Israeli Targeted Killing Assassinates Hezbollah Co-Founder
jijilli | 26.02.2008 14:39 | Terror War
With the steady elimination of Israel's enemies, the New Middle East evolves into an Israel-friendly zone.
Israeli Targeted Killing of Hezbollah's Imad Mughniyeh
By Trish Schuh Feb 21, 2008 Esquire Online
BEIRUT, Lebanon- It was clear something big was about to break in the war on terror. In the weeks before "the world's most wanted terrorist," Hezbollah's Imad Mughniyeh was assassinated, half a dozen internet/telecommunications cables had been cut to countries through out the middle east. Or "sabotaged" as the UN suggested.
Similar types of communications interception often precede the launch of surprise military operations as a way to stop information leaks.
Telecommunications to all countries in the region had been affected except America's main allies, Israel and Iraq. For a short period, Hezbollah's main sponsor, Iran, was completely blacked out. Then a few days before Mughniyeh's killing, America sent anti-missile warships to the Israeli port of Haifa. Soon Patriot missiles that could knock out Hezbollah's incoming Katushya rockets were being deployed across northern Galilee. If Hezbollah retaliated for Mughniyeh's death, the US and Israel were ready.
In Lebanon, America's primary spokesman, Walid Jumblatt, had escalated the war threats against Hezbollah: "If you think we are going to sit with our hands tied, then perhaps we have to burn everything. If you want chaos- then we welcome chaos. If you want war- then we welcome war. We have no problem with weapons or with rockets which we will launch on you!"
According to former Mossad officer Victor Ostrovsky, Jumblatt had been employed by the Mossad going back to the Lebanese civil war, and so his words held weight. In past months, Jumblatt had often condemned Mughniyeh, and had even gone so far as to call for car bombings in Damascus.
On the night Israel and America car bombed Imad Mughniyah in Damascus, the Hezbollah area of Mugniyeh's youth in south Lebanon was hit by an earthquake, and the shock waves shook deep into Israel. Rumors swirled that the demise of Mughniyeh, like Saddam Hussein's Iraq, commemorated Purim, the Jewish triumphal feast wherein Israel's enemies "meet justice."
The Jerusalem Post suggested something a bit more mundane: Mughniyeh's killing was to prevent planned Hezbollah retaliations after Israel's 2007 bombing of an alleged nuclear site in Deir Ez Zor, Syria by the IDF. This writer had been on assignment for Esquire, and was the only reporter to actually be in the oil hub of Deir Ez Zor at the time. I spoke to officials from Shell Oil who regularly monitor the area as part of ground operations. They stated that Shell's field instruments had detected no rise in radiation levels after the IDF hit. The charges of Syrian nuclear activity at the site? "Pure bullshit," one of them told me.
But Mughniyeh had been in the crosshairs long before the recent IDF strike on Syria. The Mossad said his death "took years of planning." America's CIA had also been pursuing him for decades as the mastermind of Hezbollah's military wing. In 2002 they put a $25 million dollar price tag on his life. America held Mughniyeh responsible for terrorist acts committed against France, Israel and the US, during the height of the Israeli occupation of Lebanon in the 1980's and early 90's.
Backed by Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps, Mughniyeh was accused of planning the bombings of the US and French Embassies in Beirut, and the Israeli Embassy in Buenos Aires. He was also blamed for the infamous 1983 US Marine Barracks bombing that killed 241 American servicemen. None of the cases have officially been solved.
Sheikh Khudr Nur Ad Dine of Hezbollah's Political Ruling Council denied to me any Hezbollah role in the crimes. "More than once Hezbollah leaders have denied this. Beirut was filled with many groups. Some with Islamic names were hostage takers... At the time, we didn't operate in Beirut. We weren't involved in the civil war, only the resistance in the south against Israel," he told me.
