Slain Militant Was Organizer in 2006 War

 

The last time the world heard from Imad Mughniyeh, he was masterminding terror spectaculars in the 1980s and 1990s — bomb attacks on U.S. and Israeli targets, kidnappings and hijackings.

 

But for nearly 15 years, no one has known exactly what the Hezbollah commander was doing. The only confirmation of his whereabouts came when he was killed Feb. 12 in a car bombing in Syria.

 

Now Hezbollah officials and associates are describing a previously unknown role for Mughniyeh: Far from being too busy fleeing enemies, he was a key commander for Hezbollah in its 2006 war with Israel.

 

He was among the leading military and security strategists — if not the very top himself — of the group and a member of its decision-making committee, according to those who had knowledge of Mughniyeh before he was killed Feb. 12 in Damascus.

 

“Hezbollah”s top architect of that war was Imad Mughniyeh,” Anis Naccache, a 57-year-old longtime associate, told The Associated Press. “You can say he was like a staff general (chief of staff).”

 

In a speech Friday, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah credited Mughniyeh with leading the group to two victories — the 2006 war and a Hezbollah guerrilla war in 2000 that led to the withdrawal of Israeli troops from its last positions in southern Lebanon.

 

In the 1980s, Mughniyeh was notorious in the West. He was accused of plotting suicide bombings of the U.S. Embassy and bases of U.S. and French troops that killed hundreds, as well as the kidnappings of dozens of Westerners in Beirut.

 

The last attacks he is believed to have directed were suicide bombings in the 1990s against the Israeli Embassy and a Jewish center in Argentina that killed more than 100 people and a bombing in Khobar, Saudi Arabia, that killed 19 Americans.

 

For years, Hezbollah said almost nothing about him. But after his death, the group has embraced him as a hero — to a degree that surprised some Lebanese who believed Hezbollah would not want to revive memories of its past association with terrorism.

 

The 2006 war came after Hezbollah fighters captured two Israeli soldiers in a cross-border raid. Israel retaliated with a massive bombardment, then ground incursions, in a 34-day war that devastated south Lebanon.

 

More than 1,000 Lebanese were killed, along with 119 Israeli soldiers and 43 Israeli civilians who died from Hezbollah rocket attacks across the border.