By Robert Windrem, NBC News Producer
U.S. counter-terrorism officials tell NBC News that Hezbollah commander
Imad Mugniyeh, killed in a car-bomb attack in Syria, was the most highly sought terrorist after al-Qaida leaders
Osama Bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri. The reason, they say, is simple: Mugniyeh was responsible for more American deaths than anyone other than the al-Qaida terrorists.
“Other than a Bin Laden, no one is more dangerous than this guy,” a senior western counterterrorism official told NBC News. “He has a huge rap sheet, and don’t believe this canard that he had ‘retired.’ He was very active and still dangerous. He was the architect of every Hezbollah attack the last quarter century.”
Without confirming Israeli complicity in the attack, a senior Israeli Intelligence official tells NBC News: "All of us have been waiting for this day for a long, long time. It's a happy day for us. There is more than one country that's interested in seeing him go."
A Lebanese Shiite who lived in Beirut but moved easily between Lebanon, Syria and Iran, Mugniyeh was the military commander of Hezbollah. It was Mugniyeh who was responsible for most of the high-profile terrorist attacks in the Middle East - and several outside the Middle East-during the 1980s and 1990s. The U.S. had offered a reward of up to $5 million for his capture.
Among the Hezbollah operations the U.S. believes Mugniyeh planned or directed: The two bombings of the U.S. embassy in Beirut; the Marine Barracks bombing; the kidnappings of U.S. and British journalists, educators and human rights activists; the torture and murder of CIA station chief William Buckley and U.S. military intelligence officer Lt. Col. William Richard Higgins; the bombing of both the Israeli embassy and Jewish center in Buenos Aires, and the deadly hijacking of TWA 847.
More recently, said the western counter-terrorism official, Israel believed Mugniyeh was responsible for the August 2006 kidnapping of two Israeli soldiers, an action that led to the Israeli military invasion of Beirut. He adds that Mugniyeh's latest assignment was training elements of Moqtada al Sadr's Maahdi Army in Iran.
Western intelligence describes Mugniyeh’s relationship with Iran as “very close” with his main support coming from the al-Qods Force, the overseas arm of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards. Iran supplies Hezbollah with about $75 million in aid, including military hardware.
So close was Mugniyeh to the Iranian government that he accompanied Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on a state visit to Damascus in January 2006, the western counter-terrorism official says.
His relationship extends beyond Iran, according to Laden’s former security chief. In sworn testimony at his court hearing in 2000, Ali Mohammed said Mugniyeh met with Bin Laden in Khartoum, Sudan, during 1994 to discuss a liaison between al-Qaida and Hezbollah. Mohammed told a federal court judge that “I arranged security for a meeting in the Sudan between Mugniyeh, Hezbollah’s chief, and Bin Laden. Hezbollah provided explosives training for al-Qaida.”
U.S. counter-terrorism agencies - including the CIA, FBI and Pentagon units - had constantly tracked Mugniyeh. He was described as the head of the Hezbollah's "action group" and, according to U.S. intelligence, was Hezbollah's point man with Iran.
During the 1980s and 90s, Mugniyeh would be driven in a convoy from Beirut to Damascus where he would meet with Iranian intelligence officials at the Iranian embassy. Rick Francona, a retired Defense Attache at the U.S. Embassy in Damascus and an NBC News military analyst, says the U.S. would know Mugniyeh was in the Syrian capital when a line of Mercedes with Lebanese plates showed up at the Iranian embassy. The Iranian school where Mugniyeh was killed Tuesday night is near the embassy. He often traveled to Tehran as well to discuss terrorist targets, the officials say.
Israel wanted him badly and was helping the U.S. track him/ However, U.S. officials categorically deny any involvement or even foreknowledge of the Tuesday attack.
"Hezbollah is really in shock,” said the Israeli intelligence official. “The question now is retaliation. Everyone is vulnerable because they [Hezbollah] have such an incredible infrastructure worldwide," he added.
On at least three occasions - and possibly more - the U.S. has thought it was close to grabbing Mugniyeh in a third country. In November 1985, the U.S. informed French authorities that he was on his way to Paris, but the French did nothing because they were negotiating with him for the release of their own hostages. The French did provide a photo of him exiting the airport. Four months later, the U.S. leaked the French refusal of help to two Paris newspapers, causing a scandal in the French government.
Then, twice in the 1990s, Mugniyeh came close to being captured by U.S. authorities. In April 1995, he was on a commercial airliner due to stop at a Saudi airport. The U.S. knew before the plane left Beirut that Mugniyeh was on board, and asked the Saudi government to permit the FBI to arrest him during the stopover and fly him back to the U.S. in a military aircraft. After much hand wringing, the Saudis decided to refuse landing rights to the plane and it flew on. The U.S. sent a stiff note of protest to the Saudis. Secretary of State Warren Christopher later publicly criticized the Saudis, saying, "We expressed our concern that we had not had the cooperation we hoped to have."
Then, in the summer of 1996, U.S. intelligence had a lead that Mugniyeh was about to travel to Qatar in the Persian Gulf. There was frantic activity at the Pentagon to ensure a U.S. transport plane -"any plane," as one official put it - was in Qatar so the U.S. could extradite him. The lead was either false or Mugniyeh changed his travel plans. He never showed up.
For years, the U.S. has only made available one photograph of Mugniyeh, a 15-year-old photo that the French provided the U.S, and that appears today on the Wanted Terrorists website run by the State Department’s Rewards for Justice program. Senior counter-terrorism officials admit that the photograph is not the best quality.
But just today, upon the announcement of Mugniyeh’s death, the Al Manar television station released an updated photo.
The Hezbollah-run television station also ran a celebratory obituary for the so-called martyr:
“With pride and honor, we announce the martyrdom of a great resistance leader who joined the procession of Islamic Resistance martyrs,” it reads. “After a life full of Jihad, sacrifices and accomplishments lived with a longing to martyrdom, Islamic Resistance leader Hajj Imad Moghniyeh (Hajj Radwan) was assassinated by Israeli criminal hands. The martyr, may his soul rest in peace, had been a target for the Zionists for more than 20 years.”
