imad Mugniyeh, he said.

Before Sept. 11, the Israelis were picking up numerous signs that Mugniyeh was planning new operations aimed at Israel and the United States. A top Israeli military-intelligence official, Maj. Gen. Amos Malka, went on Israeli television in June to warn that "bin Laden has tried, will try to reach us and may even reach us here in Israel." He described recent attempts by bin Laden to establish terrorist cells in Gaza and the West Bank and said bin Laden's group was "planning an attack on U.S. and Israeli interests within the next few weeks." Mugniyeh was believed to be involved in several of these infiltration attempts.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has fingered bin Laden, Mugniyeh and Iran for helping to train Chechen rebels who fight against the Russian government. Speaking in Germany just 10 days after the Sept. 11 attacks, Putin said he had given specific information to the United States on Arab fighters in Chechnya whom Mugniyeh had trained. "As a rule, activities of terrorists are very coordinated," he said. "For example, on one Arab mercenary in Chechnya we found instructions for flying a Boeing."

Jane's reported in October that for the last two years Iraqi intelligence officers were shuttling between Baghdad and Afghanistan, meeting with bin Laden, Mugniyeh and bin Laden deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri. Top U.S. officials were briefed on these ties on Oct. 26, Insight reported ("Iran Cosponsors Al-Qaeda Terrorism," Dec. 3).

Bin Laden first met Mugniyeh in 1993, according to his former chief of security, Ali Mohammad. In a plea agreement entered on Oct. 20, 2000, in the Southern District of New York for his involvement in the U.S. Embassy bombings in Africa, Mohammad acknowledges that he "arranged security" for the meeting that took place while bin Laden was living in the Sudan. Mohammad said Mugniyeh's Hezbollah group "provided explosives training for al-Qaeda and al-Jihad," the two groups most closely tied to bin Laden. "Iran supplied Egyptian Jihad with weapons. Iran also used Hezbollah to supply explosives that were disguised to look like rocks."

An earlier affidavit by FBI Agent Daniel Coleman, based on information provided former members of al-Qaeda, reported that bin Laden personally exhorted his followers to "put aside [their] differences with Shiite Muslim terrorist organizations, including the government of Iran and its affiliated terrorist group Hezbollah, to cooperate against the perceived common enemy, the United States and its allies."

Mugniyeh and Iran go way back, and their close association disturbs some analysts at the U.S. State Department, which is trying to rehabilitate the regime of Iranian President Mohammad Khatami. "There is no evidence that Mugniyeh was one of the planners of the Sept. 11 attacks," a State Department official tells Insight. "In fact, there is evidence to the contrary."

Separating Mugniyeh from bin Laden, Iran and Saddam Hussein's Iraq — with whom bin Laden has formed increasingly close ties during the last six years — has become an important goal for the professional diplomats, who are seeking to limit the U.S. war on terrorism to a renegade Saudi and his band of merry men holed up in Afghanistan. But, for FBI investigators and U.S. intelligence analysts, the evidence is piling up of a consortium of groups and states that defy commonly accepted boundaries. "Call it a terrorism clearinghouse," one government analyst tells Insight.

Kenneth R. Timmerman is a senior writer for Insight magazine.

[Plummz]

But Jonah has made it a mantra and put it on the map.

Hmm. I don't read Goldberg's African invasion plans, and I doubt more people do than those who watch The Simpsons. but whatever.

[america76]

I can't quite remember, was William Buckley the American Colonel attached to the UN observer force who was kidnapped around this time or was that an altogether different kidnapping? I remember the pictures on TV of Buckley or this other man in his UN uniform. At the time no CIA connection was reported.

If Buckley is the same guy I'm thinking of I wonder how many other UN/CIA agents we have in the field? I also wonder how many other nations employ secret police personell in UN operations.

[Plummz]

You know, I believe you're correct. mea culpa.

[Skywalk]

Excellent! Of course, that Dell Computer pitchboy has stolen Burnsie's classic line. Now all the Simpsons-challenged people out there will be steepling their fingers and saying "egg-salent!" because they saw that Dell geek say it.

*shakes head in disgust*

[VaBthang4]

[CIApilot]

Yes, it was Buckley, another patriot who suffered in the same period of time as Stethem and Higgins.

May we never forget.

LT.Col. William F. Buckley served with the 320th Special Forces Detachment which became the 11th Special Forces Group. He was employed by the CIA from 1955 to 1957 and again from 1965 as Lebanon station chief until his untimely death.

Kidnapped in Beirut: March 16, 1984 by Islamic Jihad terrorists.

Held in Iran: November 25, 1986. Many CIA operatives worldwide died as Zawahiri extracted information from Buckley.

Body Recovered: December 27, 1991. The decomposed body of CIA officer William Buckley was dumped in southern Beirut early Friday, nearly eight years after being kidnapped and tortured by pro-Iranian extremists.

Remembered as Heroes: December 30, 1991. Two men (Buckley and Higgins) who met wretched deaths at the hands of Lebanese captors arrived home in flag-draped coffins and were honored as "American heroes" by leaders. ''Today the nation gathers into its arms two of its bravest sons . . . patriot-warriors who died trying to bring peace to a ravaged land."

[veryconernedamerican]

This is what we are starting right now. It is a bad time to be a terrorist, or country that harbors terrorists. Any government in the middle east including Iran, Iraq and Syria can be disposed within twelve months, take notice. After we clearly identified the problem, it now won't take much to solve, The CIA is back in business, and the gloves are off, with full military back-up if needed. They signed their own death warrant.

[america76]

Heck of a way to go. That's why I believe you shoot it out and take your chances. Especially when you are dealing with animals like this. He was probably under orders not to. Shame, the cost of such mistakes.

[Truth Speaker]

Bump... for an excellent article.

[justshutupandtakeit]

I have been loving the headlines lately.

AL QUERDA HEADING FOR CAVES then after a day or so of bombing ALL QUERDA FLEEING CAVES.

[justshutupandtakeit]

Sorry I am just a little quick on the trigger since I am tired of the constant nitpicking of the underminers- democrats/fellowtravelers/ideologues etc.

Carry on.

[Colt .45]

You misunderstand. I'm 1000% behind the Ashcanistan campaign. I simply think this piece is highly instructive as regards how difficult it is to nail these bastards and how good they are at what they do.

We need to become as efficient at assasination as the Mossad is. We can do it ... it has been done before. They will eventually set up the special squads that exist only on paper. But there will always be the plausible deniability factor involved.

These turds just need killing, and we have the technology to do it.

[d14truth]

bump and mark

[DeckTheHallsHolly]

BUMP

[mlocher]

the killing must be whole-sale nonstop and world wide

no mercy.

[Alamo-Girl]

Thanks for the heads up!

[DeckTheHallsHolly]

BUMP

[DeckTheHallsHolly]

bump

[Freebird Forever]

bttt