Working doubly for Hezbollah and Islamic Jihad, Mughniyeh was wanted for the kidnapping, torture and death of US government figures such as CIA station chief William Buckley, Lt. Col. William Richard Higgins, and the hijacking of a T.W.A. flight in which an American marine was shot. Mughniyeh was also blamed for rampant hostage-taking during the civil war, especially the kidnapping and 7 year confinement of AP reporter Terry Anderson.
Mughniyeh's invisibility and elusiveness were legendary. He never gave interviews or photo ops, and the one picture circulated of him was sometimes thought to have been of someone else altogether. Press reports claimed Mughniyeh had even had plastic surgery to disguise his facial features.
I spoke with one of the few journalists ever to see Mughniyeh, veteran middle east correspondent Robert Fisk, who had traveled to Tehran to appeal for the release of his colleague, Terry Anderson. "Mughniyeh's hand shake was like a vise grip and he wouldn't let go", he said. "His defining trait was that he was a very, very angry man. He also had this absolute confidence in his own view of the world. Almost like George Bush in his self-righteousness."
But Fisk thought that Mughniyeh could not have committed all the acts attributed to him. "Some of the operations, he was too young to have had the expertise to carry out. He was only 19 or 20 at the time. Others- like being two places at once- were a physical impossibility."
Ironically, Fisk's assessment would likely be an unwelcome downgrade of Mughniyeh's "accomplishments" to the Shias who turned out for his funeral in south Beirut this week. Despite sheets of rain, tens of thousands stood outdoors for hours to hear Hezbollah Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah eulogize "the life, work and sacrifice of Martyr Hajj Radwan."
Afterwards, they marched unbowed by rain or mud through an impoverished neighborhood still smashed by the Israeli war of 2006. Flashes of sporadic gunfire erupted in spontaneous tribute to Mughniyeh. Women threw rice on the passing casket from balconies high above the street for "Groom Mughniyeh" who died a martyr, and who was now being wedded in Paradise to 72 virgins.
One mourner proudly pointed out to me a wide, empty gash in the ground. "That used to be an apartment over there. When Hezbollah caught dozens of Arab spies marking buildings for the Israelis to bomb, they put them in the basement... and let the Israelis bomb them."
At one of the memorial services, I asked Muhgniyeh's oldest daughter Fatima about the ethics of killing 271 marines in their sleep. "America was invading our country, like Israel... my father's duty was to defend Lebanon" she said. "Now they've killed my dad. But I and my husband and my brothers and my father's students will carry on to victory."
The sign carried by the funerary color guard echoed her threat: "Don't worry. This account will not be closed until the killing of Hajj Imad is avenged."
By Trish Schuh Feb 21, 2008 Esquire Online
BEIRUT, Lebanon- It was clear something big was about to break in the war on terror. In the weeks before "the world's most wanted terrorist," Hezbollah's Imad Mughniyeh was assassinated, half a dozen internet/telecommunications cables had been cut to countries through out the middle east. Or "sabotaged" as the UN suggested.
Similar types of communications interception often precede the launch of surprise military operations as a way to stop information leaks.
Telecommunications to all countries in the region had been affected except America's main allies, Israel and Iraq. For a short period, Hezbollah's main sponsor, Iran, was completely blacked out. Then a few days before Mughniyeh's killing, America sent anti-missile warships to the Israeli port of Haifa. Soon Patriot missiles that could knock out Hezbollah's incoming Katushya rockets were being deployed across northern Galilee. If Hezbollah retaliated for Mughniyeh's death, the US and Israel were ready.
In Lebanon, America's primary spokesman, Walid Jumblatt, had escalated the war threats against Hezbollah: "If you think we are going to sit with our hands tied, then perhaps we have to burn everything. If you want chaos- then we welcome chaos. If you want war- then we welcome war. We have no problem with weapons or with rockets which we will launch on you!"
According to former Mossad officer Victor Ostrovsky, Jumblatt had been employed by the Mossad going back to the Lebanese civil war, and so his words held weight. In past months, Jumblatt had often condemned Mughniyeh, and had even gone so far as to call for car bombings in Damascus.
