Mugniyeh

[Casey]

From: The 801

Well, since itshappening has happily returned, here is an updated stock article by Kenneth R. Timmerman, on Mugniyeh. This article was generally the definitive article about Mugniyeh on line until this thread was created. It was the selection you got when you typed in Mugniyeh's name in google and selected "Feeling Lucky".

It has been in print for a few years now, and this appears to be an upgraded reprint of the article. It has alot more information that appears to have been gleaned from information researched here.

I am not so certain about the information concerning Mugniyeh's father stated in this reprint. The person identified I believe is his grandfather, according to the dates I have been able to determine. Mugniyeh's actual father is not publicly listed ( his uncle appears to be an author of a book about the cleric) I believe that all public records on Mugniyeh and his immediate family have been removed from the public record.

Lebanese Madman Leaves Trail of Terror

By Kenneth R. Timmerman

The "axis of evil" that President Bush recently spoke of might actually consist of Iran, al Qaeda and Hezbollah. Of the Hezbollah terrorists wanted by the U.S., the "Lebanese Carlos" makes bin Laden look like a "schoolboy." Responsible for the deaths of at least 260 Americans, he has a $25 million reward on his head.

He has blown up U.S. embassies and car-bombed a U.S. military barracks. He has hijacked U.S. commercial airliners and murdered Americans. He has kidnapped and tortured a top CIA officer and vowed through terror to drive the United States from his country. Do you know who he is?

If you guessed Osama bin Laden, you're wrong. The correct answer is Imad Fayez Mugniyeh (pronounced MOOG-NEE-YEH), a Lebanese Shiite long considered one of the world's most ruthless and elusive killers. The CIA has been tracking him since 1984 when he masterminded the kidnapping in Beirut of CIA station chief William Buckley, apparently on orders from Iran.

Now evidence is beginning to mount that Mugniyeh has deep ties to bin Laden and his al Qaeda network and may have been directly involved in planning the Sept. 11 attacks.

'Demonic Militant'

"We know Mugniyeh has a relationship to bin Laden. We know that," one U.S. official told Insight magazine. "Did he have a role in planning the outrages of Sept. 11? We can't rule it out. Hezbollah is part of bin Laden's International Islamic Front for Jihad on the Jews and Crusaders, and Mugniyeh is the head of Hezbollah's special-operations branch."

Twice the U.S. spotted Mugniyeh on international flights and sought to have him arrested. In 1986, he was leaving Charles de Gaulle Airport after several days of secret negotiations with the French government. Although the CIA provided a copy of the passport he was using, the French declined to stop him.

Nine years later, he was flying back to Beirut from Khartoum after a meeting with bin Laden in the Sudan. The U.S. arranged for his Middle East Airways plane to make an unscheduled stopover in Jedda, Saudi Arabia, but the Saudi authorities refused to force him to leave the plane. Neither the French nor the Saudis wanted him on their hands.

"Imad Mugniyeh is one of the most demonic of the militant Islamic leaders," says Daniel Pipes of the Middle East Forum in Philadelphia. "He appears to serve as a bridge between the 1980s, when the violence was primarily Shiite, and today, when it is primarily Sunni."

Mugniyeh and his Iranian backers are Shiite Muslims; bin Laden and his followers are Sunnis. Most terrorism analysts and Islamic scholars insist that the two Muslim sects are on less-friendly terms than Catholics and Protestants in Belfast. But when it comes to terrorism, they are dead wrong.

Hezbollah Roots

The eldest of four children, Mugniyeh was born in the village of Tir Dibba in the mountains above the Lebanese coastal city of Tyre on July 12, 1962. His father, Sheik Muhammad Jawad Mugniyeh, was praised as "one of Shia Lebanon's best jurists" by American Islamic scholar Fouad Ajami.

As a high-school dropout, Mugniyeh was recruited by Yasser Arafat's Fatah faction and later joined the elite Force 17, Arafat's personal security service. Once the Palestinians were kicked out of Lebanon in 1983, Mugniyeh and his two brothers, Fuad and Jihad, joined a new organization set up by Iran called Hezbollah (Party of God). Its goal was to drive the Western powers out of Lebanon.

Imad Mugniyeh became Hezbollah's star recruit, reporting directly to Ali Akbar Mohtashemi-Pour, Iran's ambassador to Syria. His terrorist pedigree began with a bang when he organized the April 18, 1983, bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Beirut that killed 63 people, including Robert Ames, the CIA's top Middle East operations officer, and many of his best agents.

On Oct. 23, 1983, Mugniyeh was back at work. This time, with Iranian and Syrian help, he plotted the twin suicide truck-bomb attacks in Beirut that took the lives of 242 U.S. Marines and 58 French troops.

For many years Mugniyeh's personal involvement in those early bombings remained obscure. It wasn't until he kidnapped the new CIA station chief to Beirut, William Buckley, in April 1984, that the U.S. intelligence community began to get a fix on him.

David Jacobsen was one of a dozen Americans and Frenchmen kidnapped in Beirut in the 1980s by Mugniyeh and his pro-Iranian militiamen. At one point he shared a cell with Buckley at an undisclosed location and remembers his ordeal well. "I was chained to the floor; I was blindfolded. The person at my feet, I later learned, was Terry Anderson, and the person at the head was Bill Buckley."

Mugniyeh's guards tried to keep them from speaking to one another. "One of the chilling moments for me and for Terry Anderson was to hear Bill Buckley cough," says Jacobsen. "He was very, very sick. He was delirious. I heard him say, 'I don't know what happened to my body; it was so strong 30 days ago.'"

The CIA now believes that Buckley was tortured to death by Mugniyeh personally, who extracted whatever secrets he could and then murdered him. Buckley was honored by CIA director William H. Webster at a posthumous ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery on May 13, 1988, and a star in his honor was carved into the wall of CIA headquarters--the 51st.

Mugniyeh burst onto the international scene with the brash June 1985 hijacking of TWA Flight 847 from Greece to Beirut, where he held 39 Americans hostage for 17 days. Wearing a ski mask, Mugniyeh prowled the aisles of the aircraft looking for U.S. military personnel and discovered U.S. Navy diver Robert Stethem. He tortured and shot Stethem, then dumped his body out on the runway in full view of international TV cameras. Later, the FBI was able to identify Mugniyeh's fingerprints in the rear lavatory of the aircraft and indicted him for Stethem's murder.

Personal Vengeance

Mugniyeh also murdered for personal reasons, including the release of a family member. The man who initiated him in the art of bomb-making was his brother-in-law, Mustapha Badr-el-Din, whose crippled legs prevented him from joining a Beirut militia. Badr-el-Din plied his trade by designing the bombs used in a series of devastating attacks against Kuwait. He was arrested and sentenced to death for his crimes by the Kuwaiti government.

In April 1988, Mugniyeh orchestrated the hijacking of a Kuwait Airlines flight to Bangkok. On board were three members of the Kuwaiti royal family. In exchange for their freedom, Mugniyeh demanded the release of his brother-in-law and 16 other Shiite prisoners in Kuwait, known collectively as the "Ad-Dawaa 17."

The plane made a three-day stopover in the eastern Iranian city of Mashad, where some sources believe Mugniyeh personally boarded the aircraft and brought on additional hijackers and weapons. Next, they flew to Cyprus, where two Kuwaiti passengers were murdered and dumped onto the runway in a stunning replay of the TWA hijacking three years earlier. They ended up in Algiers, where negotiators from the Iranian and Algerian governments, as well as Yasser Arafat's Palestine Liberation Organization, arranged safe passage for all the hijackers.

Intelligence officials believe Mugniyeh is seeking personal vengeance on the U.S. and Israel for the deaths of his brothers, which explains in part his willingness to lend his expertise to operations organized by other groups. Mugniyeh's brothers were killed in retaliatory attacks in Lebanon believed to have been carried out by Israeli and U.S. operatives.

Clinical Psychopath

"Bin Laden is a schoolboy in comparison with Mugniyeh," an Israeli-intelligence officer told Jane's Foreign Report recently. "The guy is a genius, someone who refined the art of terrorism to its utmost level. We studied him and reached the conclusion that he is a clinical psychopath motivated by uncontrollable psychological reasons, which we have given up trying to understand. The killing of his two brothers by the Americans only inflamed his strong motivation."

His brother, Jihad Mugniyeh, died in 1985 when a car bomb intended for Hezbollah leader Sheik Muhammad Hussein Fadlallah killed 75 people outside Fadlallah's home in Beirut. Hezbollah blamed the CIA for the attack.

snip....

more:
http://www.vfw.org/index.cfm?fa=news.magDtl&dtl=1&mid=933[/QUOTE]

[Casey]

From: The 801

Mugniyeh's weapon of choice. I am not saying that he did this, just that this fits his MO. Hariri seems to have established a hands off policy concerning Mugniyeh and Hezbollah. As pointed out in this article, Hariri was a 'self made billionaire' and in Lebanon, that usually means Corrupt Politician, Weapons Dealer, Drug money skimming, or lackey of Iran. These are areas where Mugniyeh and Hariri might have competing interests. Again I make no accusations against anyone at this time.

I should point out, that , when pressed by the US or the press, that Hariri usually went to great lengths to state that "[mugniyeh] is not here".

Car bomb kills former Lebanese PM

Former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri has been assassinated in a car bombing in central Beirut, Tourism Minister Farid Khazen has confirmed.
The blast, which reports say killed about nine people, caused widespread damage and left about 20 cars ablaze.

The bombing occurred beside the derelict St Georges Hotel, near the city's harbour.

It caused a huge crater in the street, and left vehicles smouldering and shop-fronts blown out and blackened.

Mr Hariri was on his way back from parliament when his motorcade was attacked near the waterfront in west Beirut.

The attack took place at a busy time of the morning, shortly before noon local time (1000GMT), in an area full of hotels and banks.

Members of Mr Hariri's convoy are believed to have been killed in the blast.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad condemned the bomb attack as a "terrible criminal act".

Leading Lebanese figure

Mr Hariri has been the leading Lebanese politician since the end of the civil war in 1990, and prime minister for most of the last 15 years.




Obituary: Rafik Hariri
He resigned in October amid differences with Lebanon's pro-Syrian President, Emile Lahoud

Mr Hariri was also a self-made billionaire businessman.

Lebanon has been calm for most of this time, with few of the explosions, killings and kidnappings which marked the civil war.

BBC Middle East correspondent Heba Saleh says the exact reason for Mr Hariri's assassination remains unknown, but for many Lebanese Monday's devastating explosion will revive memories of a war they prefer to put behind them.

Pictures from a local TV station showed a burning man fighting to get out of a car through its window, falling to the ground and being helped by a bystander.

Several young women were seen with blood running down their faces.

Lebanese security forces cordoned off the area with yellow tape as rescue workers and investigators combed the scene.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/4263893.stm

[Casey]

From: The 801

A few comments here;
Saw the Debka news, sounds reasonable
http://www.debka.com/article.php?aid=983

First, Syria has occupied Lebanon for decades now. the Bekka valley situation is a story unto itself. They were supported to do so by Iran. Iran supplied the Bathist with money. This allows Iranians agents to travel to and from Damascus without attracting attention from customs people.

Records indicate that Mugniyeh has used Damascus for transfer and office for Hezbollah. Mugniyeh has used Syria for years to get from Lebanon to Iran because he does not like to fly (after he was almost captured a few times).

These guys all scratch each others backs, but Iran pulls the strings of Syria to occupy Lebanon, and has done so for years. And a Lebanon turning away from Syria is a Lebanon turning away from Hezbollah, and that is a problem for Iran.

i am not implying that Mugniyeh did this. But it smells like something he would have his hand in.

The curious 801

[Casey]

Posted on Wed, Feb. 16, 2005

The history of the Dawa party

Knight Ridder Newspapers

(KRT) - The Dawa party was formed in the late 1950s as a reaction to the rise of secular political movements in Iraq, particularly the communist party. Dawa later came into conflict with the secular pan-Arab Baathist movement during the 1960s, and violence erupted. Dawa had undercover members across the country, including a young medical student in Mosul: Ibrahim al-Jaafari, who's now the leading candidate for prime minister.

Dawa leader Muhammad Baqr al-Sadr was inspired by the Iranian revolution and was a proponent of an Islamic state with clerical rulers. In 1980 the Baathist government outlawed membership in Dawa, making it a crime punishable by death. That same year, Dawa attempted to assassinate an aide to Saddam Hussein, Tariq Aziz. Al-Sadr was captured and killed by Saddam's security forces. Assassination attempts against Saddam followed. There were large-scale roundups of Dawa members, who faced torture and death.

A Dawa splinter group staged two suicide bombings at the U.S. and French embassies in Kuwait in December 1983. Seventeen of them were caught, convicted and imprisoned by the Kuwaitis, including the brother-in-law of Imad Mugniyah, a Lebanese Hezbollah member who began taking Americans hostage in Beirut in an attempt to spring his wife's brother.

Many of Dawa's members, including al-Jaafari, returned from exile after the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003. Its membership follows the direction of the majar'iya, the ruling council of clerics in Najaf headed by Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani.

---

(Compiled by Tom Lasseter in Baghdad, Iraq)

---

http://www.bradenton.com/mld/bradenton/news/world/10916569.htm?template=contentModules/printstory.jsp

[The 801]

Lebanonwire reprints an artical from early last year. Artical mistates Mugniyeh's age ( he is 44 )

Telegraph, April 25, 2004
Lebanonwire

Beirut veteran blamed over Basra attacks
By Con Coughlin

A leading Lebanese terrorist accused of blowing up the American embassy in Beirut in the 1980s is being held responsible for the increase in suicide bomb attacks against coalition targets in southern Iraq.

In the latest blasts, in the British-controlled sector in Basra at the end of last week, 73 people - including 18 children - were killed when five suicide car bombs exploded outside police stations.

Western intelligence officials have uncovered evidence that the attacks are being co-ordinated by Imad Mugniyeh, a leading figure in Lebanon's extremist Hizbollah Shia Muslim terror organisation.

Washington has accused Mugniyeh of blowing up the American embassy and the United States marine compound in Beirut in the 1980s, killing more than 300 US officials and troops.

Mugniyeh, who is now in his fifties and has a close relationship with Iran's Revolutionary Guards, has been based in Teheran since the end of the Lebanese civil war, and is also known to have close links with Osama bin Laden's al-Qa'eda terrorist network.

Intelligence officials in Iraq have uncovered evidence that Mugniyeh has been helping to train the self-styled al-Mahdi army set up by Moqtada al-Sadr, the dissident Iraqi Shia leader.

Mugniyeh, the head of Hizbollah's external security apparatus, has deployed scores of Lebanese Hizbollah fighters in Iraq, and set up secret training camps along the southern part of the border with Iran.

The Hizbollah fighters are working closely with members of Iran's Revolutionary Guards, with whom they developed a close relationship during the 1980s when their terror tactics forced the Reagan administration to withdraw US forces from Beirut.

"This is all part of a strategy devised by hardliners in Iran to repeat their success in Lebanon and drive coalition troops out of Iraq," said a senior intelligence official.

"Their main aim is to create an Iranian-style Islamic republic in Iraq."

In recent weeks Sadr has made a number of public references in support of Hizbollah, while Hizbollah supporters demonstrated in Beirut earlier this month in support of "the Iraqi intifada".

The National Council of Resistance of Iran, a prominent Iranian exile group, also claims that a significant number of Revolutionary Guards fighters have been sent to Iraq to support Sadr and the al-Mahdi army.

Attempts by Iranian hardliners to encourage attacks on coalition targets are being undertaken against the wishes of the Iranian government, which earlier this month sent a team of diplomats to Iraq to persuade Sadr to end his stand-off with American troops.

But at the same time as Iranian officials were negotiating with Sadr, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran's hardline spiritual leader, was circulating a cassette tape in Arabic to a number of Iraqi mosques in which he called on the Iraqis to "unite and expel the occupiers to ensure the establishment of a new power based on Islam".

http://www.lebanonwire.com/0404/04042501TGR.asp

Just reminding all of you to keep an eye out for him, 801

[The 801]

Aww, this one is sweet, it uses a nickname for mugniyeh, Hajj Imad. I can't help thinking people are getting their info here. But Mugniyeh's involvement with Syria goes way back....

Syria must do more
March 2, 2005

Damascus should show its bona fides by handing over a key terrorist, writes Tony Parkinson.

Fingerprints suggestive of Syrian mischief-making are everywhere to be found in the Middle East. And the more Syria pleads innocence, the louder the accusations grow.

Consider the indictments piling up against Bashar al-Assad. His regime is suspected of feeding and fuelling the violent insurgency in neighbouring Iraq. It has been accused of orchestrating the murder of a leading Arab statesman, Rafiq Hariri, in a crude attempt to silence the clamour for self-rule in Lebanon. On top of that, Israel claims Damascus was behind orders for Friday night's attack on a Tel Aviv nightclub, aimed at scuttling the Sharon Government's tentative dialogue with new Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas.

The heat is on Syria like never before.

The citizens of Lebanon are in uproar, with unprecedented protests forcing the resignation en masse of Omar Karami's Syria-aligned government in Beirut. The US and France have read the riot act, demanding Syria's full withdrawal from Lebanon. The United Nations is also on the case, mounting its own investigation of Hariri's death. And the Sharon Government blames the Tel Aviv bombing on Islamic Jihad, acting with Syria's approval.

Advertisement
AdvertisementIn an effort to calm this gathering storm, the Assad regime has offered up a goodwill gesture. Two years after the US-led invasion of Iraq, Syrian intelligence - surprise, surprise - has managed to locate and capture the half-brother of Saddam Hussein.

It appears Sabawi Ibrahim al-Hassan al-Tikriti, who headed one of Saddam's intelligence directorates, was in Syria all along. So were another 30 fugitives from the former Baathist regime in Baghdad. The handover of these men to Iraq represents an important setback for the insurgency, and could staunch the influx of fighters, money and weaponry into Iraq.

Mughniyeh runs what is tantamount to Jihad Central, co-ordinating the activities of Hezbollah, IJ and Hamas.It shows how Syria can make things happen if and when the circumstances require.

