Sources at the Lebanon-based Hezbollah party stated on Wednesday that Imad Mughaniya, deputy leader of the party was killed on Tuesday night in a car bomb blast that took place in a residential neighborhood in the Syrian capital. The party accused Israel of the attack, Israel denied any involvement.A statement broadcasted at the Al Manar TV, the official TV of Hezbollah, said that “Mughaniya was killed by Zionist Israelis”.
Syrian security forces closed the area of the blast and removed the destroyed car from the scene. Doors and windows of some nearby houses shattered by the blast and some door were blown out.
Syria also said that Israel is behind the assassination. Eyewitnesses reported that the blast was caused by a car bomb.
Meanwhile in Jerusalem, the office of Israel’s Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert, refused to comment on the attack, but later on issued a statement denying any Israeli involvement.
Mughaniya is considered the head of Hezbollah’s operations and was on the “Wanted list” of Israel and the United States.
Israeli online daily, Haaretz, reported that Al Mughaniya was accused of hijacking, bombings and abductions in which hundreds of people were killed.
Haaretz added that Mughaniya was wanted for “his involvement in the bombings of the Israeli embassy and the Jewish community center in Buenos Aires in 1992 and 1994, in addition to his involvement in abductions of internationals n Lebanon in the 1980’s”.
He was wanted for the bombings of the Israeli embassy and the Jewish community center in Buenos Aires in 1992 and 1994, as well as a wave of abductions of Westerns in Lebanon in the 1980s.
Syrian officials said that they are investigating the blast, and added that Syria condemns this “coward terrorist attack”.
The Israeli Intelligence Agency (Mossad) attempted to assassinate Mughaniya in southern Beirut in the 1990’s. The brother of Al Mughaniya, who was a shop owner, was killed in the attack.
It is worth mentioning that in June 1984, Fayiz, the brother of Imad and a member of the Islamic Resistance, was killed in an Israeli shelling in Lebanon. He was attempting to evacuate members of a wounded family after the Israeli army bombed his house and when the air force fired another missile at the area, he was killed in the second blast.
In December 21, 1994, Fuad Mughaniya, the other brother of Imad was killed in a car blast in Beirut.
