The death of Imad Mughniyya naturally inspires some reflections among those of us who followed closely the violent era that characterized Beirut in the 1980s. Many had friends among the victims of the Marine barracks attack, the US Embassy attack, the plethora of hostage-takings, and so on. The reflections here are not neutral: at least one friend, the British hostage Lee Douglas, was killed in 1986, possibly by Mughniyya’s hand. Other American and Lebanese friends suffered. This is not a eulogy.
Arguably, Mughniyya was most influential in introducing the suicide car bomb as the assassination weapon of choice in the Middle East, so there is obvious irony in the fact that he himself died in a car bombing. It is still not clear whether it is another irony or a question of deliberate timing that he died two days before the anniversary of Rafiq Hariri’s assassination by car bomb. In fact, Mughniyya’s two brothers, Jihad and Fuad, both predeceased him — through car bombings in 1986 and 1994.
Mughniyya, like others who have lived similar lives in the murky world of international terror, made no shortage of enemies through the years. As a result, any discussion of who finally ended his career takes on a sort of Murder on the Orient Express flavor: just about everybody had a motive. Hezbollah and its allies are blaming Israel, and certainly, it had plenty of reason to want Mughniyya dead. The assassination had a certain Mossad flavor to it, and Israel has few qualms about “targeted killings”. The US considered him a prime target in the Global War on Terror and reportedly had twice failed to capture him, but car bombings are not a method known to be employed by the US. The timing so close to the Hariri anniversary could suggest some connection to Hezbollah’s Lebanese opponents, though the fact he was killed in Damascus may make this less likely.
Of course, he may well have had enemies among his so-called friends. With Hezbollah trying to position itself as an electoral force in Lebanese politics, is it possible that an old-guard plotter like Mughniyya might be more valuable – and less an embarrassment – as a martyr? Hezbollah’s website and TV have been full of praise for Mughniyya and he was given a hero’s funeral, yet he was rarely mentioned while still alive.
That brings us to another characteristic of Mughniyya. He was not a modern, public relations terror chief who gave interviews or sent videotapes to television networks. He was, like “Carlos” (Ilich Ramirez Sanchez) or Abu Nidal (Sabri Khalil al-Banna), a shadowy figure. There were only a few photographs, and one usually did not look much like the next. He moved in the shadows and remained there. He was well known to the world’s security services and to students of Lebanon in the 1980s, but his name never had the kind of public resonance in the West that Bin Laden’s does.
A Shi‘ite from a village near Tyre, he became a liaison among the radical Shi‘ite groups that eventually became Hezbollah, the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, and reportedly in more recent years, the Mahdi Army in Iraq. But he was not merely part of a radical Shi‘ite International; he is said to have begun his career in the PLO’s Force 17 in Lebanon and later spent time in Khartoum, where he may have had links to Bin Laden.
His presumed victims – presumed because he did not usually claim public credit – included not only Lebanese, Israelis, Americans and French, but also Argentines and Russians. He was certainly on the most-wanted list of quite a few security services. Yet, compared to Bin Laden, he was able to more or less hide in plain sight. It is said he had plastic surgery so he was not recognizable and that he had spent most of his time in recent years in Tehran, Damascus, and even Beirut. He has been reported in Khartoum and even in Iraq since the US occupation. It has been claimed that he accompanied Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad in a meeting with Syrian President Bashar al-Asad, among other high-profile travels.
Until February 12, he had somehow avoided those who sought him even during such open travels. But no more.
Michael Dunn is Editor of the Middle East Journal. He has taught at various US universities, including Georgetown University and Utah State University.
Disclaimer: Assertions and opinions in this Commentary are solely those of the above-mentioned author(s) and do not reflect necessarily the views of the Middle East Institute, which expressly does not take positions on Middle East policy.
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The death of Imad Mughniyya naturally inspires some reflections among those of us who followed closely the violent era that characterized Beirut in the 1980s. Many had friends among the victims of the Marine barracks attack, the US Embassy attack, the plethora of hostage-takings, and so on. The reflections here are not neutral: at least one friend, the British hostage Lee Douglas, was killed in 1986, possibly by Mughniyya’s hand. Other American and Lebanese friends suffered. This is not a eulogy.
Arguably, Mughniyya was most influential in introducing the suicide car bomb as the assassination weapon of choice in the Middle East, so there is obvious irony in the fact that he himself died in a car bombing. It is still not clear whether it is another irony or a question of deliberate timing that he died two days before the anniversary of Rafiq Hariri’s assassination by car bomb. In fact, Mughniyya’s two brothers, Jihad and Fuad, both predeceased him — through car bombings in 1986 and 1994.
Mughniyya, like others who have lived similar lives in the murky world of international terror, made no shortage of enemies through the years. As a result, any discussion of who finally ended his career takes on a sort of Murder on the Orient Express flavor: just about everybody had a motive. Hezbollah and its allies are blaming Israel, and certainly, it had plenty of reason to want Mughniyya dead. The assassination had a certain Mossad flavor to it, and Israel has few qualms about “targeted killings”. The US considered him a prime target in the Global War on Terror and reportedly had twice failed to capture him, but car bombings are not a method known to be employed by the US. The timing so close to the Hariri anniversary could suggest some connection to Hezbollah’s Lebanese opponents, though the fact he was killed in Damascus may make this less likely.
Of course, he may well have had enemies among his so-called friends. With Hezbollah trying to position itself as an electoral force in Lebanese politics, is it possible that an old-guard plotter like Mughniyya might be more valuable – and less an embarrassment – as a martyr? Hezbollah’s website and TV have been full of praise for Mughniyya and he was given a hero’s funeral, yet he was rarely mentioned while still alive.
That brings us to another characteristic of Mughniyya. He was not a modern, public relations terror chief who gave interviews or sent videotapes to television networks. He was, like “Carlos” (Ilich Ramirez Sanchez) or Abu Nidal (Sabri Khalil al-Banna), a shadowy figure. There were only a few photographs, and one usually did not look much like the next. He moved in the shadows and remained there. He was well known to the world’s security services and to students of Lebanon in the 1980s, but his name never had the kind of public resonance in the West that Bin Laden’s does.
A Shi‘ite from a village near Tyre, he became a liaison among the radical Shi‘ite groups that eventually became Hezbollah, the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, and reportedly in more recent years, the Mahdi Army in Iraq. But he was not merely part of a radical Shi‘ite International; he is said to have begun his career in the PLO’s Force 17 in Lebanon and later spent time in Khartoum, where he may have had links to Bin Laden.
His presumed victims – presumed because he did not usually claim public credit – included not only Lebanese, Israelis, Americans and French, but also Argentines and Russians. He was certainly on the most-wanted list of quite a few security services. Yet, compared to Bin Laden, he was able to more or less hide in plain sight. It is said he had plastic surgery so he was not recognizable and that he had spent most of his time in recent years in Tehran, Damascus, and even Beirut. He has been reported in Khartoum and even in Iraq since the US occupation. It has been claimed that he accompanied Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad in a meeting with Syrian President Bashar al-Asad, among other high-profile travels.
Until February 12, he had somehow avoided those who sought him even during such open travels. But no more.
Michael Dunn is Editor of the Middle East Journal. He has taught at various US universities, including Georgetown University and Utah State University.