But if the Assad regime really wanted to convince the world it was no longer in the business of sponsoring mayhem across the region, it could go one better, and stop playing the role of she-wolf to a brat pack of extremists in Lebanon's Bekaa Valley.

Nothing would better signify Syria's bona fides on this score than the arrest and prosecution of the grandmaster of terror spectaculars in the Middle East, Hajj Imad (Imad Mughniyeh).

Nobody has stalked the region in these past 30 years quite like Hajj Imad. Back in the days when Osama bin Laden was a dorky teenager in flares, Mughniyeh had already made aircraft hijackings, and mass murder, a career speciality. Another of his specialities is providing terrorist fronts for the intelligence agencies of Syria and Iran.

Hajj Imad first came on the scene as a member of Yasser Arafat's personal bodyguard in the 1970s when the Palestine Liberation Organisation ran its operations out of Beirut. He was subsequently recruited by Syria.

In 1980, another major player arrived on the scene. As Khomeini's Iran sought to export its Islamic revolution, it established a base for its revolutionary guard in the Bekaa Valley. From this emerged two well-funded and well-armed movements promoting militant Islam: one, an offshoot of Egypt's Islamic Jihad; the other, Hezbollah (Party of God).

None of this activity in southern Lebanon could have happened without Syria's tacit consent, and Mughniyeh was up to his elbows in all of it. He became chief of Hezbollah's military wing, and achieved legendary status among Islamists for his ruthless and audacious terrorist strikes: an attack on the US embassy in Lebanon, the hijacking of a TWA airliner, and the truck-bombing of the marines' barracks in Beirut, killing 242 Americans.

It was this last atrocity that led President Ronald Reagan to order US troops to withdraw from Lebanon in 1984. It was a forced retreat that would inspire the next generation of jihadis, including bin Laden, to rejoice in the taunt that American society was soft and pampered - "hit them and they will run".

Mughniyeh has been on the FBI's wanted list for a quarter of a century. There is only one known photograph of him on the international counter-terrorism database, and he is rumoured to have twice undergone plastic surgery. The US has sought his extradition from Syria, Iran and Lebanon, to no avail.

These days, Mughniyeh runs what is tantamount to Jihad Central, co-ordinating the military activities of Hezbollah, IJ and Hamas. It is not surprising he should be suspected for overseeing the violence in Beirut and Tel Aviv. If we take Syria at its word that these crimes were not directly of its doing, who else would be equipped, for example, to plant a 350-kilogram bomb in Beirut under the nose of Syrian authorities? There are very few networks, outside state-run military and intelligence services, with the capability and expertise. It just so happens that Hajj Imad has a say in most.

The security agencies of Syria and Iran might be the only authorities in the world with reliable intelligence on Mughniyeh's whereabouts. Could they - would they - bring him in?

I suspect that might be a bridge too far. But as the Assad regime suffers the boomerang effect of a Lebanese society in revolt, along with the looming threat of international isolation, its predicament brings to mind the old adage: if you sup with the devil, be sure to take a long spoon.

Tony Parkinson is international editor of The Age.

Syria must do more
March 2, 2005

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Damascus should show its bona fides by handing over a key terrorist, writes Tony Parkinson.

Fingerprints suggestive of Syrian mischief-making are everywhere to be found in the Middle East. And the more Syria pleads innocence, the louder the accusations grow.

Consider the indictments piling up against Bashar al-Assad. His regime is suspected of feeding and fuelling the violent insurgency in neighbouring Iraq. It has been accused of orchestrating the murder of a leading Arab statesman, Rafiq Hariri, in a crude attempt to silence the clamour for self-rule in Lebanon. On top of that, Israel claims Damascus was behind orders for Friday night's attack on a Tel Aviv nightclub, aimed at scuttling the Sharon Government's tentative dialogue with new Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas.

The heat is on Syria like never before.

The citizens of Lebanon are in uproar, with unprecedented protests forcing the resignation en masse of Omar Karami's Syria-aligned government in Beirut. The US and France have read the riot act, demanding Syria's full withdrawal from Lebanon. The United Nations is also on the case, mounting its own investigation of Hariri's death. And the Sharon Government blames the Tel Aviv bombing on Islamic Jihad, acting with Syria's approval.

Advertisement
AdvertisementIn an effort to calm this gathering storm, the Assad regime has offered up a goodwill gesture. Two years after the US-led invasion of Iraq, Syrian intelligence - surprise, surprise - has managed to locate and capture the half-brother of Saddam Hussein.

It appears Sabawi Ibrahim al-Hassan al-Tikriti, who headed one of Saddam's intelligence directorates, was in Syria all along. So were another 30 fugitives from the former Baathist regime in Baghdad. The handover of these men to Iraq represents an important setback for the insurgency, and could staunch the influx of fighters, money and weaponry into Iraq.

Mughniyeh runs what is tantamount to Jihad Central, co-ordinating the activities of Hezbollah, IJ and Hamas.It shows how Syria can make things happen if and when the circumstances require.

But if the Assad regime really wanted to convince the world it was no longer in the business of sponsoring mayhem across the region, it could go one better, and stop playing the role of she-wolf to a brat pack of extremists in Lebanon's Bekaa Valley.

Nothing would better signify Syria's bona fides on this score than the arrest and prosecution of the grandmaster of terror spectaculars in the Middle East, Hajj Imad (Imad Mughniyeh).

Nobody has stalked the region in these past 30 years quite like Hajj Imad. Back in the days when Osama bin Laden was a dorky teenager in flares, Mughniyeh had already made aircraft hijackings, and mass murder, a career speciality. Another of his specialities is providing terrorist fronts for the intelligence agencies of Syria and Iran.

Hajj Imad first came on the scene as a member of Yasser Arafat's personal bodyguard in the 1970s when the Palestine Liberation Organisation ran its operations out of Beirut. He was subsequently recruited by Syria.

In 1980, another major player arrived on the scene. As Khomeini's Iran sought to export its Islamic revolution, it established a base for its revolutionary guard in the Bekaa Valley. From this emerged two well-funded and well-armed movements promoting militant Islam: one, an offshoot of Egypt's Islamic Jihad; the other, Hezbollah (Party of God).

None of this activity in southern Lebanon could have happened without Syria's tacit consent, and Mughniyeh was up to his elbows in all of it. He became chief of Hezbollah's military wing, and achieved legendary status among Islamists for his ruthless and audacious terrorist strikes: an attack on the US embassy in Lebanon, the hijacking of a TWA airliner, and the truck-bombing of the marines' barracks in Beirut, killing 242 Americans.

It was this last atrocity that led President Ronald Reagan to order US troops to withdraw from Lebanon in 1984. It was a forced retreat that would inspire the next generation of jihadis, including bin Laden, to rejoice in the taunt that American society was soft and pampered - "hit them and they will run".

Mughniyeh has been on the FBI's wanted list for a quarter of a century. There is only one known photograph of him on the international counter-terrorism database, and he is rumoured to have twice undergone plastic surgery. The US has sought his extradition from Syria, Iran and Lebanon, to no avail.

These days, Mughniyeh runs what is tantamount to Jihad Central, co-ordinating the military activities of Hezbollah, IJ and Hamas. It is not surprising he should be suspected for overseeing the violence in Beirut and Tel Aviv. If we take Syria at its word that these crimes were not directly of its doing, who else would be equipped, for example, to plant a 350-kilogram bomb in Beirut under the nose of Syrian authorities? There are very few networks, outside state-run military and intelligence services, with the capability and expertise. It just so happens that Hajj Imad has a say in most.

The security agencies of Syria and Iran might be the only authorities in the world with reliable intelligence on Mughniyeh's whereabouts. Could they - would they - bring him in?

I suspect that might be a bridge too far. But as the Assad regime suffers the boomerang effect of a Lebanese society in revolt, along with the looming threat of international isolation, its predicament brings to mind the old adage: if you sup with the devil, be sure to take a long spoon.

Tony Parkinson is international editor of The Age.

http://www.theage.com.au/news/Tony-Parkinson/Syria-must-do-more/2005/03/01/1109546864723.html?oneclick=true

[Casey]

Mugniyeh Archive
http://www.afghanistanwar.com/showthread.php?t=94

[The 801]

The unknown king of terror
Hezbollah military chief has longer resume than bin Laden

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Posted: March 12, 2005
1:00 a.m. Eastern



© 2005 WorldNetDaily.com

Though his name is unknown to most, a Middle East terrorists boasting a long resume of attacks and who takes order from Tehran will prevent any sort of peaceful freedom from breaking out in Lebanon, reports geopolitical expert Jack Wheeler.

In a column on his intelligence website, To the Point, Wheeler notes that the Hezbollah's chief of military operations, who has over 20 years in the terror business, is set to start a civil war in Lebanon.

Wheeler ties the situation directly to Iran, Hezbollah's chief sponsor.

"I have a very bad feeling about Lebanon," he writes, "this could turn out really ugly. Dispatch after dispatch, story after story, and all you read about is Syria's getting its troops and spies out of its colony. Congressmen like Darryl Issa, R-Calif., write newspaper op-eds entitled 'Lebanon: Democracy's Next Stop.' All without a word about Hezbollah. All without a word about Iran."

Wheeler goes on to describe the challenge of de-fanging Hezbollah.

"Hezbollah – the Party of God – is a group of 25,000 Shiite terrorists armed to the teeth, and nobody is asking the most important question of all regarding Lebanon's fate: Who gets to take away Hezbollah's guns? You simply cannot have a private terrorist army running around Lebanon and expect to create a peaceful democracy, even if every Syrian soldier and secret policeman leaves for Damascus."

Syria, Wheeler states, is not the chief problem for Lebanon – it's Iran.

Writes the analyst: "Bashar al-Assad is a puppet of the Mullacracy in Tehran. The people who give the orders to the Syrian troops in Lebanon's Bekaa Valley are Iranian Revolutionary Guards, the Pasdaran. Hezbollah was founded in 1982 among Lebanon's Shia Muslims with money and weapons from Iran. It is run by the world's worst terrorist, who is most decidedly not Osama bin Laden.

"Osama is a Hollywood terrorist," Wheeler continues. "He's got the memorably euphonious name, the looks of the classic bearded/turbaned Muslim crazy, and staged the most horrifically Hollywood disaster movie attack imaginable. He makes the perfect Hollywood arch-villain. But he too has become a sideshow, a distraction. The most important and dangerous terrorist in the world is a man most everybody has never heard of. His name is Imad Mugniyeh. He is the true King of Terror."

Wheeler then lists Mugniyeh's terror rap sheet, everything from organizing the 1983 killing of 242 U.S. Marines in Lebanon to involvement in the 2000 USS Cole attack. Besides countless acts of terror, Mugniyeh, Wheeler says, was involved in shuttling Saddam's WMDs into Hezbollah's care before the Iraq war.

Predicts Wheeler: "Imad Mugniyeh and the Hezbollah, at the direction of Iran, will ignite another civil war in Lebanon, destroying that country's chances for democracy and freedom from Syrian colonial control – and halting thereby George Bush's Middle East Freedom March right in its tracks."

Wheeler's solution for Bush? "Regime change in Iran."

http://worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=43271

Ugh, more World Net Daily stuff...

This article refers to Jack Wheelers website, The Oasis for Rational Conservatives. Us screaming Liberals are pissed off that the conservatives have the mugniyeh issue to themselves. Maybe they seek boogie men more assiduously then us Liberals. But the fact remains, Anarchist or Neocon, Mugniyeh is due for a return, and the issues that he has fought for are coming to the forefront. Watch this thread for news.

[The 801]

Discussions concerning Mugniyeh are frequently brought up by the US in discussions with Hezbollah and Iran. Here is a mention of a recent exchange. Very hard to find, this stuff....


Hezbollah Signals It's Open to Talks With United States
BY ELI LAKE - Staff Reporter of the Sun
April 11, 2005


WASHINGTON - A Hezbollah political leader told a delegation of former European and American officials last month that the Bush administration approached the organization for talks following September 11, 2001, and that the group would be open to new discussions.

According to a former CIA station chief in Islamabad who attended the meetings in Beirut, Milton Bearden, the representatives of Hezbollah, which has long been implicated in terrorist attacks, said the Bush administration approached them shortly after the Twin Towers were destroyed.

The White House denies having made an approach.

Mr. Bearden recalled that the leader of the Hezbollah delegation said: "The Americans came to us after 9/11 wanting to open a dialogue, at a political level. ... 'It came through the Israeli gate,' meaning the Israelis brokered it." Mr. Bearden added that the representative said his organization would "be open to a direct approach from the Americans."

Another former CIA operations officer who was there, Graham Fuller, told The New York Sun the message was delivered by Hezbollah's chief of international relations and top political adviser, Nawaf Mousawi.

"I would view Mousawi's presence as important," Mr. Fuller said. "I would assume this would go directly to Sheik Nasrallah. "The sheik is the spiritual leader of Hezbollah, and Mr. Fuller said Mr. Mousawi is "his chief political adviser."

A spokesman for the National Security Council, Frederick Jones, said: "There was no envoy or outreach to Hezbollah following September 11."

The catastrophe in New York and northern Virginia did spur the White House to open new channels with Hezbollah's two chief state sponsors, Iran and Syria, and other states and entities it had previously shunned for ties to terrorism. For example, the CIA began a liaison relationship with Syria's intelligence service focused narrowly on apprehending Al Qaeda operatives.

The Israelis, too, have worked with foreign governments in the past to help negotiate with Hezbollah. For several years, Israel has worked with German intelligence to arrange exchanges of hostages and dead bodies with Hezbollah. Messrs. Bearden and Fuller are said to have been the only two former CIA officers, acting as private citizens, in a 12-person delegation that met with Hezbollah and other groups March 21-22. The delegation included the head of the Vietnam Veterans of America Foundation, Robert Muller, as well as academics and former European spies and government officials. They met with leaders from Hamas, Hezbollah, Pakistan's Jemaat Islamiya, and the Muslim Brotherhood. The first three groups are designated as terrorist organizations by the State Department, while the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt was once led by Osama bin Laden's deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri.

The meetings were arranged by a former British MI-6 officer, Alastair Crooke, who served as the European Union's liaison with Hamas between 2001 and 2003, before he was recalled to London.

Mr. Fuller, who did not serve under President Bush, said he believed it was plausible that Mr. Mousawi was telling the truth about the American approach, though he had no direct knowledge.

"After 9/11 there was a great deal of panic and a willingness to reach out to anyone and everyone who might be allies," he said. "My personal hunch is that, as the fear in the immediate aftermath of 9/11 subsided, the war on terror grew in its breadth and the Bush administration began to include more and more organizations under the umbrella of terrorism."

And while it may appear to Mr. Fuller that the Bush administration has widened the circle of American enemies, in recent weeks the president has sent a message of possible reconciliation with Hezbollah, the group responsible in 1983 for the truck bombings of the American Embassy and Marine barracks in Beirut.

On March 16, five days before the parley between the ex-spies and current terrorist leaders, Mr. Bush told reporters he viewed Hezbollah as a terrorist organization, but he left open the possibility it could shed the designation. "I would hope that Hezbollah would prove that they're not, by laying down arms and not threatening peace," he said.

Following those remarks, the European Union and the United Nations began publicly encouraging political talks among Lebanon's various parties, including Hezbollah. Last week, the U.N. envoy to the Middle East, Terje Roed-Larsen, said disarming Hezbollah was "not on the action agenda," indicating that the world body would be willing to let the group keeps its arms until after the Lebanon elections scheduled for next month.

"With Hezbollah and Hamas, whatever one may think of the organizations and their tactics, the fact is it is analytically absurd to lump them into the same category as Osama bin Laden, taking on the United States," Mr. Fuller said. "These organizations are fighting highly discreet local wars and are not targeting the world or the West."

Mr. Crooke, who arranged the meetings, generally agrees with that analysis. An opinion piece he wrote last December 10 in the Guardian newspaper of England put quotation marks around the word terrorist and recommended negotiations with the groups.

The former British M16 man is no stranger to meeting with what he called "violent political actors." Before Mr. Bush's June 24, 2002, speech that washed America's hands of Yasser Arafat, Mr. Crooke had met with Sheikh Ahmed Yasin, spiritual leader and founder of Hamas, who was killed in an Israeli air strike March 22, 2004.

At the time, Israel argued that the organizations of Arafat and Yasin were coordinating their activities, and documents captured by the Israel Defense Force appear to prove that. Last week, a think tank associated with Israeli intelligence, the Center for Special Studies, published an English translation of a June 24, 2002, communique from the head of external relations for the Gaza Preventive Security service, Suheil Jabr, to the deputy of the group, Rashid abu Shbak. The document, which the center says IDF troops captured from the Palestinian Preventive Security compound in Gaza, includes an account of the conversation Mr. Crooke had with Yasin and other Hamas leaders.

Mr. Crooke said the document's account of his conversation with Yasin, which portrayed the British spy as sympathetic to Hamas's gripes with the Israeli presence, was inaccurate. Mr. Crooke said that his job as liaison to Hamas was largely to negotiate a ceasefire.

In an interview, he said he stressed to Yasin, "There were some actions that were unacceptable to anyone in Europe and America. Nobody believed that blowing up children eating pizzas, that these children were responsible for the plight of Palestinians." But he added that he drew a distinction between "terrorism" and "resistance," offering that his family had been involved in fighting the Nazi occupation in France in World War II.

A former adviser on Palestinian affairs for the ministry of defense who was familiar with Mr. Crooke's diplomacy, Reservist Brigadier General Shalom Harari, said the former MI-6 officer had "become addicted to Hamas."

"I'm not saying he is not very knowledgeable, because he is," Gen. Harari said. "What happened to Crooke is what happened to many researchers who make research on biology. He fell in love with the microbes he was researching."

The meeting last month that Mr. Crooke arranged through the Conflict Forum was publicized in the British and Arabic press. Al Jazeera and the BBC covered the talks, along with the Beirut Daily Star. The London Sunday Times bluntly said Mr. Crooke was opening the door for American negotiations with Hamas and Hezbollah. Mr. Crooke disagreed with the account in the Sunday Times.

In an interview Friday, he said the purpose of the talks was to hear out the two organizations, which long had been categorized as foreign terrorist organizations by America and more recently the European Union.

