Imad Mughniyeh, the militant accused of attacks that left hundreds of Americans and Israelis dead, including a U.S. Navy diver during the infamous 1985 hijacking of a TWA jetliner, has been killed, Hezbollah said Wednesday.
The militant group blamed Israel for the assassination - a charge the Jewish state denied - but it did not say how he died. However, Middle East media reported he was killed in a recent car bomb in Syria.
His killing is a major blow to Hezbollah, which fought Israel in the summer 2006 war in Lebanon, and its Iranian and Syrian backers.
More from the Jerusalem Post: Israel held Mughniyeh responsible for numerous terror attacks, including the 1994 bombing of a Buenos Aires Jewish community center, which killed 85, and the bombing of the Israeli Embassy in the city two years earlier. He is also believed to have been behind the 2006 abduction of IDF reservists Eldad Regev and Ehud Goldwasser that sparked the Second Lebanon War. Over the years, Mughniyeh targeted US citizens as well, and he has been implicated in the attack on the US Embassy in Beirut and another on a US Marine barracks there that left more than 200 soldiers dead in 1983. Wanted in at least 40 countries, he has been on the FBI's top-20 terrorist list for years and a $5 million prize was offered to anyone who provided information leading to his capture. The NY Times opines he was perhaps most feared before bin Laden. Celebrity is so fleeting. And terror sponsor Syria, which has routinely assassinated democratically elected leaders in neighboring Lebanon, calls his death a "terrorist act". UPDATE: Michelle:
You’ve read by now that Hezbo killer Imad Mughniyeh is reportedly dead. May he rot, rot, rot in hell. If you look at which blogs are buzzing about this very significant event, you won’t find many liberal blogs rejoicing.
Of course not.
A fine young Marine from Wilmette was among the dead in Lebanon. I remember.
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