Imad Mughniyah...Dead

[WRESTLINGFAN]

I know hes not a household name like Bin Laden or Zawihiri but before Al Qaeda took up arms agains the United States, he was a prominent member of the Shi'Ite terrorist group Hezbollah. During the 80's they were involved in the killing of 242 Marines in Beirut and other acts of terrorism. Sheik Nasrallah, head of Hezbollah is already threatening Israel


http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/20080214/wl_time/hizballahmournsitsshadowyhero

[Tallman388]

A lot of people are saying that Mughniyeh was more effective than Bin Laden, not a household name and carried out far more destruction; Basically turning Hezbollah into an international terror group from a regional one. This article (http://www.janes.com/security/international_security/news/fr/fr010919_1_n.shtml)(fairly old if you see the date)from Jane's has a good description of him, scroll down past the Iraq-9/11 stuff.

[WRESTLINGFAN]

Heres some of the attacks he was involved in.

* Bombing of Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia killing 19 U.S. servicemen (1996)
* Abduction, torture and death of CIA Station Chief William Francis Buckley in Lebanon (1985)
* Hijacking of TWA Flight 847 killing U.S. Navy diver Robert Dean Stethem (1985)
* Bombing outside U.S. Embassy annex in Beirut killing 24 (1984)
* Car bombing of U.S. Marine Barracks in Beirut killing 241 U.S. servicemen (1983)
*Car bombing of U.S. Embassy in Beirut killing 63 people, including 17 Americans (1983)

[ralphbxny]

Ronnie Guys got one!

[TheMojoPin]

Heres some of the attacks he was involved in.

* Bombing of Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia killing 19 U.S. servicemen (1996)
* Abduction, torture and death of CIA Station Chief William Francis Buckley in Lebanon (1985)
* Hijacking of TWA Flight 847 killing U.S. Navy diver Robert Dean Stethem (1985)
* Bombing outside U.S. Embassy annex in Beirut killing 24 (1984)
* Car bombing of U.S. Marine Barracks in Beirut killing 241 U.S. servicemen (1983)
*Car bombing of U.S. Embassy in Beirut killing 63 people, including 17 Americans (1983)

So, all in all, clearly a real class act.

[keithy_19]

So, all in all, clearly a real class act.

If I were a girl I'd be proud to bring him home to meet my parents, that's for sure.

[SatCam]

RIP


nah just kiddin

[earthbrown]

I wish they would bury him in a pig carcass and then his back towards mecca.


K

[scottinnj]

He's dead. :clap:

[WRESTLINGFAN]

He aint Shi'ite any more

BTW does he get 72 virgins or is that only reserved for Sunnis?

[A.J.]

I wish we could have dropped a daisy cutter on his funeral.

[King Hippos Bandaid]

Inotmad that Imad is dead

[Dirtybird12]

yayyy now we're winning! Im voting republican. :sad:

[EliSnow]

yayyy now we're winning! Im voting Israeli.. :sad:

Fixed it.

[high fly]

Here is the Washington Post article, which I think is more informative than the yahoo article or that one from Janes that is riddled with errors.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/13/AR2008021300494.html?sub=AR

Terrorism has been something I have researched extensively for many years and this guy was indeed every bit as notorious as described.
He has been far more successful than better known terrorists such as Ilich Ramirez Sanchez, aka "Carlos" and Sabri Banna, aka "Abu Nidal."

Left out of all these articles is the fact that Mughniyah was introduced to bin Laden by the naturalized American, Ali Mohamed, another fascinating guy in his own right.
This meeting took place in the early 90s in Sudan. Afterwards, Mughniyah took on al Qaeda operatives and trained them in demolition of large buildings, a skill al Qaeda lacked then.
This was a huge step forward in transforming al Qaeda into the dangerous outfit it became.

[A.J.]

Left out of all these articles is the fact that Mughniyah was introduced to bin Laden by the naturalized American, Ali Mohamed, another fascinating guy in his own right.