"We did not touch on the policy issues, we were not there to resolve particular issues," he said. "Hezbollah gave us a clear vision of a party that was acting in a Lebanese context as a Lebanese party. They were dealing with an extremely complex and complicated situation and dealing with it in a way that will bring about a resolution."

Hezbollah has a dozen members of parliament, and it wields a great deal of influence in government. In January 2002, Lebanese police confiscated 600 DVDs from the Virgin Megastore in Beirut after a Hezbollah senior cleric, Sayyed Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah, gave an interview criticizing some Western films. Nonetheless, Hezbollah's terrorist wing has been responsible for a number of attacks on Americans, Israelis, and Jews. After the 1983 truck bombings, Hezbollah kidnapped a string of American diplomats, spies, journalists, and military officers, only to release them after America and Israel sold arms to Iran.

The September 11 commission concluded last year that some Al Qaeda operatives had trained in a Hezbollah compound in the Bekaa Valley. A staff report released by the commission in June speculates that Hezbollah and Al Qaeda, along with Iran, may have collaborated on the 1996 bombing of an American Air Force barracks in Saudi Arabia known as Khobar Towers. A former FBI director, Louis Freeh, in sworn court testimony last year, implicated former senior Iranian government officials in the attack. Hezbollah's attacks against America through the years led a former deputy secretary of state, Richard Armitage, to say the organization owed America a "blood debt," promising that its "time will come" in a press conference on September 5, 2002, in Brussels.

That blood debt in particular is owed by Imad Mugniyah, who is regarded as the chief architect of the 1983 truck bombings and is one of the FBI's most wanted men. Mr. Bearden said he pressed the leader of the Hezbollah delegation about Mr. Mugniyah.

"I hit him pretty hard on the Mugniyah business. His first reaction was the 1982-to-1985 period was difficult and undisciplined. He was trying to walk away from it that way," Mr. Bearden said. "He paused and said that blood is not on Hezbollah's hands. The thought to me is he has some formulation in his mind that allows him to say that with a straight face. My sense was that he was saying Mugniyah was never our guy, but Mugniyah was Iran's guy."

Mr. Fuller said any potential for improved ties between America and Hezbollah would depend on addressing the issue of Mr. Mugniyah.

Some former CIA officers with experience in the Middle East said the initiative will not work.

The founder of the CIA's counterterrorism center, Duane Clarridge, said: "To have a modicum of success, the agendas of both parties have to be beginning to intersect. I'm not so sure that Hezbollah and Hamas are ready for that."

Similarly, a protege of Mr. Clarridge who worked for years at the CIA to find Mr. Mugniyah, Robert Baer, said: "America and Hezbollah are too far apart on the issue of Jerusalem right now."

Mr. Baer also said, however, that it was significant that Hezbollah would be meeting with former CIA officers and would say it was open to talks with America.

"Hezbollah is convinced the CIA set off a car bomb that almost killed Fadlallah. I don't think they did. I know the Lebanese who did this, but this is the kind of suspicion Hezbollah has to overcome."
The vice chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, Malcolm Hoenlein, said last week that he was concerned the outreach could be a "stalking horse for the European Union."

"Does this give them a legitimate way to deal with Hezbollah before they have taken any steps to reduce terrorist activities?" he said. "It gives the appearance that this is more than an unofficial study group - the nature of the participants gives it the appearance that it is much more official."

Mr. Crooke insisted that the initiative was strictly a private matter and that there had been no formal government coordination for last month's talks.

General Harari, however, said the meetings indicate a new desperation for the terrorist groups involved.

"The American army is still in Iraq. Syria is under big pressure as a sponsor in Lebanon. They see European state after state putting Hamas and Hezbollah on the blacklist," he said. "They see how the Russians understand the terror better after the terrible events in Beslan. They see what happens in Saudi Arabia - the main source of money will dry up. They see in Jordan the regime is strengthening its hold on the Islamic movement. The overall view is that they are going to have a very tough process between two and three years from now. This is a way for these groups to whiten their image and say they are not terrorists."

Mr. Fuller said that Hezbollah leaders were open to future meetings with the delegation of Americans and Europeans, and that future meetings were being considered.

http://www.nysun.com/article/11974

[The 801]

Book Review seems to downplay Mugniyeh and Bin Laden connection. Very odd stuff. For your edification. Statement in bold is for emphasis of this comment.


Hezbollah's secret shop in Charlotte

How a terrorist group raised money smuggling cigarettes

RON CHEPESIUK

Special to the Observer


LIGHTNING OUT OF LEBANON: Hezbollah Terrorists on American Soil


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

By Tom Diaz and Barbara Newman. Ballantine Books.

272 pages. $24.95.

In 1992, in a quiet neighborhood of Charlotte, Mohammed Yousef Hammoud began operating a cell for the Lebanon-based Hezbollah, a group the U.S. government has designated a terrorist organization. Between 1995 and 1999, the cell smuggled cigarettes from North Carolina to Michigan, where the tax on a pack of cigarettes was $1.20 higher. The group bought nearly half a million cartons of cigarettes for about $7.5 million at tobacco outlets in this state.

When Hammoud and his enterprising band of bootleggers were finally busted, authorities learned that the profits had been used to buy night vision goggles, global positioning systems, advanced analysis and design software and other equipment for Hezbollah.

In "Lightning Out of Lebanon," Barbara Newman and Tom Diaz use this local story as a backdrop to investigate Hezbollah and the nature of the threat it poses to our national security. Diaz is a journalist and a consultant to the U.S. government on counter-terrorism. Newman is a former host of NPR's "All Things Considered" and currently a senior fellow at the Defense of Democracies Foundation.

The authors contend that the U.S. remains a major target of Hezbollah and that the group continues to infiltrate the U.S., making it potentially a more dangerous threat to our country than al-Qaida. It's a timely subject, indeed, and a book claiming to have the goods on the enemy within should merit our attention. Yet "Lightning Out of Lebanon" presents no hard evidence to support the authors' claim.

It's true that Hezbollah, the so-called Party of God which the Iranian Revolutionary Guards founded in 1982, has done harm to our national interests abroad. The authors spend considerable space recapitulating the legacy of blood and terror. As they point out, Hezbollah killed more Americans than any other terrorist group before the 9-11 trauma.

But these events transpired 10 to 20 years ago. What happened in the pre 9-11 world won't necessarily help us understand the realities of the Middle East today. As many Middle East experts are pointing out, Hezbollah appears to be positioning itself to become a major player in Lebanese politics. Hezbollah and its chief sponsor, Iran, don't look eager for direct confrontation with the Bush administration or for providing the world's sole superpower with reckless action.

Still, the book is well written. Charlotteans should find the information about their fair city and the Hezbollah connection interesting. The authors profile Hammoud's early life in Beirut's slums and his involvement with Hezbollah. Like many other local Shiite youth, he grew up to possess a deep hatred of Israel. Diaz and Newman chronicle the major events of Lebanese-Israeli relations but omit some relevant details important for an understanding of Lebanon's recent history.

The mysterious Imad Fayez Mugniyah, the coordinator of Hezbollah's cell network in the Western Hemisphere who has a $5 million U.S. bounty on his head, sent Hammoud to Charlotte to establish the fundraising network. If bin Laden ever is taken down, look for Mugniyah to be the next poster terrorist for the war on terrorism.

The authors quote one anonymous Israeli intelligence official on Hammoud: "Bin Laden is a school boy in comparison with Mugniyah." They attempt to establish a connection between the two terrorists and Iran, but once again the reader will ask: Where's the beef?

One might also ask: Why Charlotte? "Hezbollah was looking for American cities where the focus of law enforcement was far removed from terrorism, new operatives could infiltrate a legitimate expatriate Lebanese community and opportunities existed to engage in middling but profitable criminal schemes."

Hammoud and fellow employees at a local Domino's Pizza (some of whom were not Lebanese) pursued their smuggling activities until law enforcement brought the network down. The investigation began in 1997 when a member of the local Lebanese community told the FBI about his suspicious neighbors.

The authors contend that it was one of at least 14 U.S. cities that "fit the bill." So how serious is the Hezbollah threat to our domestic security? Diaz and Newman draw this conclusion: "One part of this story cannot be told, because it remains unknown -- and that is whether even more hidden layers of Hezbollah's dark enterprise lie undetected, coiled to strike in America."


Ron Chepesiuk is a Rock Hill based journalist.

http://www.charlotte.com/mld/observer/news/opinion/11363747.htm

[The 801]

Nice Overview....

Tehran's Terror Master
By Patrick Devenny
FrontPageMagazine.com | May 26, 2005

Early on the morning of March 16th, 1984, William Buckley left for work at the American embassy in Beirut, Lebanon. Officially, Mr. Buckley, a decorated veteran of the Special Forces, served as the political officer at the embassy. In reality, however, Mr. Buckley was the embassy’s CIA station chief. On his way to the compound, Buckley’s car was stopped by a group of masked men, who forced him from his car at gunpoint. His assailants would later be identified as terrorists from the group Islamic Jihad, which served as an alias for the real perpetrators, Hezbollah. The circumstances surrounding the next 15 months of William Buckley’s life remain mysterious to this day. Hints of his plight were provided in disturbing video tapes, in which he appeared worn down and brutalized. It was later revealed that additional tapes were shot showing the CIA station chief being viciously tortured and beaten by Islamic Jihad members. Finally, sometime in October of 1985, Buckley died of pneumonia, no doubt stemming from the lengthy torture sessions. His main interrogator and tormentor was a 21 year old Lebanese terrorist named Imad Mugniyah.

Twenty years later, the butcher of William Buckley still plagues the free world. Imad Mugniyah is the current military commander of the terrorist group Hezbollah, overseeing an international organization which some American officials have dubbed “the A-team of terrorism.” Far less well known than his compatriot and sometimes partner Osama Bin Laden, Mugniyah is arguably more dangerous. Indeed, before the 9-11 attacks, Mugniyah was the prime focus of American anti-terror efforts, not Bin Laden. Comfortable in his anonymity, Mugniyah has successfully carried out some of the most professional terrorist attacks of the last two decades against a wide array of international targets. With Hezbollah currently flexing its muscle as a political force inside Lebanon, it would behoove Americans to remember that the leadership of this so-called “political” organization remains in the hands of dangerous extremists who think nothing of slaughtering hundreds of people at the behest of their masters in Tehran. Mugniyah’s very existence casts doubt on the idea that Hezbollah could ever be an honest participant in a future Lebanese democracy.

Origins



While the face of Bin Laden has been prominently featured in every world publication of note and is almost instantly recognizable, the real face of Imad Mugniyah is elusive. Only two or three photographs of the Hezbollah operative are known to exist. Further accentuating the mystery around Mugniyah is the fact that the picture that currently serves as the U.S. Government’s official wanted poster is almost 20 years old. This lack of information stems from the designs of Mugniyah himself, who has methodically erased all records of his existence, including his high school transcripts. What we do know is that Mugniyah was born to a prominent Shiite religious family in southern Lebanon in 1962. Some years later, his family moved to the suburbs of southern Beirut, a region long associated with Shiite radicalism. With the outbreak of the Lebanese Civil War in 1975, Mugniyah joined Yasser Arafat’s Palestinian Liberation Organization, which operated numerous terror training camps throughout Lebanon. Mugniyah, still a teenager, rose through the ranks of the PLO quickly, soon becoming a member of its elite commando wing, Force 17, which carried out assassinations at the personal behest of Arafat. This kind of specialized training represented expertise unavailable to most young Islamic militants at the time.



In 1982, an Israeli military offensive expelled most of the PLO infrastructure from Lebanon. Mugniyah chose to stay, serving as a bodyguard to Sayyid Muhammad Fadlallah, the spiritual head of Hezbollah and a key ally of Iran. Then, together with fellow terrorist Hassan Nasrallah, Mugniyah formed the group Islamic Jihad, which served as a convenient cover for the greater Hezbollah organization. That close personal relationship would continue to the present day, as Nasrallah is the current secretary general of Hezbollah. One of the few existing photographs of Mugniyah shows him walking alongside Nasrallah ten years ago in Lebanon. The two fellow terrorists and their group would quickly gain the attention of the West.




Lebanon



The first shot fired in Mugniyah’s war against the West was fired on April 18th, 1983, in Beirut. On that day, a van packed with 2,000 pounds of explosives slammed into the front of the U.S. embassy and exploded with such tremendous force that the front of the building collapsed. The attack killed 63 people, including most of the CIA’s Middle East leadership. Within hours of the attack, Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility. A clue concerning the real perpetrators of the suicide bombing was picked up by U.S. intelligence a month later, when it was revealed that a pre-attack cable from the Iranian foreign ministry had been sent to the Iranian embassy in Syria approving funding for a terrorist attack in Beirut.



The suicide attack against the Beirut embassy was followed up later that year by an even more devastating assault. On the morning of October 23rd, most of the 300 Marines stationed in a compound near Beirut’s airport were sleeping in their barracks, having been deployed to the country to serve as a stabilization force. Then, at 6:33 am, the driver of a Mercedes truck drove straight through the front gate of the compound, past Marine sentries with unloaded weapons, and smashed into the four story concrete barracks. The driver, who reportedly was smiling, then detonated the explosive, estimated to equal the force of 12,000 pounds of TNT. The effects of the massive truck bombing were horrific, killing 220 Marines and 21 other U.S. service members. Again, Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility.



In one day, the entire situation in Lebanon had been drastically altered. The foreign forces would soon leave, wary of further terrorist attacks. With the abandonment of Lebanon by the international community, Islamic Jihad had carried out a virtual terrorist coup d’etat. Over the next ten years, Mugniyah and Hezbollah went on a rampage, taking dozens of Westerners hostage and murdering several others. Major operations included the hijacking of TWA Flight 847 in 1985, where Mugniyah’s men shot a US Navy diver in the head and threw his body on the tarmac of Beirut International Airport. In a case that recalled the horrors of William Buckley, US Marine Lt. Colonel William Higgins was abducted in 1988 by a Hezbollah linked group known to be under the direct command of Mugniyah. Two years later, a ghastly video was released showing a man, thought to be Colonel Higgins, hanging from a ceiling after being tortured. Shortly thereafter, the dead body of Colonel Higgins was dumped on the side of the road in front of the US embassy in Beirut.



Numerous hostages, such as American Kurt Carlson, recall seeing Mugniyah supervise their imprisonment and brutal interrogations. He spoke fluent English, and commanded slavish devotion from his agents. At the same time, the CIA believes Mugniyah was in frequent contact with Iranian intelligence officials, who were directly involved in the murders and the hostage takings. It is a relationship that blossomed in Lebanon and continues to this day.



Hezbollah International



While Imad Mugniyah’s attacks had concentrated on foreigners, his campaign of terror had stayed geographically constrained to Lebanon and the rest of the Middle East. The American authorities could still regard him and his group as “over there”, limited to the perennially tumultuous region. Unfortunately, they were missing a critical development. Imad Mugniyah was about to defy the oceans that security officials naively assumed held him back. The impetus for this new strategy of offensive terrorism was the 1992 Israeli assassination of Sheik Abbas Musawi, a Hezbollah leader and close associate of Mugniyah.



The Israeli embassy in Argentina was located in a bustling downtown neighborhood of Buenos Aires. On March 17th, 1992, a pickup truck loaded with plastic explosive drove up to the front of the embassy and exploded. The embassy building was destroyed, along with the nearby retirement home and Catholic Church. 28 people were killed, and over 220 wounded. The next target was a seven story building in Buenos Aires that housed two Jewish business organizations. On the morning of July 18th, 1994, a white Renault van pulled up in front of the building and detonated. The building collapsed, killing 85 people. While confusion marred the initial investigations, it became clear to all parties involved that Hezbollah was the culprit, through its subsidiary Islamic Jihad, headed of course by Mugniyah. The smoking gun may have been delivered by an Iranian defector named Abdolghassem Mesbahi, a former senior member of the Iranian Revolutionary Council. In testimony to Argentinean authorities, the defector claimed that Mugniyah had been one of the senior planners behind the attack in Buenos Aires, along with Iranian intelligence.



The twin bombings in Argentina highlighted Mugniyah’s campaign to develop an infrastructure within South America. In 1994, the Hezbollah leader personally visited the “Triple Frontiers”, an area forming the border nexus of Argentina, Paraguay, and Brazil that has historically sheltered smugglers and criminals. As many as 30,000 Arab Muslims, who celebrate the anniversary of September 11th, inhabit the small region. Nearby, Hezbollah holds weekend training camps, indoctrinating Arab youth in the extremist literature of the Ayatollah Khomeini. The main mosque in the area was blessed by none other than Imad Mugniyah’s old boss, Sayyid Muhammad Fadlallah. Hezbollah agents regularly extort money and “donations” from various businesses and Muslim organizations, sending the substantial funds back to Lebanon. Mugniyah personally operates a powerful network of operatives inside the region, who help facilitate Hezbollah’s drug smuggling operations throughout South America. In addition, the bombing of Jewish targets inside Argentina were almost certainly connected to the Hezbollah presence in the Triple Frontiers. Telephone records show increased call traffic from Iranian officials to the frontiers region around the time of the bombing.



Mugniyah has also sought to extend Hezbollah’s reach to North America. In 2000, federal authorities arrested 18 men in North Carolina for smuggling cigarettes and other financial crimes. The FBI later revealed that the smuggling ring, led by Lebanese immigrant Mohamad Hammoud, had made 7.9 million dollars, profit which was then sent to Hezbollah. Through a series of associates, Hammoud worked for a man named Mohamad Dbouk, a senior Hezbollah asset who helped run Hezbollah’s extensive criminal operations in Canada. Testifying before the U.S. Senate, U.S. Attorney Robert J. Conrad confirmed that Mugniyah directly oversees the Canadian operations and, by extension, the American division. This reasoning stems from the fact that Dbouk was in direct contact with Hassan Hilu Laqis, a Hezbollah agent operating out of Lebanon who managed many of the procurement projects in North America. In a fax intercepted by Canadian intelligence, Dbouk assures Laqis that he is doing all he possibly can to help Hezbollah. In addition, Dbouk says he will do “anything”, and “he means anything”, to help the “father”. The Canadian prosecutor involved in the case, Kenneth Bell, stated that the father is in fact a codename for Imad Mugniyah. In addition, a recent report in the Washington Times suggested Hezbollah currently runs active cells in at least 10 U.S. cities. Mugniyah has never attacked a target in North America, but with tensions rising between the United States and Iran over the issue of nuclear proliferation, his terrorist network could rapidly become Iran’s weapon of choice against American targets. It would be a familiar role for the veteran terrorist, who, lest we forget, has the blood of over 250 Americans on his hands.