On the night Israel and America car bombed Imad Mughniyah in Damascus, the Hezbollah area of Mugniyeh's youth in south Lebanon was hit by an earthquake, and the shock waves shook deep into Israel. Rumors swirled that the demise of Mughniyeh, like Saddam Hussein's Iraq, commemorated Purim, the Jewish triumphal feast wherein Israel's enemies "meet justice."
The Jerusalem Post suggested something a bit more mundane: Mughniyeh's killing was to prevent planned Hezbollah retaliations after Israel's 2007 bombing of an alleged nuclear site in Deir Ez Zor, Syria by the IDF. This writer had been on assignment for Esquire, and was the only reporter to actually be in the oil hub of Deir Ez Zor at the time. I spoke to officials from Shell Oil who regularly monitor the area as part of ground operations. They stated that Shell's field instruments had detected no rise in radiation levels after the IDF hit. The charges of Syrian nuclear activity at the site? "Pure bullshit," one of them told me.
But Mughniyeh had been in the crosshairs long before the recent IDF strike on Syria. The Mossad said his death "took years of planning." America's CIA had also been pursuing him for decades as the mastermind of Hezbollah's military wing. In 2002 they put a $25 million dollar price tag on his life. America held Mughniyeh responsible for terrorist acts committed against France, Israel and the US, during the height of the Israeli occupation of Lebanon in the 1980's and early 90's.
Backed by Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps, Mughniyeh was accused of planning the bombings of the US and French Embassies in Beirut, and the Israeli Embassy in Buenos Aires. He was also blamed for the infamous 1983 US Marine Barracks bombing that killed 241 American servicemen. None of the cases have officially been solved.
Sheikh Khudr Nur Ad Dine of Hezbollah's Political Ruling Council denied to me any Hezbollah role in the crimes. "More than once Hezbollah leaders have denied this. Beirut was filled with many groups. Some with Islamic names were hostage takers... At the time, we didn't operate in Beirut. We weren't involved in the civil war, only the resistance in the south against Israel," he told me.
Working doubly for Hezbollah and Islamic Jihad, Mughniyeh was wanted for the kidnapping, torture and death of US government figures such as CIA station chief William Buckley, Lt. Col. William Richard Higgins, and the hijacking of a T.W.A. flight in which an American marine was shot. Mughniyeh was also blamed for rampant hostage-taking during the civil war, especially the kidnapping and 7 year confinement of AP reporter Terry Anderson.
Mughniyeh's invisibility and elusiveness were legendary. He never gave interviews or photo ops, and the one picture circulated of him was sometimes thought to have been of someone else altogether. Press reports claimed Mughniyeh had even had plastic surgery to disguise his facial features.
I spoke with one of the few journalists ever to see Mughniyeh, veteran middle east correspondent Robert Fisk, who had traveled to Tehran to appeal for the release of his colleague, Terry Anderson. "Mughniyeh's hand shake was like a vise grip and he wouldn't let go", he said. "His defining trait was that he was a very, very angry man. He also had this absolute confidence in his own view of the world. Almost like George Bush in his self-righteousness."
But Fisk thought that Mughniyeh could not have committed all the acts attributed to him. "Some of the operations, he was too young to have had the expertise to carry out. He was only 19 or 20 at the time. Others- like being two places at once- were a physical impossibility."
Ironically, Fisk's assessment would likely be an unwelcome downgrade of Mughniyeh's "accomplishments" to the Shias who turned out for his funeral in south Beirut this week. Despite sheets of rain, tens of thousands stood outdoors for hours to hear Hezbollah Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah eulogize "the life, work and sacrifice of Martyr Hajj Radwan."
Afterwards, they marched unbowed by rain or mud through an impoverished neighborhood still smashed by the Israeli war of 2006. Flashes of sporadic gunfire erupted in spontaneous tribute to Mughniyeh. Women threw rice on the passing casket from balconies high above the street for "Groom Mughniyeh" who died a martyr, and who was now being wedded in Paradise to 72 virgins.
