14 February 2008

Israel officially denied on Wednesday any involvement in the assassination of a top Hizbullah commander in Damascus, but news of Imad Mughniyeh's death was widely hailed by Israeli and American officials. Meanwhile, Iran accused the Jewish state on Wednesday of carrying out the assassination, the state IRNA news agency said.

Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammad Ali Hosseini "strongly condemned the terrorist operation which led to the martyrdom of Imad Mughniyeh," describing it as "yet another clear example of the organized state terrorism of the Zionist regime."

"The record of Mughniyeh, who had spent a lifetime fighting against usurping occupiers, is a golden page in the history of popular resistance against Zionist aggressors," Hosseini said.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert denied that Israel had played a role in the killing.

"Israel rejects any attempt by terrorist organizations to attribute to it any implication in this affair," said a statement from Olmert's office.

"We have nothing else to add," the statement said, except that the government had learned of Mughniyeh's death from news reports.

The US State Department said Wednesday the "world is a better place without" the top Hizbullah commander.

"He was a cold-blooded killer, a mass murderer and terrorist responsible for countless innocent lives lost," State Department spokesman Sean McCormack told reporters.

"You can just go down the list of other nationalities that were affected by his acts of terror ... The list goes on and on and on," he added.

McCormack said he did not know who was responsible for the killing of Mughniyeh, who was on the US most-wanted list for attacks on Israeli and Western targets.

"One way or another he was brought to justice," McCormack added, when asked if Washington would have preferred to see him captured and put on trial.

White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe said he was not familiar with the circumstances of Mughniyeh's death but added: "This was an individual indicted in US courts. He was clearly a bad actor."

Senior Israeli figures welcomed word of Mughniyeh's death, while the news media in the Jewish state were quick to predict that Hizbullah would attempt to carry out revenge attacks against Israeli targets.

Israeli radio and television interrupted normal programming to announce the death of what one broadcaster called "the most dangerous of terrorists in the Middle East in the past 30 years." 

Privately run Channel Two television immediately called for security to be increased at Israeli diplomatic missions around the world.

Dany Yatom, a former head of Israel's Mossad spy agency, said he did not know who had "liquidated Imad Mughniyeh, but it was a success for the intelligence community. He was one of the biggest terrorists in the world, in the same league with Osama bin Laden."

"He was not only being targeted by Israel, but also by the Americans and many other parties," Yatom said on Israel Radio. "He was one of the terrorists with the most amount of intelligence agencies and states chasing him."

Mughniyeh had been a very tough target to track, he said, describing his death as a severe blow to Hizbullah.

"He behaved with extreme caution for many years. It was impossible even to obtain his picture. He never appeared or spoke before the media.

"His identity was hidden. His steps were hidden. He behaved with extreme caution, and that was the reason it was difficult to get to him for so many years."

Israeli Environment Minister Gideon Ezra, a former director of Israel's domestic security agency Shin Beth, also welcomed the news, calling Mughniyeh "Lebanon's Carlos." That was a reference to "Carlos the Jackal," a legendary Venezuelan terrorist responsible for many attacks in the 1980s, who is now serving a life sentence in a French prison.

"I hope that every terrorist knows that he will eventually be caught, and I am glad that this has happened to Mughniyeh. And I hope that whoever did this receives the congratulations he is due."

Silvan Shalom, a former foreign minister, said Mughniyeh "deserved this death because he was the killer of many innocent people."

Meanwhile, a Syrian human rights watchdog condemned the assassination, which it blamed on Israel.

"The assassination of Mughniyeh in Kafar Soussa neighborhood in Damascus came in the aftermath of Olmert's threats to assassinate Hizbullah and Hamas' leaders wherever they are," said the National Organization for Human Rights in Syria in a statement on Wednesday.

Meanwhile in Gaza, the Palestinian Hamas movement also condemned the assassination, which it called a "new example of Zionist gangsterism."

"We urge the Muslim and Arab nations to act decisively against the Zionist octopus that threatens the security of Arab and Muslim countries," the group's spokesman, Sami Abu Zuhri, said.

Abu Zuhri also warned Israel of "unprecedented responses" if it carried out any assassinations in Gaza. - Agencies

Copyright The Daily Star 2008.