Mugniyah and Al-Qaeda



In 1998, American authorities captured former Green Beret advisor Ali A. Mohamed for his role in the twin terror attacks against U.S. embassies in Africa. Having been a relatively close associate of Bin Laden himself, Mohamed proved to be a treasure trove of information for American investigators. One of his statements, however, proved particularly troubling. In testimony delivered during his court case, Mohamed admitted that in 1994, he had arranged security for a momentous meeting in Sudan. There, Osama Bin Laden met Imad Mugniyah. He also stated that Hezbollah provided training for Al-Qaeda operatives in exchange for weapons and explosives. Indeed, this testimony corresponded with statements made by other Al-Qaeda officials, who told American investigators that the two had met several times in the mid 1990s, where they had discussed a greater degree of cooperation.



The two terrorist leaders may have also coordinated the attack on the Khobar Towers barracks complex in 1996. American investigators have long suspected Iran’s involvement in the bombing that killed 19 American servicemen in Saudi Arabia. The group that supposedly carried out the attacks, Saudi Hezbollah, was led in the 1990s by a close lieutenant of Mugniyah and was trained in Mugniyah run camps in Lebanon. Additionally, the explosives used in the barracks bombing originated in Lebanon. The 9-11 Commission, however, recently suggested that Al-Qaeda may have also played a role in the bombing, suggesting some degree of operational cooperation between the two groups.



The influence of Imad Mugniyah with regards to the Al-Qaeda network has continued, and has strengthened as of late. It appears that at least part of the formal leadership of Al-Qaeda has shifted to Iran, where they stay in close contact with the group’s disparate assets. Men such as Saad Bin Laden and Saif al-Adel continue to plan attacks from Iranian territory, such as the massive Casablanca bombings in 2003. Other Al-Qaeda leaders and fighters have escaped through Iran following the war in Afghanistan. Hamid Zakiri, a former member of the Iranian terrorist coordination command, stated that Mugniyah was the liaison officer to Dr. Ayman Zawahiri and various other international terrorist groups. In addition to this relationship, Mugniyah personally oversaw the escape of dozens of Al-Qaeda figures to Iran, including one of Bin Laden’s wives and her infant child. Apparently, Al-Qaeda leaders have enough trust in Mugniyah’s abilities and intentions as to place their family members into his care.



“The Master Terrorist”



“He is the most dangerous terrorist we've ever faced. He's a--he's a pathological murderer. Mugniyah is probably the most intelligent, most capable operative we've ever run across, including the KGB or anybody else. He enters by one door, exits by another, changes his cars daily, never makes appointments on a telephone, never is predictable, will show up--he only uses people that are related to him that he can trust. He doesn't just recruit people. He is the master terrorist, the grail, we are after since 1983.”



No small praise coming from Robert Baer, a 20 year veteran of the CIA’s clandestine services who once constructed a plan to kill Mugniyah in Lebanon. Imad Mugniyah, unrecognizable and relatively unknown, poses a serious asymmetrical threat to the United States and its allies. He has successfully avoided numerous American and Israeli attempts to capture or kill him. He has access to the massive amount of funding, estimated at 100 million dollars, that Iran annually provides Hezbollah annually. The secrecy surrounding Mugniyah allows him to travel relatively freely, especially in friendly nations such as Iran and Syria. His role in Hezbollah should chasten the Bush administration’s hopes that Hezbollah could eventually transform itself into a purely political organization. With terrorists such as Imad Mugniyah in charge, the idea that Hezbollah could accept a democratic Middle East is dubious to say the least. It should also be made clear to Lebanon’s Shiite population that national democratic reform cannot be sustained over the long term if an armed group like Hezbollah is involved. Instead of awaiting reform that will never come, the American government, with the help of our allies in the region, should seek to isolate this dangerous and inherently anti-democratic terrorist organization.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Patrick Devenny is the Henry M. Jackson National Security Fellow at the Center for Security Policy in Washington D.C.

http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=18188

[The 801]

Once again, here is I believe, an example of Mugniyeh's reflected light. Mugniyeh is suspected of arranging for the transportation of various people into Iran, particularly Saad bin laden. Almost all of the evidence cited here as appeared in the old Mugniyeh thread.


AP: Intelligence Sees Terrorists in Iran

By KATHERINE SHRADER and JOHN SOLOMON
The Associated Press
Saturday, June 4, 2005; 2:00 AM

WASHINGTON -- Mounting evidence gathered over several years has U.S. and foreign intelligence agencies increasingly convinced that leading terror suspects have been living in Iran.

Their existence in the Islamic republic poses an ongoing problem to top Bush administration officials, who have warned Middle Eastern countries against providing shelter or other aid to terrorists.


The evidence includes communications by a fugitive mastermind of the 1996 Khobar Towers bombing and the capture of a Saudi militant who appeared in a video in which Osama bin Laden confirmed he ordered the Sept. 11 attacks, according to U.S. and foreign officials.

They spoke on condition of anonymity because much of the evidence remains classified.

Saudi intelligence officers tracked and apprehended Khaled bin Ouda bin Mohammed al-Harbi last year in eastern Iran, officials said. The arrest came nearly three years after the cleric had appeared with bin Laden and discussed details of the Sept. 11 planning during a dinner that was videotaped and aired across the world.

The capture was a coup for Saudi Arabia, which spent months tracking him and setting up the intelligence operation that led to his being taken into custody in exchange for eventual amnesty.

The officials said interrogations of al-Harbi, who is now in Saudi Arabia, have yielded confirmation of many al-Qaida tactics, including how members crossed into Iran after the U.S. began military operations to rout al-Qaida and the Taliban from Afghanistan.

Al-Harbi is believed to have been paralyzed from the waist down while fighting in the 1990s alongside Muslim extremists in Bosnia and Afghanistan, and he surprised intelligence officials when he appeared in the December 2001 video with bin Laden.

"Everybody praises what you did," al-Harbi said on the tape.

U.S. and foreign intelligence agencies also have evidence stretching back to the late 1990s that indicates Ahmad Ibrahim al-Mughassil remains in hiding in Iran. He is wanted as one of the masterminds of the Khobar Towers bombing in Saudi Arabia that killed 19 Americans.

Al-Mughassil, who also goes by the alias Abu Omran, has been charged as a fugitive by the United States _ accused of conspiracy to commit murder in the attacks _ and has a $5 million bounty on his head.

U.S. authorities have long alleged that the 1996 bombing was carried out by a Saudi wing of the militant group Hezbollah, which receives support from Iran and Syria.

Intelligence agencies gathered evidence, including a specific phone number, as early as 1997 indicating that al-Mughassil was living in Iran, and they have other information indicating his whereabouts.

U.S. officials have not publicly discussed the Saudi capture of al-Harbi or their evidence on al-Mughassil's whereabouts, but they have increasingly raised questions about Iran's efforts to turn over other suspected terrorists believed to be under some form of loose house arrest.


Nicholas Burns, State Department undersecretary for political affairs, told Congress last month that Iran has refused to identify al-Qaida members it has in custody.

"Iran continues to hold senior al-Qaida leaders who are wanted for murdering Americans and others in the 1998 East Africa Embassy bombings and for plotting to kill countless others," Burns said.

Top administration officials have repeatedly warned Iran against harboring or assisting suspected terrorists.

U.S. intelligence this week has been checking some reports, still uncorroborated as of Friday, that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, al-Qaida's leader of the Iraqi insurgency, may have dipped into Iran, officials said.

On Wednesday, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld warned countries in the Middle East not to help al-Zarqawi.

"Were a neighboring country to take him in and provide medical assistance or haven for him, they, obviously, would be associating themselves with a major linkage in the al-Qaida network and a person who has a great deal of blood on his hands," Rumsfeld said.

The U.S. and foreign officials said evidence gathered by intelligence agencies indicates the following figures are somewhere in Iran, perhaps under some form of house arrest or surveillance:

_Saad bin Laden, the son of the al-Qaida leader whom U.S. authorities have aggressively hunted since the Sept. 11 attacks.

_Saif al-Adel, an al-Qaida security chief wanted in connection with the deadly 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in Africa.

_Suleiman Abu Ghaith, the chief of information for al-Qaida and a frequently quoted spokesman for bin Laden.

Kenneth Katzman, a Middle East analyst at the Congressional Research Service, said it's possible that some of the suspected terrorists are being held in guarded villas, and he doubted any detention is uncomfortable.

"I think that Iran sees these guys as something of an insurance policy," Katzman said. "It's leverage."

Rasool Nafisi, a Middle East analyst who studies conservative groups in Iran, said Iran has returned some lower-level operatives to their home countries but probably is keeping higher-ranking operatives as a bartering chip.

"Remember, Islamic tradition is very much based on haggling," Nafisi said. "If I were the Iranian government, I'd be very happy to have them and to use them in future negotiations with the United States."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/06/03/AR2005060301191.html

[Vancouver]

The FBI hotsheets have started referring to the Khobar Towers fugitives as members of "Saudi Hizbollah". The ones I know of are

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Ahmed Ibrahim al-Mughasil

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Ibrahim Salih Mohammed al-Yacoub

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Abdelkarim Hussein Mohammed al-Nasser

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Ali Saed bin Ali el-Hoorie

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Saqr al-Jeddawi (or "The Jeddah Falcon")

Six guys from al-Muqrin's group "al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula" accepted Sheikh Abdullah's amnesty offer some months back; two of those were in Syria and one in Iran.

The Israeli paper Haaretz said that 100-150 Qaedas fled Afghanistan when NATO showed up, and relocated to Ein Hilwe near Sidon with Syrian help. (Syria was in partial control of that area at that time.) Of the several gangs in that so-called Palestinian refugee camp, Asbat al-Ansar is the Wahhabi one.

[The 801]

Umm, real nice work vancouver..Maybe time for a new thread?

It is the position of this writer that Mugniyeh was instrumental in getting most of the AQ who fled Afghanistan, out. And the higher up or personally connected to Bin Laden, the more likely. Mugniyeh has extensive access to smuggling routes and methods that he has used previously.

If anyone is curious, I believe that Mugniyeh is presently at home in Qods, Iran. Or as at home as he can be in his family compound.

By the way, if there are no complaints, I would like to rerun some of the data on the old thread that pertains to current events...

The 801

[The 801]

The supreme putdown
By Kenneth R. Timmerman
June 28, 2005

<Here is an editorial by Timmerman. He recounts the data already documented here on itshappening about mugniyeh's ties to al-qaeda. No big surprises here. ......801>


One week before the September 11 commission was scheduled to send its final report to the printers in July 2004, Philip D. Zelikow, the commission's staff director, gathered members together for an unusual briefing.

Commission staff members had discovered a document from a U.S. intelligenceagencythat described in detail Iran's ties to al Qaeda, he said. It had been buried at the bottom of a huge stack of highly classified documents on other subjects that had been delivered to a special high-security reading room in an undisclosed location in Washington. The document summarized the findings of seventy-five distinct intelligence reports.

The commissioners realized that if their report was published and word of the missing documents leaked out later, it would discredit their entire investigation, so they ordered staff to make a last-minute panic run. Mr. Zelikow arranged to have his team review the 75 documents in person the following morning — Sunday — at seven-thirty.

Everything the CIA had been telling the commission up until that point was absolutely cut and dried: There was no connection between al Qaeda and Iran. None, no way. Nada. This was "the Concept," and the intelligence community was wedded to it. "We found perplexing the settled CIA position . . . that there was no meaningful connection at all between al Qaeda and Iran," one commissioner told me when I asked him about this incident.

The documents the team began reading that Sunday morning told a whole different story. The brief, two-page summary that appeared in the September 11 commission's final report gives no idea of the scope of the material the CIA had been sitting on, or the sheer number of intelligence reports. That story has never been told until now.

What the team found that Sunday morning was nothing less than a complete documented record of operational ties between Iran and al Qaeda for the critical months just prior to September 11. "The documents showed Iran was facilitating the travel of al Qaeda operatives, ordering Iranian border inspectors not to put telltale stamps on their passports, thus keeping their travel documents clean," the team leader, a former CIA analyst, told me. "The Iranians were fully aware that they were helping operatives who were part of an organization preparing attacks against the United States."

The U.S. intelligence community was also aware of the help Iran was providing Osama bin Laden's men. But because the analysts were driven by the Concept, they consistently downplayed that relationship. "Old School Ties" was the dismissive title of one post-September 11 analytical report issued by the CIA's counterterrorism center that summarized the early days of bin Laden's cooperation with Iran. These reports showed that, as the team leader told me, "by late 1993, early 1994 there had been a handshake between bin Laden and Iran." A handshake and operational cooperation.

Most troubling were masses of reports on Iranian intelligence operative Imad Mugniyeh, whom the September 11 commission report obliquely refers to as "a senior Hezbollah operative." The raw reporting showed that well before September 11, the United States had hard intelligence that the Tehran regime had appointed Mugniyeh as the point man for operational contacts with bin Laden's men. That coincided with information an Iranian defector brought to the CIA four months before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

Before September 11, Mugniyeh had killed more Americans than any other terrorist. Putting him together with bin Laden was like throwing a match onto a pile of oil-soaked rags. And yet no alarm bells seem to have gone off. Mugniyeh is not even named in the final commission report.

The source reports showed that Mugniyeh coordinated the travel of eight to ten of the "muscle hijackers" between Saudi Arabia, Beirut and Iran in October and November 2000, and personally traveled with one hijacker from Saudi Arabia to Beirut before his trip on to Iran.

Frustrated by their late discovery of the documents, which prevented them from investigating further, the authors of the September 11 commission report's chapter 7 resorted to irony. It was always possible that so much coordination was simply a "remarkable coincidence" and that "Hezbollah was actually focusing on some other group of individuals traveling from Saudi Arabia during this same time frame, rather than the future hijackers."

Even in its post-September 11 reporting, which then CIA director George Tenet tried unsuccessfully to prevent the commission from reviewing, the CIA simply assumed that the hijackers were traveling through Iran, not to Iran, my sources on the commission said. It was the Concept again. The fact that Mugniyeh had become al Qaeda's travel agent never hit home. "Every time they came up with a smoking gun, the analysts came back and said, yes, that's interesting, but it's not actionable," one commissioner told me. It was the supreme putdown.


http://washingtontimes.com/op-ed/20050627-090223-2079r.htm

[The 801]

I'm checking on this story..... 801

U.S. Reiterates $5M Reward for HijackersBy ZEINA KARAM
The Associated Press
Wednesday, June 29, 2005; 3:33 PM

BEIRUT, Lebanon -- With Lebanon free of Syria's grasp, the United States issued an unusual reminder Wednesday about the millions of dollars still offered for information on three Shiite Muslims who hijacked an American passenger jet 20 years ago, killing a Navy SEAL.

The three are still believed to be in Lebanon or Syria, the U.S. Embassy in Beirut said in a statement on its Web site, adding that it is offering a $5 million reward for information on their whereabouts.

"The United States will pay cash rewards in any currency for information that assists in bringing to justice those who murder and terrorize its citizens," it said.

Both Lebanon and Syria have denied the three men are on their soil.

TWA Flight 847 was hijacked in 1985 on a flight from Athens to Rome, and during a 17-day standoff at Beirut's airport, gunmen killed U.S. Navy diver Robert Stethem and threw his body onto the tarmac.

The rewards are offered for Imad Mughniyeh, the former Hezbollah security chief who is also accused in the kidnappings of Americans in Beirut and other terror attacks, as well as two other men linked to Hezbollah, Hassan Izz-Al-Din and Ali Atwa.

The embassy said the reminder was timed for the 20th anniversary of the June 14, 1985, hijacking. But it also came at a time of dramatic change in Lebanon.

Syria's military withdrew in April after a 29-year presence, and Damascus' longtime control of Lebanon has crumbled. Syria's opponents have a majority in parliament and are putting together a government.

Syria has long been accused of protecting militant groups in Lebanon, but its ability to do so now is hampered. Individuals may be more willing to come forward with information now without the shadow of reprisals from Syrian intelligence agents _ who once kept a grip on even day-to-day aspects of Lebanese life.

Hezbollah, the Syrian-backed guerrilla group that is now taking a stronger role in Lebanese politics, has denied any link to the hijacking.

The reminder of the reward also came as a U.N. team is in Beirut to investigate the Feb. 14 assassination of former prime minister Rafik Hariri. The inquiry has set a precedent in a country where scores of assassinations have gone unpunished, and has raised hopes that other crimes might be investigated.

The hijacking of Flight 847 produced some of the more notorious images of the attacks on Westerners that occurred during Lebanon's 1975-90 civil war. One photo showed a hijacker holding a gun to pilot John Testrake's head as they leaned out of the cockpit window during the standoff.

The passenger jet was hijacked by Shiite Muslim extremists with 153 people, mostly Americans, aboard. The hijackers forced the plane to fly back and forth several times between Algiers and Beirut airport. On the second day of the seizure, June 15, Stethem, 23, was killed.

After mediation by Shiite moderates, the hostages were released June 30, but the hijackers went free. Nothing has been heard about them since the civil war ended in 1990.

All three men were indicted in the U.S. in absentia for their role in the hijacking. The rewards were first posted when the U.S. put out a list of the 22 most wanted following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on New York and Washington.

The TWA hijacking came during Lebanon's chaotic sectarian-driven civil war. Mughniyeh's forces were linked to the kidnapping of scores of Americans, Frenchmen, Britons, Germans and other foreigners in Lebanon at about the same period.

Mughniyeh is also suspected of being behind suicide attacks against the U.S. Embassy and the Marine base in Lebanon in the 1980s, bombings that killed more than 260 Americans. His present connections to Hezbollah are unclear.