One mourner proudly pointed out to me a wide, empty gash in the ground. "That used to be an apartment over there. When Hezbollah caught dozens of Arab spies marking buildings for the Israelis to bomb, they put them in the basement... and let the Israelis bomb them."
At one of the memorial services, I asked Muhgniyeh's oldest daughter Fatima about the ethics of killing 271 marines in their sleep. "America was invading our country, like Israel... my father's duty was to defend Lebanon" she said. "Now they've killed my dad. But I and my husband and my brothers and my father's students will carry on to victory."
The sign carried by the funerary color guard echoed her threat: "Don't worry. This account will not be closed until the killing of Hajj Imad is avenged."
jijilli
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Israel's New Plan to Attack Lebanon
26.02.2008 16:57
February 20, 2008
Dying for a Second Round
Israel's New Plan to Attack Lebanon
By ALLAN NAIRN
Last Friday I asked a top-level Israeli, a former IDF (Israel Defense Forces) elite unit man and prime-ministerial confidante, whether the assassination of Hezbollah's Imad Mughniyeh could have been done by a Lebanese group.
He snorted at the preposterous notion. This was "way too sophisticated," he said. "This [the car bombing] was a precisely orchestrated international operation," and this was the "third or fourth or fifth time in a year that Israel has carried out a military operation in Syria."
(Note that the attack was the same type used when the Mossad murdered Refiq Hariri.)
When I asked him to repeat that last part he added the word "allegedly."
But the message, or at least the boast, was clear. So why is Israel doing this?
The man said of his colleagues: "There are a lot of [Israeli] military and cabinet people just dying for a second round with Lebanon. If given the opportunity they'll take it," i.e. attack Lebanon again, not in spite of "but because of" the perception that their '06 attack failed.
Though the IDF leveled blocks and villages, dropped 4 million cluster bomblets (some of which are still exploding), and killed some 200 Hezbollah combatants and 1,000 Lebanese civilians (roughly 40 Israeli civilians were killed by Hezbollah), they apparently departed Lebanon feeling politically inadequate.
The official feeling was that they either did not destroy enough, or destroy enough of the right people and items, to avoid the embarrassing perception that they lost to Hezbollah.
So to have the option of solving this problem they've apparently staged a provocative assassination in hopes of goading Hezbollah into retaliating and providing a pretext for new -- better -- destruction that this time around will "succeed," i.e. soothe hurt Israeli feelings.
There've been attempts to put this in strategic terms, as educated killers (and those who study them) prefer. 'Israel must prove its strategic value to the United States' (What? Washington is going to dump Israel? Hezbollah's "victory" strengthened the Palestinians, or Lebanon, or put Israel's existence in danger?). Or, alternatively: 'Hezbollah must be eradicated' (which everyone knows is impossible).
In fact, the closer you look the more it looks like leaders' blood psychotherapy.
And the same thing goes for the publics that follow them. Olmert is in political trouble. If he doesn't kill some Arabs soon (who or where is secondary), his governing coalition may well dissolve. The public has to feel good, too.
The problem -- for the to-be-killed, and for the notion of murder law, not to mention (and few do) decency -- is that the Israeli body politic is now set this way: demanding -- with a few, brave, exceptions -- not just daily, routine, killings of Palestinians, but periodic dramatic strikes that thrill and let them strut like hero/ victims.
It's as if the inhabitants of a US Fox News studio had multiplied and become a nation.
It, of course, doesn't have to be that way, but it is obviously that way now. All you have to do to see it is pick up the papers or talk to a few Israelis. (For representative quotations see Gideon Levy, "Little Ahmadinejads, Haaretz," 10/06/2007).