I saw a special on Ali Mohamed when I was in Qatar called "Bin Laden's Spy in America" (http://natgeochannel.co.uk/explore/911spy).

It will depress the shit out of you to see how this guy played the U.S. government and helped pave the way for 9/11.

Ali Mohamed, a 48 year old Egyptian native and former US Army sergeant, was the first person to plead guilty or be convicted of murder charges resulting from the embassy bombings. On Friday, October 20, 2000, Mohamed told Judge Leonard Sand of the U.S. District Court in Manhattan that at the request of bin Laden, he had conducted surveillance of US, British, and French targets in Nairobi, including the US embassy. He then delivered pictures, diagrams, and a report to bin Laden in Khartoum, Sudan. He said that bin Laden looked at a photograph of the US embassy and pointed to the place where a bomb truck could be driven through. The targets were chosen, Mohamed said, to retaliate against the US intervention in the civil war in Somalia.

Mohamed confirmed that the larger objective of bin Laden and his association is to attack Western targets in the Middle East, in order to force Western governments to pull out of the region. He also detailed the relationships between bin Laden's organization, al Qaeda, and other terrorist groups such as the Egyptian Islamic Jihad and the Iranian-backed Hezbollah. He is the first suspect to speak publicly about bin Laden's involvement in terrorist activities.

Mohamed pleaded guilty to five federal counts of conspiracy, which included plotting to kill US citizens, destroy US facilities, and murder US soldiers in Somalia and Saudi Arabia. His plea was a major victory for US prosecutors. Mohamed is a naturalized US citizen, who worked as a supply sergeant in a Special Forces unit in Fort Bragg, North Carolina from 1986 to 1989, before going to work for bin Laden. (http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/binladen/bombings/charges.html)

[Sarge]

I saw a report that a high level member Islamic Jihad and 5 others were killed in a car bombing after Imad was killed. A.J., or high fly, what is your opinion on what happened in that incident. Do you think it is the Israeli's taking these guys out, or could it be someone else trying to get Hezbolah, and Islamic Jihad to unify and declare a "war" on Israel? It seems odd that if the Israeli's killed Imad that they would take out the other guy right after Hezbolah declared "war" on Israel.

[high fly]

Good questions, Sarge.
I'll have to give it some thought.
Earlier today I was thinking how remarkable is not just Mughniyah's survival all this time, but maintained his relevance as well.
Those Arab terrorist groups have been famously factional and for Hezbollah to resist the splitting seen elsewhere is remarkable.
Somewhere I have a chart where I tried to show the splitting of Fatah and how the various other factions split.
You had your Black September, your PFLP, your PFLP-GC, your Abu Nidal Organization as well as outfits formed by Ilich Ramirez Sanchez, aka "Carlos" that formed and dissolved.

Nice pulls on Ali Mohamed, A.J.
Here was a guy who was in the unit that assassinated Anwar sadat and was openly a member of Egyptian Islamic Jihad.
He worked our intelligence system incredibly well, giving chickenfeed to the CIA to get informer status, which he parlayed with the FBI.
He met an American chick on the plane ride over here and married her to get citizenship.
He joined the Army and was soon not only in Special Forces, but was instructing them at Fort Bragg.
On the weekends, he was travelling to New York to give small arms training at a range on Long Island to the Islamic extremists who killed Meir Kahane, attacked the World Trade Center and planned to carry out the Landmarks plot.

The FBI and CIA thought they had a double agent when in fact Mohamed was that rare bird, a triple agent!

Mohamed also went on to train Osama bin Laden's personal security detail and provided other training to al Qaeda when they moved to Afghanistan...

[A.J.]

He joined the Army and was soon not only in Special Forces, but was instructing them at Fort Bragg.

Mohamed also went on to train Osama bin Laden's personal security detail and provided other training to al Qaeda when they moved to Afghanistan...

He swiped a Special Forces manual from Bragg and used that as the basis for training Al-Qa'ida.

Like I said...depressing.