___

On the Net:

U.S. list of wanted terrorists and rewards: http://www.rewardsforjustice.net/

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/06/29/AR2005062901489.html

[The 801]

Key Al Qaeda role for bin Laden son
Saad bin Laden part of network’s upper echelon
By Douglas Farah and Dana Priest
THE WASHINGTON POST
Oct. 14 — Saad bin Laden, one of Osama bin Laden’s oldest sons, has emerged in recent months as part of the upper echelon of the al Qaeda network, a small group of leaders that is managing the terrorist organization from Iran, according to U.S., European and Arab officials.

SAAD BIN LADEN and other senior al Qaeda operatives were in contact with an al Qaeda cell in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, in the days immediately prior to the May 12 suicide bombing there that left 35 people dead, including eight Americans, European and U.S. intelligence sources say. The sources would not divulge the nature or contents of the communications, but the contacts have led them to conclude that the Riyadh attacks were planned in Iran and ordered from there.

PASSING THE MANTLE
Although Saad bin Laden is not the top leader of the terrorist group, his presence in the decision-making process demonstrates his father’s trust in him and an apparent desire to pass the mantle of leadership to a family member, according to numerous terrorism analysts inside and outside of government.
Like other al Qaeda leaders in Iran, the younger bin Laden, who is believed to be 24 years old, is protected by an elite, radical Iranian security force loyal to the nation’s clerics and beyond the control of the central government, according to U.S. and European intelligence officials. The secretive unit, known as the Jerusalem Force, has restricted the al Qaeda group’s movements to its bases, mostly along the border with Afghanistan.
Also under the Jerusalem Force’s protection is Saif al-Adel, al Qaeda’s chief of military operations; Abdullah Ahmed Abdullah, the organization’s chief financial officer, and perhaps two dozen other top al Qaeda leaders, the officials said. Al-Adel and Abdullah are considered the top operational deputies to Osama bin Laden and his second-in-command, Ayman Zawahiri, who communicate with underlings almost exclusively through couriers.
The presence of Saad bin Laden and other al Qaeda leaders in Iran has become part of a debate within the governments of the United States and Saudi Arabia over the best way to reduce Iranian support for terrorism. U.S. officials have sent stern warnings to the government of President Mohammad Khatami that Iran’s harboring of senior al Qaeda operatives would have repercussions for a nation the Bush administration has labeled part of the “axis of evil.”
Intelligence officials believe that although the State Department is eager to renew talks with Iran on a variety of issues, primarily its nuclear program, it is not clear whether that nation’s civilian government could deliver its end of any bargain, especially if it entailed turning over al Qaeda leaders.
“Iran will continue to pursue an asymmetric strategy in which they court Western acceptance, while maintaining their surrogate leadership roles within the Islamic extremist community,” a U.S. intelligence analysis says.
Similarly, Saudi Arabia, which in recent years has tried to thaw relations with its larger and more powerful neighbor across the Persian Gulf, is trying, unsuccessfully, to persuade Iran to extradite Saad bin Laden and others suspected in the Riyadh bombing. Saudi officials estimate there are up to 400 al Qaeda members there.

‘SOMEBODY MUST BE HELPING THEM’
“Those people are in Iran and somebody must be helping them. The question is who?” Prince Bandar bin Sultan, the Saudi ambassador, told the San Francisco Chronicle last month. “This is the problem with Iran. The people who we can deal with can’t deliver, they can’t lead eight ducks across the street. And the guys who can deliver, they’re not interested.”
As a child, Saad bin Laden was at his father’s side in Afghanistan in the mid-1980s when Osama bin Laden formed the Al Qaeda network. The younger bin Laden was groomed to take a leadership role in the terrorism organization. He is fluent in English and is computer-literate, two qualities rare among al Qaeda leaders and assets that have enhanced his importance beyond his family name.
Yet Saad has only recently emerged as an important target for the CIA, FBI and other organizations trying to disrupt the terrorist network. It has only been since his arrival in Iran in the last year that he has assumed a more active role in directing al Qaeda, and that he has been identified as a senior leader. Before that, analysts said, he often sat with his father in leadership meetings but seldom spoke and was not given a voice in deliberations.
Many experts believe, for example, that he also had direct involvement in coordinating a series of bombings on May 16 that killed 45 people in Casablanca, Morocco.
‘Because his father is incommunicado, a lot of people are looking to Saad to give them direct instructions.’
— KENNETH KATZMAN
Congressional Research Service Kenneth Katzman, a terrorism analyst for the Congressional Research Service, said Saad “is touted as his father’s stand-in. Because his father is incommunicado, a lot of people are looking to Saad to give them direct instructions.”
While there is broad agreement that Saad bin Laden’s role within al Qaeda has grown increasingly important in the past six months, not everyone agrees he is now a senior operational commander. One U.S. intelligence official said Saad is “more of a player than most of the offspring, but not that significant.” Osama Bin Laden has more than two dozen children with five wives.
But European intelligence officials and independent analysts said Saad bin Laden, while not the most important al Qaeda leader, is helping to make key operational decisions and is an important part of al Qaeda’s logistical network. Some analysts believe he was very close to Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, who was captured in March.
“Saad is capable of mounting operations against the West because he knows the West very well,” said Rohan Gunaratna, director of terrorism research at the Institute of Defense and Strategic Studies in Singapore. “Saad has been very close to his father, almost functioning as his bodyguard.”
Saad bin Laden is one of the eldest sons of bin Laden and his first wife, Najwa Ghanem, a Syrian who is also the terrorist leader’s first cousin. The couple had 11 children, but Osama bin Laden has taken at least four other wives and divorced one, according to biographies in the Arab press and U.S. officials. Islam allows men to take as many as four wives at one time.

BATTLING SOVIETS
Born in Saudi Arabia, Saad bin Laden spent time with his father in Afghanistan during the war against the Soviet occupation. His father returned to Saudi Arabia in 1989, but left in 1991 to settle in Sudan. Again, Saad accompanied him. When bin Laden returned to Afghanistan in 1996, so did Saad.
According to one terrorism expert, Osama bin Laden was filmed in Afghanistan admonishing al Qaeda members not to expect their children to take leadership positions in the movement unless the children were willing to work hard for the cause. Bin Laden then singled Saad out for praise as a hard worker and said he was proud of his son.
Gunaratna said that an analysis of bin Laden’s satellite telephone calls from 1996 to 1998 showed that more than 10 percent were placed to Iran, demonstrating the ongoing contacts with Iran during that time.
Officials said there is also evidence that another key liaison between the hard-line Iranian factions and al Qaeda is Imad Mugniyah, one of the world’s most wanted terrorists.
Mugniyah, a Lebanese national and senior Hezbollah leader, is responsible for the kidnapping and murder of several Americans, as well as the hijacking of aircraft and the bombing of U.S. military barracks in Beirut in the 1980s, according to the FBI and CIA. Before Sept. 11, 2001, he was responsible for the deaths of more Americans than any other terrorist.
According to court testimony of former al Qaeda operatives, Mugniyah met bin Laden several times in Sudan in the mid-1990s and agreed to train al Qaeda combatants in the use of explosives and other techniques in exchange for weapons.
A description of Mugniyah’s ongoing role was provided to authorities by a member of the Jerusalem Force who defected to Britain earlier this year. In a February interview with the London-based Saudi daily Al-Sarq al-Awsat, the defector said Mugniyah remained in Iran and had personally “planned the escape of dozens of al Qaeda men to Iran.”
The defector, Hamid Zakiri, said Mugniyah served as “a liaison officer with Dr. Zawahiri and with commanders of other fundamentalist organizations.”
Zakiri said that among those Mugniyah aided were bin Laden’s youngest wife, Amal al-Saddah, and her infant child, whom he provided with safe passage from Afghanistan through Iran to her homeland of Yemen as the U.S. bombing of Afghanistan began.
European intelligence sources said that much of Zakiri’s information had been verified.

Research editor Margot Williams contributed to this report.

http://www.msnbc.com/news/979918.asp?cp1=1

[The 801]

Some Bombs Used in Iraq Are Made in Iran, U.S. Says
By ERIC SCHMITT
Published: August 6, 2005

WASHINGTON, Aug. 5 - Many of the new, more sophisticated roadside bombs used to attack American and government forces in Iraq have been designed in Iran and shipped in from there, United States military and intelligence officials said Friday, raising the prospect of increased foreign help for Iraqi insurgents.


Forum: The Transition in Iraq
American commanders say the deadlier bombs could become more common as insurgent bomb makers learn the techniques to make the weapons themselves in Iraq.

But just as troubling is that the spread of the new weapons seems to suggest a new and unusual area of cooperation between Iranian Shiites and Iraqi Sunnis to drive American forces out - a possibility that the commanders said they could make little sense of given the increasing violence between the sects in Iraq.

Unlike the improvised explosive devices devised from Iraq's vast stockpiles of missiles, artillery shells and other arms, the new weapons are specially designed to destroy armored vehicles, military bomb experts say. The bombs feature shaped charges, which penetrate armor by focusing explosive power in a single direction and by firing a metal projectile embedded in the device into the target at high speed. The design is crude but effective if the vehicle's armor plating is struck at the correct angle, the experts said.

Since they first began appearing about two months ago, some of these devices have been seized, including one large shipment that was captured last week in northeast Iraq coming from Iran. But one senior military officer said "tens" of the devices had been smuggled in and used against allied forces, killing or wounding several Americans throughout Iraq in the past several weeks.

"These are among the most sophisticated and most lethal devices we've seen," said the senior officer, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the delicate intelligence reports describing the bombs. "It's very serious."

Pentagon and intelligence officials say that some shipments of the new explosives have contained both components and fully manufactured devices, and may have been spirited into Iraq along the porous Iranian border by the Iranian-backed, anti-Israeli terrorist group Hezbollah, or by Iran's Revolutionary Guard. American commanders say these bombs closely matched those that Hezbollah has used against Israel.

"The devices we're seeing now have been machined," said a military official who has access to classified reporting on the insurgents' bomb-making abilities. "There is evidence of some sophistication."

American officials say they have no evidence that the Iranian government is involved. But Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and the new United States ambassador in Baghdad, Zalmay Khalilzad, complained publicly this week about the Tehran government's harmful meddling in Iraqi affairs.

"There is movement across its borders of people and matériel used in violent acts against Iraq," Mr. Khalilzad said Monday.

But some Middle East specialists discount any involvement by the Iranian government or Hezbollah, saying it would be counter to their interests to support Iraq's Sunni Arab insurgents, who have stepped up their attacks against Iraqi Shiites. These specialists suggest that the arms shipments are more likely the work of criminals, arms traffickers or splinter insurgent groups.

"Iran's protégés are in control in Iraq right now, yet these weapons are going to people fighting Iran's protégés," said Kenneth Katzman, a Persian Gulf expert at the Congressional Research Service and a former Middle East analyst at the Central Intelligence Agency. "That makes little sense to me."

One of Iran's top priorities is to get the United States out of Iraq, which means keeping up the violence there. At the same time, that clearly works against their other goal, which is to get religious Shiites in power and keep them in power. Right now, popular support for the government of Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari, which is friendly toward Iran, is waning because it cannot deal effectively with the Sunni-based insurgency.

And while American military intelligence officers believe Iranian intelligence has a large presence in Iraq, they say it hasn't been working to destabilize the country.

American commanders say they first saw the use of the new explosives in the predominantly Shiite area of southern Iraq, including Basra, but their use by insurgents steadily migrated into Sunni-majority areas north and west of Baghdad. It was unclear how the transfers were taking place.

The seizure of the recent arms shipment from Iran was first reported on Thursday night by NBC News and CBS News.

The influx of the new explosives comes as allied commanders are stepping up efforts to stop the infiltration of fighters, weapons and equipment along Iraq's porous borders with Iran and Syria. Ten days ago, for instance, Iraqi border enforcement agents seized a major shipment of weapons, apparently small arms, that officials suspect may have come from Iran, Maj. Gen. J. B. Dutton of the British Marines, commander of allied forces in southern Iraq, told reporters on Friday in a conference call from Basra.

More troubling are the broad array of roadside bombs that range from the improvised explosives made from modified 155-millimeter artillery shells and other materials to antitank mines like those that military officials say caused the blast on Wednesday that killed 14 marines and an Iraqi civilian in western Iraq.

American troops and the insurgents have been engaged for months in an expanding test of tactics and technology, with the guerrillas building bigger and more clever devices and the Americans trying to counter them at each turn.

"The terrorists are trying to adapt to that level of protection that our forces have; they have been motivated to try to find a way to get advantage," Brig. Gen. Donald Alston, a military spokesman in Baghdad, said at a news conference on Thursday. "And occasionally, we're seeing I.E.D.'s that are sufficiently lethal as to challenge some of the level of protection."

Military officials say they are thwarting about 40 percent of the roadside bombs before they detonate, employing a range of countermeasures from jamming devices that disrupt the frequency of the explosives' triggers, to heightened patrols. Last week, the military successfully cleared 115 roadside bombs, General Alston said. But such bombs remain the No. 1 killer of American troops in Iraq.

"It's not just about the armor that you carry," he said. "It's about your tactics, and it's about how you evolve and develop those and try to defend yourself before those things detonate as well."

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/06/politics/06bomb.html?pagewanted=1

[sidthereal]

wow...
this mugniyeh thread is really getting me intrigued,

is there, a detailed site, about this guys info?

[The 801]

Thanks for you interest siddharthramana. This is the only site on the Internet that actually tracks information concerning Mugniyeh. The best place for information is the original itshappening site listed at the beginning of this section.

http://www.afghanistanwar.com/forumdisplay.php?f=5

search on Mugniyeh

Presently, I have a few theories on Mugniyeh that I am doing some research on.

1) He assisted Saad Bin laden to escape to Iran, where he presently is.
2) Mugniyeh has a home in Qods, the same town where Bin laden had a home. They know each other.
3) I believe that Mugniyeh is in Iran, and probably has started his own Madrass. I would allow him to train the next generation of terrorist.
4) While there is information that Mugniyeh served on the shira council in Lebanon, I have set below an article that would indicate that he is going to now be active or at least have a strong voice in the new Iranian government.

This article indicates that one of his main co - conspirator in the Lebanon bombing is now in power in the new Iranian government.

Send me a message if you want to see any of the other information that i have collect on the most dangerous man in the world.

Iran’s defense chief tied to Beirut bombing of U.S. Marines
Sun. 14 Aug 2005

Iran Focus

London, Aug. 14 - The nomination of a veteran commander of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps as the new defense minister has been greeted with calls for an investigation into his possible ties to the suicide bombing of the U.S. Marines compound in Beirut airport in October 1983, which killed 241 Americans.

Mostafa Mohammad-Najjar, a senior commander in the Revolutionary Guards, was in command of the IRGC expeditionary force in Lebanon when on October 23, 1983, at 6:22 a.m., a suicide bomber drove a large water delivery truck to the Beirut International Airport where the Marine Barracks was located. The bomber and his accomplices had hijacked the original truck on its way to the airport and sent another one, loaded with explosives, in its place.

After turning onto an access road leading to the compound, the driver rushed through a barbed-wire fence, passed between two sentry posts, crashed through the gate, and slammed into the lobby of the barracks. The huge explosion crumbled the four-story building, crushing the soldiers to death while they were sleeping.

All the windows at the airport control tower, half a mile away, shattered. A crater eight feet deep was carved into the earth, and 15 feet of rubble was all that remained of the four-story Marine barracks.

The attack killed 241 U.S. service members. The Americans quickly withdrew their forces from Lebanon and the suicide operation became a turning point in the increasing use of terrorism by radical Islamic fundamentalists across the world.

Two years ago, a U.S. federal court order identified the suicide bomber as Ismail Ascari, an Iranian national.

In July 1987, Iran’s then-Minister of Revolutionary Guards, Mohsen Rafiqdoost, said, “Both the TNT and the ideology which in one blast sent to hell 400 officers, NCOs, and soldiers at the Marines headquarters were provided by Iran”.

Rafiqdoost’s comments were published in the Tehran daily Ressalat on July 20, 1987.

Iran’s hard-line newspapers continue to feature stories that commemorate the Beirut bombing and the country’s Headquarters for Commemoration of Martyrs of Global Islamic Movement held a memorial ceremony in Tehran’s Behesht-e Zahra Cemetery last December to “honour the man who carried out the largest martyrdom-seeking operation against Global Arrogance [the United States and its allies]…and was able to kill more than 300 occupiers of Lebanon with his courageous operation in 1983”.

A U.S. Defense Department report on the Beirut attack said the force of the explosion “ripped the building from its foundation. The building then imploded upon itself”.

The U.S. court order described the blast as "the largest non-nuclear explosion that had ever been detonated on the face of the Earth”. It was equal in force to between 15,000 and 21,000 pounds of TNT.

Now some terrorism experts want a thorough investigation by the U.S. or an international body to determine the role of Iran’s new defence minister in the attack.

“Those who are knowledgeable about the October 1983 terrorist attack in Beirut know that the Iranian regime was behind it”, said David Neil, a Middle East affairs analyst based in London. “Iran’s new defence minister was in command of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards force in Lebanon at the time. This is acknowledged in his official biography that was carried by Iran’s government-owned news agencies today”.

Others agree.

“We must conduct a thorough investigation and bring the perpetrators and masterminds of that terrorist act to justice”, said Simon Bailey of the Gulf Intelligence Monitor. “For two decades, the Beirut bombing has been a landmark for terrorist impunity. Now is the time to change it”.

Mostafa Mohammad-Najjar joined the IRGC soon after it was formed in 1979, only days after the victory of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini’s Islamic revolution that overthrew the Shah of Iran. Almost immediately, Mohammad-Najjar took part in the bloody campaign to suppress the Kurdish uprising in western Iran in 1979.

After his return to Tehran, Mohammad-Najjar worked as a staff officer in the Central Command Headquarters of the IRGC. His performance in the opening stages of the Iran-Iraq war in 1980 won him quick promotion in IRGC, then a newly-formed army that relied more on ideological loyalty than military skills.

