A huge blow to Hizballah. “Hezbollah’s most wanted commander killed in Syria bomb,” by Laila Bassam and Nadim Ladki for Reuters:
BEIRUT (Reuters) – Hezbollah leader Imad Moughniyah, on the United States’ most wanted list for attacks on Israeli and Western targets, has been killed by a bomb attack in Damascus, the Lebanese group said on Wednesday.
Hezbollah accused Israel of assassinating Moughniyah, who was head of the Hezbollah security network during Lebanon’s 1975-90 civil war, by planting a bomb in his car. In Gaza, Hamas Islamists called for the Arab world to unite against Israel.
Israel denied any involvement in the killing, seen as a major setback to Syrian and Iranian-backed Hezbollah that fought a 34-day war with Israel in 2006.
Moughniyah, 45, was killed late on Tuesday. He had long been on a list of foreigners Israel wanted to kill or apprehend and the United States had offered a $5 reward for his capture.
“His killing is a huge blow to Hezbollah. It is very indicative,” Magnus Ranstrop, terrorism expert at the Swedish National Defence College, told Reuters.