Its one thing for a state to be murdering and/or oppressing others when their local public doesn't know about it (as was largely the case when Washington was decimating Central America in the 1980s), but it's another when the public knows about it and supports the injustices and crimes (as was the case with US whites and slavery, and in the first stages of US/Iraq, where public support seemed to turn -- as it may still -- on the question of whether the US was "winning").
In the first situation, the killing policy is vulnerable. If word gets out, the public might be angry. But in the second it is more stable, and deadly, since the public knows, and asks for more.
But people and states don't get to entirely write their own histories.
They usually interact with others.
In the case of Israel, the key interaction is with the US, their military guarantor/ mass subsidizer, and with American Jews, where, among the young, opinion appears to be slowly turning (see postings of December 7, 2007, "Imposed Hunger in Gaza. The Army in Indonesia. Questions of Logic and Activism," and February 13, 2008, "Big Killer Takes Out Smaller One. 'Wipe Out a Neighborhood.' Life by Mafia Rules in the Israeli - US Domain," particularly the plaint of Malcom Hoenlein.).
Alternatively, Palestinians and groups like Hezbollah and Hamas could join the US as important determinants, but only if they too reset their outlooks (and their willingness to kill or murder) -- as some Palestinians and other Arabs at the grassroots level are now urging, cautiously -- and switched to active, but non-violent, or minimally violent resistance (like the first intifada, or the Gaza wall-breaking) and stopped letting themselves be used as a "provocation-response" button that Israel can press when it wants a thrill.
Allan Nairn can be reached through his blog.
www.counterpunch.org/nairn02202008.html
Report: Barak warns Syria IDF planning Hezbollah op
By Haaretz Service
Tags: Syria, Hezbollah, Turkey, IDF
Defense Minister Ehud Barak has warned Syria through Turkish mediation that the Israel Defense Forces is planning to escalate its military operations against Hezbollah and Hamas, the London-based daily Al-Hayyat reported on Thursday.
On his visit to Turkey last week, Barak asked Turkish President Abdullah Ghoul to urge Syrian President Bashar Assad to adopt a different stance toward Hezbollah, according to Al-Hayyat.
The defense minister reportedly informed Turkey of Israel's intentions to widen its operation in Gaza and asked the Turkish leader to consider sending troops on an international mission to Gaza geared toward ending Qassam rocket fire and protecting the border.
(Note that Israel's own defence staff acknowledges that imposing illegal measures of Collective Punishment on Gaza, in order to "suffocate Hamas", provoked the rockets.)
This multi-national force will comprise representatives from Qatar, Malaysia and Jordan, according to the report.
The Defense Ministry has refused to respond to the report, which it said was the result of leaked information.
Barak said Tuesday that he anticipated Hezbollah would try to retaliate for last week's assassination of terrorist mastermind Imad Mughniyah, possibly with help from Syria and Iran.
Hezbollah blamed Israel for the attack and pledged to attack Jewish targets worldwide in revenge.
(That's not exactly what he said ...)
The U.S. intelligence chief has said, however, that internal Hezbollah factions or Syria may be to blame for Mughniyah's death.
(Although the Mossad is the most likely suspect.)
Israel to extend 800 Turkish work permits given in exchange for tank upgrades
The government will approve Defense Minister Ehud Barak's proposal to extend the working permits of 800 Turkish workers in Israel.
The workers in question were part of a deal that was signed between Israel and Turkey three years ago in which Israel upgraded Turkish tanks at the cost of 700 million dollars and in turn gave working permits to 800Turkish workers.
During Barak's visit to Ankara last week, Turkish officials asked that the work permits be extended and Barak agreed.
"Israel agreed to the request due to the strategic importance of our ties with Turkey," an official in the Defense Ministry said Wednesday.
Five months ago, the High Court dismissed a petition of the Turks-for-tanks deal. In the petition, the Hotline for Migrant Workers said that the deal is nothing more than state-sponsored Human trafficking.
While Justice Eliezer Rivlin agreed that the agreement was problematic he dismissed the petition since the deal was both unique and temporary.
www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/956723.html
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