By 1982, the IRGC had turned the tide in the war against Iraq. After a succession of impressive battlefield victories, the Revolutionary Guards were now on the offensive. The new situation led the IRGC High Command to expand its operations in pursuit of export of Islamic revolution beyond Iraq. With Ayatollah Khomeini’s blessing, the Revolutionary Guards set up a Middle East Directorate and Mohammad-Najjar, who was a fluent Arabic speaker, became its commander.

The Middle East Directorate’s area of operation included Lebanon, Israel, the Palestinian territories, Jordan and the Persian Gulf states. The IRGC sent a 1,500-man expeditionary force to Syria and the Bekaa Valley in Lebanon in 1982 and played a key role in the formation of the Lebanese Hezbollah.

Mohammad-Najjar remained in command of IRGC’s Middle East operations until 1985. During those years, the IRGC expanded its presence and influence in Lebanon, both directly and through its proxies, and established active ties with radical Palestinian and Arab groups in the region.

Mohammad-Najjar’s forces were also actively expanding their clandestine presence in Iran’s southern neighbours, including Bahrain, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia.

Mohammad-Najjar became head of the IRGC’s Military Industries Organisation in 1985 and later developed the 230-mm “super mortars” that were intended for use by the Revolutionary Guards’ Qods Force for terrorist operations in Europe and the Middle East.

The choice of Mohammad-Najjar as Defence Minister by fellow Revolutionary Guards commander Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is not surprising. President Ahmadinejad is closely allied with the top brass of the IRGC, who played a crucial role in ensuring his victory in the recent presidential elections.


http://www.iranfocus.com/modules/news/article.php?storyid=3322

[sidthereal]

801, please post more info

[The 801]

Be assured that Mugniyeh has something to do with this. If you really need more proof, let me know and I will provide analysis. - 801

TERROR TRAIL OF CASH LEADS TO IRAN, SAUDIS
Oct 1, 2005
In the war with Palestinian terrorists, Israel is learning to follow the money.

What investigators have uncovered is the secret funneling of millions of dollars from Iran and Saudi Arabia to groups like Hamas in the West Bank.

The money played a major role in the five-year offensive, begun in September 2000, that accounted for more than 24,000 attacks by Palestinians on Israelis, including 142 homicide bombings.

Those bombings accounted for 510 Israeli deaths, or just over half the fatalities.

A report by the Israeli secret service showed how the money trail worked:

Iran "invested more than $10 million to encourage terrorist activity against Israel."

The money was funneled through Hezbollah guerrillas in Lebanon, as well as Western Union, money launderers and Mideast banks.

After Muntafar Abu Ralyub, a Tanzim militia commander in Jenin, was captured in 2004, he revealed that the basic payment from Hezbollah for a terrorist attack ranged from $600 to $1,100.

If the attack resulted in the death or wounding of an Israeli, there was a $900 bonus, he said.

Another arrested terrorist, Yusef Atik of the Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigade in the West Bank, described getting a phone call from a Hezbollah operative in Lebanon who told him "You're going to make some money."

Atik found that $1,000 was deposited in his Bank Cairo Amman account in Tulkarem ? and another $5,000 was soon added.

In return he was trained ? through e-mail and CDs he was given in Jenin ? in how to teach other militants such skills as how to design explosive belts for homicide bombers.


Iran isn't the only source, the Israelis found.

Yaakub Abu-Asav, a 33-year-old Palestinian with Israeli ID because he lived in east Jerusalem, was arrested after it was discovered he was "the liaison man between the Hamas headquarters in Saudi Arabia and Hamas in the West Bank."

http://www.iranian.ws/iran_news/publish/article_9959.shtml

[The 801]

Kind of sloppy, but an interesting fact stated. Is it a fact? Who knows? But mugniyeh lends himself to this sort of reporting:

".......in a combined CIA/Mossad operation, a powerful car bomb went off at the entrance to the house of Hizbullah’s spiritual leader, Sheikh Muhammad Hussein Fadlallah. Seventy-five people were killed. One of them was his brother. Hunted by the CIA and the Mossad, Mughniyeh hid in Iran.

In February 1992, Israeli helicopter gunships attacked the convoy of the then head of Hizbullah, Sheikh Abas Musawi, in South Lebanon. Musawi, his wife and children were killed and the revenge attack followed a month later. According to press reports, Mughniyeh was called back into action and, in a well-planned and devastating attack, his people blew up the Israeli embassy in Argentina. The building was demolished and 92 were killed. Only last year, after a long investigation, did Argentina issue a warrant for Mughniyeh’s arrest.

http://www.dafka.org/NewsGen.asp?S=4&PageID=634


Now, this is not Debka, it is Dafka... here is what their website states;

"DAFKA" is an acronym for Defending America For Knowledgeable Action. Our mission is to proactively fight the propaganda and indoctrination campaign currently being waged on US campuses by proactively providing the truth and information about the Arab and militant Muslim war being waged against a fellow American ally, Israel.

Israel is America's number one ally. And we at DAFKA consider our work also as helping the US in an increasingly totalitarian world.

“DAFKA” (sometimes spelled "DAVKA" in English) also has many meanings in Hebrew. It refers to the period when the tribes of Moses were at their lowest and received manna from heaven. Classically it means “between thine eyes”. Contemporaneously, it means “in spite of…”. And in modern Hebrew slang it means “in your face!”.


Whew, that makes sense....-801

[The 801]

If this was not Mugniyeh, it was somebody damn close to him who set this up. It has all of his trademarks. Education, Indoctrination, lethal. This could be the fall out of his visits to Iraq reported last year. - 801

Iran 'is training Basra killers'

Iran's military are accused of links to Shia militias in Iraq
Specialist bomb-makers targeting British troops in southern Iraq are being trained by an elite arm of Iran's armed forces, UK defence sources say.
Insurgents making tank-busting explosives, which have killed eight UK soldiers in recent months, are being trained in Iran and Lebanon, they say.

BBC defence correspondent Paul Wood in Basra says the claims implicate the Iranian government. Tehran denies them.

The MoD said the new claims supported Tony Blair's concerns of an Iran link.

Shaped charger

The prime minister said evidence linked the attacks either to Iran or its militant, Lebanese allies Hezbollah, but added that officials could not be sure.

Defence sources now say Iran's Revolutionary Guard, which is an elite fighting force appointed by the country's supreme leader, is giving the original bomb-making training to Iraq insurgents, our correspondent said.

The bomb specialists are then said to return to Basra where they spread the knowledge among fellow insurgents targeting British military convoys.

The bombs being used have a specially shaped charge capable of puncturing a hole in the cladding of UK armoured vehicles, Paul Wood said.

The particular nature of those devices lead us either to Iranian elements or to Hezbollah... however, we can't be sure of this

Tony Blair on claims of an Iran link

The success of these attacks has led British forces to use helicopters to transport troops so as to avoid being targeted, he added.

These fresh claims, which first appeared in the Sun newspaper, follow earlier allegations by a British official over Iranian links to the Shia insurgents in southern Iraq.

The unnamed official also linked the type of bombs used in the attacks on UK forces in Basra to Iran's Revolutionary Guard.


Blair expressed concern during a joint conference with the Iraqi leader

They had provided technology to a Shia Muslim group in southern Iraq, he claimed, prompting a diplomatic storm.

The accusation was the first time a British official had made specific allegations over Iran's role in Iraq.

'Baseless'

Speaking at a joint news conference in London with Iraqi President Jalal Talabani last week, Mr Blair said it was clear "that there have been new explosive devices used - not just against British troops but elsewhere in Iraq.

"The particular nature of those devices lead us either to Iranian elements or to Hezbollah... however, we can't be sure of this," he added.

Despite the qualification, Mr Blair said there could be "no justification" for interfering in Iraq.

The Ministry of Defence said these new claims supported the prime minister's comments.

'No proof'

A spokesman said the evidence pointed towards Iranian involvement, but it did not have decisive proof.

Reiterating the prime minister's statement he said: "What is clear is that there are new types of explosives being used by insurgents in Basra and elsewhere in Iraq.

"The particular nature of them leads us to think of Iranian elements or Hezbollah".

But he said there was no clear proof Iran's Revolutionary Guard was involved.

Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said the UK hoped to discuss the evidence with Iran.

But the Iranian government has dismissed the claims as "baseless" and demanded the UK government produce evidence to back up the claims.


Basra's governor has accused UK forces of destabilising the area

It has also denied any role in the blasts that have killed eight British soldiers in Iraq in the last five months.

Meanwhile British forces in Iraq are trying to draw a line under the storming of a police station in Basra by saying the UK is prepared to pay compensation for injuries and damage suffered in the incident.

In a joint statement, the British Consulate General, representing the Army, and the Provincial Council of Basra expressed "regret" over the incidents which took place in the city on September 19.

"We also regret the casualties on both sides and the material damage to public facilities," the statement said.

"The British Government is prepared to pay valid claims for compensation for casualties and material damage in the well-established manner."

The British commander in the city ordered troops to storm the police station to rescue two undercover SAS soldiers who were said to have been handed over to local militias after being arrested by Iraqi police.

The local governor denounced the British action as "barbaric" and the incident threatened to wreck relations between the UK forces and Iraqi authorities.


http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/4333246.stm

[Vancouver]

http://www.interpol.int/public/Data/Wanted/Notices/Data/1994/81/1994_22881.asp
Some of the info on that page was new to me, including this old photo:
http://www.interpol.int/Public/Data/Wanted/Notices/Images/photo/original/2003/12/17/53059017.jpg
Wanted by Argentina, presumably for the Jewish community center bombing. There is a Lebanese Shi'ite community in Argentina.

[The 801]

Vancouver,
If you would like to see some real photos of Mugniyeh, Go to the local Barnes and Nobles and check out Robert Baer's "See No Evil" This ex CIA guy has hunted Mugniyeh and includes a few photos of him in that book that he found. Yep, he looks like that picture. Very slight guy, Napoleonic complex indicated. - That wacky 801

[sidthereal]

this is a great thread

[The 801]

Now, Here is a business associate of Mugniyeh's who has been in the news lately.( sorry for the comments)

Syria Interior minister commits suicide

DAMASCUS, Syria, Oct. 12 (UPI) -- Syrian Interior Minister Ghazi Kenaan committed suicide Wednesday, days before the release of a U.N. report into the slaying of ex-Lebanon premier Rafik Hariri. (Lebanese Billionair trying to rebuild Lebanon physically and politically. - 801)

Kenaan, 63, who was head of Syrian military intelligence in Lebanon between 1982 and 2001,( 1982, Mugniyeh was about 25, and had been running wild making a name for himself on the streets of Beruit as a very dangerous guy. He was discovered by Yasser Arafat and became a member of the PLO's Force 17, a combination presidental body guard and special forces and wrecking crew. You can bet that Imad was well known to Kenaan, probibly did some work for him. - this is informed speculation of course, but fits known facts - 801) is the second senior Syrian official to end his life in five years. Former Prime Minister Mahmoud Zooby committed suicide in May 2000 in his home where he was held under arrest on charges of corruption.

The official Syrian News Agency, SANA, said Kenaan committed suicide in his office in Damascus.

Kenaan was interviewed along with other Syrian security officials by an international team investigating Hariri's Feb. 14 assassination in a massive Beirut blast. ( a graceful exit, considering the curcumstances - The ever thoughtful 801)

He had contacted the Lebanese "Voice of Lebanon" radio hours before he committed suicide, saying "I believe this is the last statement that I can make." He said Syria has "a great interest" in uncovering the truth about Hariri's assassination, stressing that his testimony to the international investigators was aimed at "shedding light on the phase during which we served Lebanon."

Syria ended its military and intelligence presence in Lebanon last April 26. ( After Kenaan killed Hariri, that is ...- The let's call a spade a spade 801)

In the early days of his career, Kenaan served as intelligence chief in several Syrian regions. In 2001 he was appointed as head of political security department and became Interior minister in 2004.

He was married and father of six. ( Umm, only one wife. Those bathist ain't too religous, are they? - The sad sack sunni sociologist 801)

http://www.sciencedaily.com/upi/?feed=TopNews&article=UPI-1-20051012-08503200-bc-syria-suicide-1stld.xml

Seems to me we always overlook the Science Daily as a news source, don't we? - 801

[Vancouver]

Thanks 801, I'll look for that book.

I'll do a little theorizing... IMO Mugniyeh's sheer insanity is what makes him different from all the other senior Muslim terrorists. Other outright psychos, like Moussaoui, just follow orders until they are killed or locked up by one side or the other. If Mugniyeh was already clinical in 1985, what shape is in now? Can he really be alive and at large, and still given authority and money and papers by (say) some faction in Iran or Syria? The last I've really heard of Mugniyeh abroad is the 1996 report of a meeting in Sudan between a Qaida representative and a Hizbollah representative, said to be IFM, hosted by a Sudanese sheikh called Ali Numeini. But that report has had little real substantiation AFAIK and it has the ring of sheer rumour to me.
Lebanese Hizbollah is not what it was 10-20 years ago; they were big heroes of the gutter when the Israelis withdrew from southern Lebanon (after chasing Arafat's gang to Beirut) but that episode doesn't impress younger Muslims any more, the Syrians are being hooted out of Lebanon by Lebanese Sunnis and Christians, Israel's current enemies are primarily Sunni Hamas and the many irreligious Palestinian street gangs, etc. etc. None of these groups ever mentions Mugniyeh.
I suppose Mugniyeh might be at home in a Shiite community somewhere, among refugees and fugitives and drifters who retain the rather distinctive Lebanese culture. Or he could be in a sort of protective custody in Iran, as, for example, Idi Amin was given shelter by the Sauds, and Abu Sayyef by Saddam Hussein. Perhaps Iran or Syria keeps Mugniyeh around for possible future use as a bargaining chip, if not as an assassin.
A lot of the "big" terrorists are unusually short, have you noticed? Haroun Fazul aka Fazul Abdullah Mohammed is only 5'3" to 5'5". Adnan Shukijumah 5'3" to 5'6". The Bangladesh Wahhabi with red beard (Abdur Rahman?) 5'3".

But I've got to get back to work on that Arabic translation software :) Lots of people are waiting for it.

[The 801]

Interesting Stuff Vancouver,
Allow me to comment in a later post. But basically, I think he runs a Madrass in Qods, Iran for the spread of Islamic terror. You see, a lot of his buddies, who supported him have now risen to high positions in the new Iranian govenment. I will elucidate of that later. But I will bet he has something to do with this:


Iran’s senior officials to honour suicide bombers in ceremony
Mon. 17 Oct 2005

Tehran, Iran, Oct. 17 – Volunteers for suicide bombing operations will be honoured during a ceremony attended by senior Iranian government officials later this month, the spokesman for the “Headquarters for Commemoration of Martyrs of Global Islamic Movement” said on Sunday.

The gathering which will take place in Tehran on October 30 has been entitled “Men of the Sun”, Mohammad-Ali Samadi announced in an interview with the state-owned Mehr news agency.

Samadi said that forms would be provided to attendees to volunteer for suicide operations, adding, “Until now, 40,000 people have signed up for martyrdom-seeking operations and three battalions of volunteers for these operations have been formed and the formation of more battalions will be announced in due course”.

Last week, a top general of Iran’s elite Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) issued a direct threat to the United States and its allies, warning that the Islamic Republic had identified “all the weak points of our enemies” and has suicide operation volunteers “ready to strike at these sensitive locations” in retaliation to any attack.

“We know all of the enemies’ weak points and what to do against them. Today, we have martyrdom-seeking individuals who are ready to strike at these sensitive points”, Brigadier General Mohammad Kossari, who heads the Security Bureau of Iran’s Armed Forces, told the state-run news agency ILNA.

Last month, Iran’s newly-installed Defence Minister announced that the Islamic Republic had volunteers for suicide bombing that enabled the country to stand up to foreign enemies.

Brigadier General Mostafa Mohammad-Najjar, a veteran Revolutionary Guards commander, told a gathering of Guards commanders in Tehran, “The Iranian nation has martyrdom-seeking Bassij forces, and so there is no need for nuclear weapons”, according to Parto-Sokhan, an ultra-Islamist weekly close to Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

The Bassij - affiliated to the IRGC - are hard-line Islamist vigilantes loyal to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

“A nation which has a spirit of devotion, sacrifice, self-forgoing, and martyrdom-seeking does not need nuclear weapons and can use its devoted forces to stand against the enemies and neutralise all their threats”, Defence Minister Mohammad-Najjar said.

“Our martyrs have shown the world powers that Islamic Iran is alive, dynamic, and willing to make the biggest sacrifices to defend its values and dignity”, Mohammad-Najjar said.

In July, Parto-Sokhan conducted a series of interviews with the commander of a military garrison that was opened in Iran to recruit and train volunteers for “martyrdom-seeking operations”.

Mohammad-Reza Jaafari, a general in the IRGC, told the weekly that the new “Lovers of Martyrdom Garrison” (Gharargahe Asheghane Shahadat, in Persian) would recruit individuals willing to carry out suicide operations against Western targets.


http://www.iranfocus.com/modules/news/article.php?storyid=4034

[The 801]

I found these looking around. It happened earlier this year, but I don't remember seeing this before. Probibly not Mugniyeh related, but gives a flavor of this part of the culture in Iran...

Iranian opposition tracking, killing senior military officers

Tuesday, July 19, 2005

Iran's opposition is targeting senior officers of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

Iranian opposition sources said several senior officers of the IRGC have been tracked in major cities, including Teheran. The sources reported the killing of several officers of the IRGC and the Basij militia.

On July 14, an IRGC colonel was stabbed to death in Teheran, Iran's media said, according to Middle East Newsline. The sources said Col. Morteza Moinfar, commander of the Quds Force, was killed by several unidentified assailants.

The Quds Force has been regarded as the foreign intelligence service of the IRGC. The unit has been responsible for aiding Hizbullah, Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Fatah as well as other insurgency groups in the Middle East, Asia and South America.

The IRGC unit was linked to the 1996 bombing of the Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia, which killed 19 American soldiers. The force was also said to have been responsible for the killing of dissidents in Europe in the early 1990s.

Iran's media reported that Moinfar was stabbed repeatedly. So far, authorities have not announced the arrest of suspects.

