Wednesday, February 13, 2008

Another Killer Sent to Allah

It took twenty five years but another terrorist leader and vicious killer has been dispatched to Allah to receive whatever reward Allah dispenses to bloodthirsty thugs:

Imad Mughniyeh, a senior but shadowy Hezbollah commander accused by the United States and Israel of masterminding suicide bombings, hijackings and hostage-taking that spanned 25 years, was killed by a car bomb in the Syrian capital of Damascus, the Shiite Muslim group and other officials said Wednesday.

Hezbollah accused Israel of carrying out the attack on Mughniyeh. A spokesman for Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Mark Regev, said Olmert's office had no comment.

The elusiveness of Mughniyeh, the target of several assassination attempts and kidnappings by the United States and Israel, rivaled only that of Osama bin Laden and stretched over many more years. Until Sept. 11, 2001, the attacks for which the United States blamed him represented some of the deadliest strikes against Americans. Along with bin Laden, he was included on the list of 22 "most wanted terrorists" released by President Bush a month after the Sept. 11 attacks.

Although Hezbollah has always denied a role, the United States said he orchestrated two bombings of the U.S. embassy in Beirut -- in 1983 and 1984 -- killing 72 people, including the CIA's then top Middle East expert, Robert Ames. Even more devastating were the suicide truck bombings organized against U.S. Marines and French paratroopers in Beirut in October 1983. Together, those attacks killed 300 men.

Israel accused Mughniyeh, 45, of masterminding the 1994 bombing of a Jewish center in Buenos Aires that killed 87 people and of a role in a 1992 bombing of the Israeli Embassy in the Argentine capital that killed 28. He was wanted by the authorities there.

See Hot Air for more on Mughniyeh. Some think his killing was an inside job.

RLC