In June, a Basij officer was stabbed to death in the Baghestan area of Teheran. Iranian opposition sources said the officer was attacked by two young Iranians after he threatened them with a pistol.

Iran has also been rocked by Kurdish unrest in the northwestern city of Mahabad. On Monday, an Iranian soldier was killed in clashes with Mahabad residents.

( this is the guy on whose blog this appeared, I left it in because I thought it was insightful - The King of Clarity 801)

DoctorZin:
There are reports that this was a "signature murder" similar to the execution of other famous dissidents. Thus leading us to speculate that this murder was ordered by Rafsanjani or rogue elements associated with him. If so, it would be further evidence of a power struggle within the regime.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1446788/posts

And again....

A colonel in the elite Qods (Jerusalem) Force of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps was killed in a fashionable neighbourhood of Tehran on Thursday, according to the state-sponsored website Baztab.

Colonel Morteza Moinfar was a commander in the Qods Force, the extraterritorial arm of the Revolutionary Guards whose stated mission is to “export the Islamic revolution” to other Muslim countries.

The Qods Force has been responsible for some of the biggest terrorist attacks sponsored by Iran in the Middle East, Europe, and South America, including the 1996 bombing of the Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia, which killed 19 Americans.

The force has been the lead agency of the Iranian regime’s clandestine activities in Iraq and has a large network of operators and informants across the country.

Moinfar had been repeatedly stabbed, the report said. Authorities have launched a massive manhunt to find his killers.


http://regimechangeiran.blogspot.com/2005/07/qods-force-commander-slain-in-iran.html

[Vancouver]

Putting Mugniyeh in charge of a madrass... It does sound like something the regime might do with AFM. Whatever kind of brainwashing is done in a Shiite madrass, Tehran could rely on Mugniyeh for the necessary ruthlessness. And since Mugniyeh is such a loose cannon, it could be that Tehran has given him authority over some group, such as a madrass, simply for the purpose of keeping him busy. It's not easy to think up places where Imad Mugniyeh would "fit in".

[The 801]

OK, first some commentary. Mugniyeh, I believe, has risen to a position of political power in Iran now. This is because of the rise of the conservative president and new political power of the IRGC. Mugniyeh was always in the shadows, and the shadow he hid in was the IRGC's. Now the IRCG is starting to call the shots:

Iran key player in Middle East – Revolutionary Guards Chief
Mon. 31 Oct 2005

Iran Focus

Tehran, Iran, Oct. 31 – The Commandant of Iran’s elite Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) told a gathering of the organisation’s para-military Bassij force that the Islamic Republic was the region’s central power and wielded influence over political decisions in the Middle East.

“The Islamic Republic of Iran is at the heart of the three strategic regions of the Middle East, Central Asia, and the Caucasus. It can play a decisive role in the emergence of political, economic, cultural, and security entities in the region”, Major General Rahim Safavi said on Sunday.

Safavi said that presently both the region and the wider world were ripe for the taking and government officials and the Bassij had to be prepared to defend Iran’s national interests........

http://www.iranfocus.com/modules/news/article.php?storyid=4228

So it should not be a surprise to those who follow this tread that the status of Saad Bin Laden has once again surfaced:


'Iran sheltering Osama's sons'
Tuesday Nov. 01, 2005, BERLIN: Iran is providing refuge to around 25 leading members of the Al Qaeda terror group including three of Osama Bin Laden's sons, a German magazine reported on Wednesday.
Cicero magazine said Saad, Mohammed and Othman Bin Laden as well as other Al Qaeda members from Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Uzbekistan, north Africa and Europe were living in and around Tehran under the protection of Iran's Republican Guard.

The magazine quoted a "top ranking Western secret service agent" as saying the Al Qaeda members were free to move around. "They are not under arrest or house arrest," the unnamed source told the respected monthly Cicero. "They can do what they like."

Saad Bin Laden, who is around 25, is thought to have played a key financial and logistical role in several Al Qaeda attacks and is on a US most wanted list. Osama Bin Laden is believed to have more than 20 sons by several wives. Iran's new President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Wednesday called for Israel to be "wiped off the map". It was the first time in years that such a high ranking Iranian official has called for the Jewish state's eradication, even though such slogans are still regularly used at regime rallies.

http://indiamonitor.com/news/readNews.jsp?ni=9200

It has been previously documented here that Saad has been in Iran for a while now, courtesy of Mugniyeh. He smuggled Bin Laden's family out of Afghanistan shortly after the US war started there. ( Note rare mention of Bin Laden's other sons names in above article)


Now we get this piece of speculation:

TERRORISM: DOUBTS OVER BIN LADEN'S FATE, ONE YEAR AFTER LAST VIDEO
Dubai, 25 Oct. (AKI) - One year since the broadcast of Osama bin Laden's last video message, in which he addressed the American people shortly before their presidential elections, the al-Qaeda leader's absence has raised questions over his fate. In December an audio message appeared, attributed to the Saudi terrorist leader, in which he talked about the attack on the US consulate in Jeddah ten days earlier, but since October 2004, all other video messages have featured bin Laden's deputy, Egyptian doctor Ayman al-Zawahiri.

Bin Laden's absence has increased the doubts of anti-terrorism experts over the possible fate of the founder of al-Qaeda. According to the latest theory, put forward recently by the Indian media, bin Laden was killed in the devastating earthquake that struck Pakistan-administered Kashmir on 8 October, after seeking refuge in that area at the beginning of the month to avoid the military offensive in Waziristan.

However, this version has been denied by Kamal Habib, a former leader of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad group. During an interview with Dubai-based Al-Arabiya television, he claimed the Saudi terror leader's absence is part of a strategy, in which only al-Zawahiri appears for security reasons.

Abdel Rahim Ali, an Arab journalist and expert on Islamic movements, also rules out the death of bin Laden. "If that had happened, certainly al-Qaeda would have released the news by making an official announcement," he explains. Instead, Ali believes it is very likely that the founder of the terror organisation is seriously ill and is unable to receive the medical treatment he needs in the tribal areas where he is currently believed to be hiding.

The third and final hypothesis being considered by anti-terrorism experts is that bin Laden has fled, abandoning Afghanistan and Pakistan in order to receive medical treatment in a neighbouring country. It is thought that bin Laden may have left Afghanistan with the help of various Islamic cells spread throughout Central Asia.
All these theories suggest that al-Zawahiri has now effectively become the leader of al-Qaeda on the battlefield. Meanwhile, the Jordanian militant and leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi has been given the task of exporting the Jihad, or holy war, to the Middle East and Europe, as many intelligence reports claim, as well as intercepted correspondence between the two terror leaders.

http://www.adnki.com/index_2Level.php?cat=Terrorism&loid=8.0.222510259&par=0

So what is 801 getting at? ( sorry for ending a sentence in a proposition there)(Oops, two in a row, sorry)

It would make a lot of sense to assume that Bin Laden has gone to Iran.
- Mugniyeh's increased position in the government to get him there.
- his ideological connection to the new mainstream government.
- Mugniyeh's personal connection with Saad and the whole family (they used to live in the same neighborhood)
- As mentioned, Bin Laden family is in Iran.
- Bin ladens ill (?), and needs professional medical attention.
- Iran's renewed anti Americanism.
- Bin Laden cannot be found. He travels with an entourage that would be hard to hide. He has done the same as Mugniyeh and disappeared into the Nirvana of Iran.

That is my poorly informed speculation, but it makes sense if you think about it - 801

[The 801]

As per the above speculation...

Key Al Qaeda role for bin Laden son
Saad bin Laden part of network’s upper echelon
By Douglas Farah and Dana Priest
THE WASHINGTON POST
Oct. 14 — Saad bin Laden, one of Osama bin Laden’s oldest sons, has emerged in recent months as part of the upper echelon of the al Qaeda network, a small group of leaders that is managing the terrorist organization from Iran, according to U.S., European and Arab officials.

SAAD BIN LADEN and other senior al Qaeda operatives were in contact with an al Qaeda cell in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, in the days immediately prior to the May 12 suicide bombing there that left 35 people dead, including eight Americans, European and U.S. intelligence sources say. The sources would not divulge the nature or contents of the communications, but the contacts have led them to conclude that the Riyadh attacks were planned in Iran and ordered from there.

PASSING THE MANTLE
Although Saad bin Laden is not the top leader of the terrorist group, his presence in the decision-making process demonstrates his father’s trust in him and an apparent desire to pass the mantle of leadership to a family member, according to numerous terrorism analysts inside and outside of government.
Like other al Qaeda leaders in Iran, the younger bin Laden, who is believed to be 24 years old, is protected by an elite, radical Iranian security force loyal to the nation’s clerics and beyond the control of the central government, according to U.S. and European intelligence officials. The secretive unit, known as the Jerusalem Force, has restricted the al Qaeda group’s movements to its bases, mostly along the border with Afghanistan.
Also under the Jerusalem Force’s protection is Saif al-Adel, al Qaeda’s chief of military operations; Abdullah Ahmed Abdullah, the organization’s chief financial officer, and perhaps two dozen other top al Qaeda leaders, the officials said. Al-Adel and Abdullah are considered the top operational deputies to Osama bin Laden and his second-in-command, Ayman Zawahiri, who communicate with underlings almost exclusively through couriers.
The presence of Saad bin Laden and other al Qaeda leaders in Iran has become part of a debate within the governments of the United States and Saudi Arabia over the best way to reduce Iranian support for terrorism. U.S. officials have sent stern warnings to the government of President Mohammad Khatami that Iran’s harboring of senior al Qaeda operatives would have repercussions for a nation the Bush administration has labeled part of the “axis of evil.”
Intelligence officials believe that although the State Department is eager to renew talks with Iran on a variety of issues, primarily its nuclear program, it is not clear whether that nation’s civilian government could deliver its end of any bargain, especially if it entailed turning over al Qaeda leaders.
“Iran will continue to pursue an asymmetric strategy in which they court Western acceptance, while maintaining their surrogate leadership roles within the Islamic extremist community,” a U.S. intelligence analysis says.
Similarly, Saudi Arabia, which in recent years has tried to thaw relations with its larger and more powerful neighbor across the Persian Gulf, is trying, unsuccessfully, to persuade Iran to extradite Saad bin Laden and others suspected in the Riyadh bombing. Saudi officials estimate there are up to 400 al Qaeda members there.

‘SOMEBODY MUST BE HELPING THEM’
“Those people are in Iran and somebody must be helping them. The question is who?” Prince Bandar bin Sultan, the Saudi ambassador, told the San Francisco Chronicle last month. “This is the problem with Iran. The people who we can deal with can’t deliver, they can’t lead eight ducks across the street. And the guys who can deliver, they’re not interested.”
As a child, Saad bin Laden was at his father’s side in Afghanistan in the mid-1980s when Osama bin Laden formed the Al Qaeda network. The younger bin Laden was groomed to take a leadership role in the terrorism organization. He is fluent in English and is computer-literate, two qualities rare among al Qaeda leaders and assets that have enhanced his importance beyond his family name.
Yet Saad has only recently emerged as an important target for the CIA, FBI and other organizations trying to disrupt the terrorist network. It has only been since his arrival in Iran in the last year that he has assumed a more active role in directing al Qaeda, and that he has been identified as a senior leader. Before that, analysts said, he often sat with his father in leadership meetings but seldom spoke and was not given a voice in deliberations.
Many experts believe, for example, that he also had direct involvement in coordinating a series of bombings on May 16 that killed 45 people in Casablanca, Morocco.
‘Because his father is incommunicado, a lot of people are looking to Saad to give them direct instructions.’
— KENNETH KATZMAN Congressional Research Service Kenneth Katzman, a terrorism analyst for the Congressional Research Service, said Saad “is touted as his father’s stand-in. Because his father is incommunicado, a lot of people are looking to Saad to give them direct instructions.”
While there is broad agreement that Saad bin Laden’s role within al Qaeda has grown increasingly important in the past six months, not everyone agrees he is now a senior operational commander. One U.S. intelligence official said Saad is “more of a player than most of the offspring, but not that significant.” Osama Bin Laden has more than two dozen children with five wives.
But European intelligence officials and independent analysts said Saad bin Laden, while not the most important al Qaeda leader, is helping to make key operational decisions and is an important part of al Qaeda’s logistical network. Some analysts believe he was very close to Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, who was captured in March.
“Saad is capable of mounting operations against the West because he knows the West very well,” said Rohan Gunaratna, director of terrorism research at the Institute of Defense and Strategic Studies in Singapore. “Saad has been very close to his father, almost functioning as his bodyguard.”
Saad bin Laden is one of the eldest sons of bin Laden and his first wife, Najwa Ghanem, a Syrian who is also the terrorist leader’s first cousin. The couple had 11 children, but Osama bin Laden has taken at least four other wives and divorced one, according to biographies in the Arab press and U.S. officials. Islam allows men to take as many as four wives at one time.

BATTLING SOVIETS
Born in Saudi Arabia, Saad bin Laden spent time with his father in Afghanistan during the war against the Soviet occupation. His father returned to Saudi Arabia in 1989, but left in 1991 to settle in Sudan. Again, Saad accompanied him. When bin Laden returned to Afghanistan in 1996, so did Saad.
According to one terrorism expert, Osama bin Laden was filmed in Afghanistan admonishing al Qaeda members not to expect their children to take leadership positions in the movement unless the children were willing to work hard for the cause. Bin Laden then singled Saad out for praise as a hard worker and said he was proud of his son.
Gunaratna said that an analysis of bin Laden’s satellite telephone calls from 1996 to 1998 showed that more than 10 percent were placed to Iran, demonstrating the ongoing contacts with Iran during that time.
Officials said there is also evidence that another key liaison between the hard-line Iranian factions and al Qaeda is Imad Mugniyah, one of the world’s most wanted terrorists.
Mugniyah, a Lebanese national and senior Hezbollah leader, is responsible for the kidnapping and murder of several Americans, as well as the hijacking of aircraft and the bombing of U.S. military barracks in Beirut in the 1980s, according to the FBI and CIA. Before Sept. 11, 2001, he was responsible for the deaths of more Americans than any other terrorist.
According to court testimony of former al Qaeda operatives, Mugniyah met bin Laden several times in Sudan in the mid-1990s and agreed to train al Qaeda combatants in the use of explosives and other techniques in exchange for weapons.
A description of Mugniyah’s ongoing role was provided to authorities by a member of the Jerusalem Force who defected to Britain earlier this year. In a February interview with the London-based Saudi daily Al-Sarq al-Awsat, the defector said Mugniyah remained in Iran and had personally “planned the escape of dozens of al Qaeda men to Iran.”
The defector, Hamid Zakiri, said Mugniyah served as “a liaison officer with Dr. Zawahiri and with commanders of other fundamentalist organizations.”
Zakiri said that among those Mugniyah aided were bin Laden’s youngest wife, Amal al-Saddah, and her infant child, whom he provided with safe passage from Afghanistan through Iran to her homeland of Yemen as the U.S. bombing of Afghanistan began.
European intelligence sources said that much of Zakiri’s information had been verified.

Research editor Margot Williams contributed to this report.

http://www.msnbc.com/news/979918.asp?cp1=1

[The 801]

Mugniyeh set this up.

Hezbollah ID'd in 1994 Argentina attack

Wednesday, November 9, 2005; Posted: 8:12 p.m. EST (01:12 GMT)

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) -- The Argentine government on Wednesday Hezbollah ID'd in 1994 Argentina attack
Dozens of people killed at Jewish centeridentified a Hezbollah militant as the suicide bomber who destroyed a Jewish community center and killed 85 people in 1994, embracing accusations made earlier by Jewish groups and the U.S. Congress.

The announcement by prosecutor Alberto Nisman added to earlier accusations that the Iranian-backed group was responsible for Argentina's worst terrorist attack, though he did not specifically allege Iranian involvement.

Nisman said at a news conference that Ibrahim Hussein Berro, a Lebanese citizen, detonated a van packed with explosives at the community center in downtown Buenos Aires, which served the country's more than 200,000 Jews.

Berro had been identified as the suspected bomber in a resolution passed on July 22, 2004, by the U.S. House of Representatives that urged a solution to the case. The resolution said that Berro reportedly been in contact with the Iranian Embassy in Buenos Aires.

Iran had no immediate comment on the latest developments, but it has vehemently denied earlier allegations of involvement. Nisman said there are several lines of investigation, "including the hypothesis of help from Iran."

Nisman said Hussein "belonged to Hezbollah," an international Iranian-backed Islamic militant group. He said friends and relatives of the man identified him through a photograph, which he called a major breakthrough in the decade-old probe.

Nisman said investigators believe the 21-year-old attacker entered Argentina in the tri-border region at the joint borders of Argentina, Paraguay and Brazil, a center of smuggling and alleged terrorist fundraising.

For years, the Jewish community pressured Argentine law enforcement to solve the attack, which also wounded more than 200 people.

A leading Argentine political analyst, Rosendo Fraga, said the announcement seemed to be a response to that pressure.

"It doesn't seem to me that there's anything here that's new and relevant," Fraga said.

In March 2003, a judge asked Interpol for help in arresting four Iranian diplomats allegedly involved in the bombing. Iran recalled its ambassador from Buenos Aires and denied involvement.

In August 2003, English authorities detained Hade Soleimanpour, the Iranian ambassador to Argentina when the attack occurred, but he was later freed on bail when a judge ruled there was insufficient evidence against him.

The judge in charge of the case was removed in December 2003 after complaints of slow progress.

Survivors have bitterly decried the lack of leads, noting that swift progress was made by investigators in other countries after terrorist attacks in New York, Madrid and London.

The Jewish center bombing was the second of two such attacks targeting Jews in Argentina during the 1990s. A March 1992 blast destroyed the Israeli Embassy in Buenos Aires, killing 29 people. That bombing also remains unsolved.

http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/americas/11/09/argentina.bombing.ap/


This is way out of control. The judge original involved was removed because he was slow, but it was found that he was being bribed to be inactive. Iran had Mugniyeh run both operations outlined above as part of his position as Hezbollah International Command unit. Any Questions, let me know... the 801

[The 801]

The Reverand Sun Young Moon mentions Mugniyeh in editoral:

Fractured flow of intelligence?

By F. Michael Maloof
November 22, 2005

The urgent need for a national center for intelligence sharing was obvious well before September 11, 2001, but it did not come into being in time to avert the tragic attacks. Unfortunately, though more than four years have elapsed, the intelligence collaboration system in effect now still is not up to the task of meeting the threat. The nation remains at risk.
Rep. Curt Weldon, Pennsylvania Republican, conceived of the idea of a national collaborative center in 1999, two years before September 11. His concept would have fused U.S. law enforcement and intelligence community analysis to address issues through massive data mining of classified and unclassified information.
The national collaborative center would have been comprised of agency-owned and directed "pods" to provide automated data sharing and connectivity to confront such asymmetrical threats as terrorism, proliferation, arms trafficking, narcotics, information warfare and cyberterrorism.
Yet, it would have given policy oversight with accountability, since it would have resided in a Cabinet Department.
This is just the opposite of the post-September 11 creation of the Terrorist Threat Integration Center (TTIC) under the Central Intelligence Agency. Said to be a fusion center of information, the TTIC has no policy accountability. Sources also report a continuing culture clash at the TTIC between CIA's information collection and the FBI's goal to seek prosecutions. Neither entity allows unfettered access of the other to its information to get a complete picture of an issue.
Informed sources say this problem continues despite the catastrophe of September 11. It also reflects a culture clash evident prior to September 11 when the two agencies were at the Counter-Terrorism Center (CTC) at CIA headquarters.
Given its small staff then, the CTC never was designed to fuse data from law enforcement with intelligence. Indeed, it was geared more toward developing operational plans to counter terrorist activity overseas.
Consequently, the CTC configuration minimized any timely integration of law enforcement information with CIA data.
The continuing culture clash between CIA and FBI has no better illustration than in dealings with the Iranian- and Syrian-backed terrorist group, Hezbollah.
The CIA's job is to develop information about the terrorist group. CIA information on the head of Hezbollah's terrorist element, Imad Mughniyeh, may not be shared with the FBI.
Why? The FBI seeks to prosecute Mughniyeh and has offered a multimillion-dollar reward for him. Were he arrested, it could close down information channels the CIA developed over time.
Mughniyeh, a Lebanese Shi'ite Muslim, was indicted by the United States in 1985 for the hijacking of a TWA airliner in which a U.S. Navy diver was killed. He also is suspected as a principal in the 1984 Beirut kidnapping murder of CIA station chief William Buckley, as well as suicide bombings of the U.S. Embassy and a U.S. Marine barracks, killing about 300 people.
Creation of the national collaborative center did not require the massive reorganization that occurred after September 11, 2001, with creation of the Department of Homeland Security. While this brought together all law enforcement agencies, the politics behind its creation continues to keep intelligence community information separate. It also still does not necessarily provide access to all-source information to handle a problem, particularly published references.
Before September 11, for example, a member of this writer's staff found a published story of Mullah Omar Bakri Mohammed, claiming al Qaeda was training "Kamikazes." Mullah Bakri's interview with an Italian newspaper was given in October 2000.
The staff person sought to bring this published information to the FBI's attention but repeatedly was put off. Finally, he was given an appointment two weeks from the time he sought to meet with the FBI -- September 12, 2001.
If data mining under Mr. Weldon's national collaborative center concept had gone into effect when he first introduced it in 1999, this open source information could have been combined with the FBI's investigative work of following Saudis and suspected terrorists attending U.S. flight schools.
Also, the CIA had information prior to September 11 that two known suspected Islamic militants, Nawaf Alhazmi and Khalid al-Midhar, had flown to San Diego, Calif. However, the FBI was not informed. The two known militants, who would hijack American Airlines Flight 77 on September 11, received help from an FBI informant who found them an apartment and a second FBI asset who later rented them a room in his own home.
Indeed, the CIA in March 1999 received from German officials the first name and phone number of another Islamic militant, Marwan al-Shehhi, a roommate of Mohamed Atta. Al-Shehhi piloted United Airlines Flight 175 into the South Tower of the World Trade Center. Atta flew American Airlines Flight 11.
For unknown reasons, the CIA never followed up with him, thereby missing a potential opportunity to penetrate al Qaeda in Hamburg, Germany. Al-Shehhi later was to arrive in the United States to attend flight school. Here, too, the CIA never passed information on to the FBI.
Had there been a national collaborative center to combine all this information, along with the spike in intelligence on threats at the time, it well resulted in an entirely different outcome on September 11, 2001.
Use of intelligence and law enforcement information can be made more effective with the stroke of the presidential pen. An Executive Order could make the national collaborative center a tool of the National Security Council, with a Cabinet-level department, such as the Defense Department, as its executive agent. That would increase transparency and accountability.
However, vested bureaucratic interests of those elements in law enforcement and the intelligence community may continue opposing such a creation. Apparently, when institutional interests conflict with the national interest, the former prevail. We therefore need to prepare for a repetition of our past mistakes, probably at an even more terrible price than before.

F. Michael Maloof is a former senior policy analyst in the Office of the Secretary of Defense

http://washingtontimes.com/commentary/20051121-093459-7627r.htm

Could Able Danger get Mugniyeh? Not now. Could it have gotten him? Unlikely. He is too professional in his actions and aware that he is an international target. Seems like "padding" here to mention Mugniyeh. Oh well, what ever will sell papers, I guess.....

[The 801]

DEBKAfile Exclusive:
Iranian military instructors have slipped into Lebanon with new missile to teach Hizballah how better to destroy Israeli tanks

November 28, 2005, 9:23 PM (GMT+02:00)

The clandestine arrival of scores of Iranian Revolutionary Guards specialist instructors via Damascus is Tehran’s response to the shortcomings displayed by the Hizballah when it bombarded northern Israel on Nov. 21 - DEBKAfile’s military sources reveal.

Our exclusive sources disclose they stole into the Hizballah’s Lebanese Beqaa Valley bases complete with two new weapons systems.

One is the new Iranian Motemared (Rebel) anti-tank missile, exposed for the first time in the Middle East. The IDF is not familiar with this weapon, beyond that it is the Iranian version of the Russian K and capable of piercing protective anti-explosive belts 1100-1200 mm thick. It is an all-weather weapon, day-or-night and wire-guided. The missile does not work well where there are tall trees, high electricity wires or water pipes, but is at peak effectiveness in open country of hills and valleys such as South Lebanon.

The surprise the Iranians brought with them was a mockup of an Israel Merkava (Chariot) tank. No one knows where it was manufactured or from what materials. Intelligence watchers report it is an exact replica of the real thing.

The Iranian instructors have set up base at three farms in the Yanta Vadir al Ashair region of the Beqaa valley, where they are instructing Hizballah operatives. They have obviously studied the Hizballah video shots from the bombardment, which depicted an unmanned Israeli tank taking heavy pounding from Sagger missiles without sustaining damage or bursting into flames. The Iranians decided that the Motemared was the answer for destroying an Israeli Chariot. They also seem to have drawn lessons from Iraq where Sunni guerrillas have found ways to disable heavy US M1 Abrams tanks.

The day after its bombardment, Shiite terrorists withdrew troops from the border region. Israeli commanders thought at first it was a tactical retreat for regrouping. Later it turned out the operatives had gone to the Iranian training camps, to study the Chariot’s vulnerabilities and how to use the new missile against them.

The way Iranian RG officers were able to cross into Lebanon from Syria, set up training bases and smuggle in weapons systems shows how little has changed in Lebanon since the Syrian army was ousted. Notwithstanding the UN probe into the Hariri murder, UN Security Council resolutions expelling foreign armies from the country and US-French efforts to help Lebanon recover its sovereignty, Syria and Iran can still make free of Lebanese territory.

This episode also shows how closely Israel’s armed forces are watched by Iran and the speed at which its strategists are capable of drawing operational lessons.

http://www.debka.com/

This was added to this thread because this is up Mugniyeh's alley and his former project. Yea, it's Debka, so take it or leave it....

801

[The 801]

Interesting article from middle eastern source. Indicates that Mugniyeh is not as active, but is still involved in Lebanon, and particularly Hezbollah's management. Article implies as fact that Mugniyeh is involved with Hezbollah. This is the rare factual "up to date" mention of Mugniyeh.


Lebanon: Following military flop, Hizbullah needs to fight for relevancy

Posted: 28-11-2005 , 10:14 GMT


There is no doubt that Hizbullah greatest achievement was forcing Israeli army out of Lebanese soil. However, five years after this landmark victory it seems that the stride of the Lebanese resistance movement is enveloped in mist.

The failure of Hizbullah’s assault on Israel last week - the largest attack on Israeli targets since October 2000 - has raised several questions regarding the status of the Shiite movement, which until recently, was considered one of the most powerful forces in Lebanon. The attempt to capture Israeli soldiers to use them in a prisoner exchange deal resulted in the death of four Hizbullah fighters, three of whose bodies were left in the Israeli enemy's hands. These bodies were returned to Lebanon following the Lebanese government's request, after a similar demand by Hizbullah was rejected.

Timing of the attack (on the eve of Lebanon's Independence Day) and its outcome have damaged the image – even in Israeli eyes – of Hizbullah being a sophisticated military organization with the ability to hurt Israel when it pleases. Many Lebanese have now begun to speak of Hizbullah’s actions as "amateurish," rather than professional and effective. Consequently, the image of the movement's leader, Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, has also been dealt a blow. Throughout the years, Nasrallah was considered one of the most reasonable leaders—not only in Lebanon, but also in the entire Middle East region. Lebanese sources said that it seems that "Nasrallah fell into the trap set for him by an inexperienced Syrian president" who wanted the recent flare up along the Israeli-Lebanese border.

Thus, it is not surprising that there are growing calls in Lebanon to disarm Hizbullah or to integrate it into the Lebanese army, as demanded by U.N. Security Council Resolution 1559 calling for the disarmament of the movement. In this regards, former Lebanese Prime Minister Gen. Michel Aoun was recently quoted by An Nahar daily as calling on Hizbullah to lay down its arms and merge into Lebanon's political life. Others, like Lebanese MP Tueini, advocate deploying Lebanon’s army along the Israeli border.


The recent failure on the battleground can be seen as yet another setback to Hizbullah since the February 14 assassination of ex-Premier Rafiq Hariri. Syria’s withdrawal from Lebanon and the growing anti-Syrian sentiment on the Lebanese street were in complete contradiction to Hizbullah's interests and policies. The isolation of the Syrian patrons in the international arena has pushed Hizbullah to the corner of the domestic political arena.

Lebanese sources, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, told that the recent military flop will likely create internal tension between the organization’s political leadership and its military command. Such lack of confidence in Hizbullah’s military apparatus may drag it into an internal turmoil, the sources projected. In fact, there are already unconfirmed reports about strained relations between Nasrallah and Hizbullas’ head of operations, Imad Mughniyeh, and other officials in the south of Lebanon.

According to these sources, Hizbullah was alarmed by the news published in Israel ahead of the attack of the likelihood of such an assault. Leading figures in Hizbullah believe that details regarding the imminent operation were leaked from the group’s military arm to Lebanese security agencies, and from them to the West and the Israeli intelligence.

Lebanon underwent major political changes in 2005 and it seems much is yet to come for the country as well in 2006. The current Lebanese government is no longer a tool for carrying out the wishes of Damascus. Now, and especially following the recent military fiasco, Hizbullah and Nasrallah must fight to preserve their relevancy in Lebanese politics. One thing is certain: what was acceptable in recent years is no longer the consensus of Lebanon's public opinion. In other words, according to Lebanese sources, Nasrallah must lead his movement from the era of resistance into the era of development. If he fails to do so, and continues to risk Lebanon's stability and interests with further military adventures in the south, Hizbullah is doomed to come under growing pressure to disarm and ultimately forfeit its prominent position within Lebanese politics.

© 2005 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)

http://www.albawaba.com/en/countries/Lebanon/191839

[sidthereal]

Interesting article from middle eastern source. Indicates that Mugniyeh is not as active, but is still involved in Lebanon, and particularly Hezbollah's management. Article implies as fact that Mugniyeh is involved with Hezbollah. This is the rare factual "up to date" mention of Mugniyeh.


Lebanon: Following military flop, Hizbullah needs to fight for relevancy

Posted: 28-11-2005 , 10:14 GMT


There is no doubt that Hizbullah greatest achievement was forcing Israeli army out of Lebanese soil. However, five years after this landmark victory it seems that the stride of the Lebanese resistance movement is enveloped in mist.

The failure of Hizbullah’s assault on Israel last week - the largest attack on Israeli targets since October 2000 - has raised several questions regarding the status of the Shiite movement, which until recently, was considered one of the most powerful forces in Lebanon. The attempt to capture Israeli soldiers to use them in a prisoner exchange deal resulted in the death of four Hizbullah fighters, three of whose bodies were left in the Israeli enemy's hands. These bodies were returned to Lebanon following the Lebanese government's request, after a similar demand by Hizbullah was rejected.

Timing of the attack (on the eve of Lebanon's Independence Day) and its outcome have damaged the image – even in Israeli eyes – of Hizbullah being a sophisticated military organization with the ability to hurt Israel when it pleases. Many Lebanese have now begun to speak of Hizbullah’s actions as "amateurish," rather than professional and effective. Consequently, the image of the movement's leader, Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, has also been dealt a blow. Throughout the years, Nasrallah was considered one of the most reasonable leaders—not only in Lebanon, but also in the entire Middle East region. Lebanese sources said that it seems that "Nasrallah fell into the trap set for him by an inexperienced Syrian president" who wanted the recent flare up along the Israeli-Lebanese border.

Thus, it is not surprising that there are growing calls in Lebanon to disarm Hizbullah or to integrate it into the Lebanese army, as demanded by U.N. Security Council Resolution 1559 calling for the disarmament of the movement. In this regards, former Lebanese Prime Minister Gen. Michel Aoun was recently quoted by An Nahar daily as calling on Hizbullah to lay down its arms and merge into Lebanon's political life. Others, like Lebanese MP Tueini, advocate deploying Lebanon’s army along the Israeli border.


The recent failure on the battleground can be seen as yet another setback to Hizbullah since the February 14 assassination of ex-Premier Rafiq Hariri. Syria’s withdrawal from Lebanon and the growing anti-Syrian sentiment on the Lebanese street were in complete contradiction to Hizbullah's interests and policies. The isolation of the Syrian patrons in the international arena has pushed Hizbullah to the corner of the domestic political arena.

Lebanese sources, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, told that the recent military flop will likely create internal tension between the organization’s political leadership and its military command. Such lack of confidence in Hizbullah’s military apparatus may drag it into an internal turmoil, the sources projected. In fact, there are already unconfirmed reports about strained relations between Nasrallah and Hizbullas’ head of operations, Imad Mughniyeh, and other officials in the south of Lebanon.

According to these sources, Hizbullah was alarmed by the news published in Israel ahead of the attack of the likelihood of such an assault. Leading figures in Hizbullah believe that details regarding the imminent operation were leaked from the group’s military arm to Lebanese security agencies, and from them to the West and the Israeli intelligence.

Lebanon underwent major political changes in 2005 and it seems much is yet to come for the country as well in 2006. The current Lebanese government is no longer a tool for carrying out the wishes of Damascus. Now, and especially following the recent military fiasco, Hizbullah and Nasrallah must fight to preserve their relevancy in Lebanese politics. One thing is certain: what was acceptable in recent years is no longer the consensus of Lebanon's public opinion. In other words, according to Lebanese sources, Nasrallah must lead his movement from the era of resistance into the era of development. If he fails to do so, and continues to risk Lebanon's stability and interests with further military adventures in the south, Hizbullah is doomed to come under growing pressure to disarm and ultimately forfeit its prominent position within Lebanese politics.

© 2005 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)

http://www.albawaba.com/en/countries/Lebanon/191839
interesting.....

thank you as always 801

[Petronas]

Al Qaeda from new Lebanese base sends notorious Imad Mughniyeh to recruit Palestinian bombers to strike Israel
December 5, 2005, 11:08 PM (GMT+02:00)

The reputable Lebanese Shiite weekly Shiraa which opposes Hizballah carries three important revelations in its coming issue:

1. Osama bin Laden’s organization has set up an operations command base in Lebanon.

2. Imad Mughniyeh, the long-sought Hizballah terrorist and hostage-taker, is touring Palestinian refugee camps in the south, especially Ain Hilwa, for talks on al Qaeda’s behalf with sympathetic Palestinian leaders.

3. A large CIA-FBI team has arrived in Lebanon to find out what what Mughniyeh is up to in southern Lebanon.

Shiraa reports that the terrorist chief also met with Jemal Suleiman, head of the Palestinian Ansar Allah, as well as Abu Mahujayn, Shehada Jawahr and Khaled Safayn, leaders of Palestinian militias in the Bureij camp of Beirut and Tripoli. They all traveled to the south for the meetings.

Mughniyeh is on the United States’ most wanted list as one of the most dangerous terrorists in the Middle East with the same price on his head of $25m as Osama bin Laden. The visiting US intelligence team is seeking to find out if al Qaeda’s south Lebanon base is synchronized with its new center in the Gaza Strip for a mega-attack in Israel. Israeli officials seem unworried by this new menace from Gaza, but the Americans are concerned lest Mughniyeh has been tasked to orchestrate simultaneous strikes against Israel from its northern and southern borders.

http://www.debka.com/

[The 801]

Hezbollah boosting ties to al-Qaida claim

By MARTIN SIEFF
UPI Senior News Analyst

WASHINGTON, Dec. 6 (UPI) -- Lebanon and Israel may be facing the prospect of massively increased terror attack threats.

New reports claim that al-Qaida has set up an organizing center in Lebanon and that Iran has boosted its ties to West Bank Palestinian militants, especially Islamic Jihad, who have launched a new suicide bomber campaign against Israel.

The Lebanese Shiite weekly Shiraa, which opposes the Iranian-backed Hezbollah, or Party of God, is claiming this week that al-Qaida has already set up an operational command base in the country.

It also claims that Imad Mughniyeh, the prominent Hezbollah leader, is representing al-Qaida in talks with potential sympathetic Palestinian leaders in the south of the country.

Al-Shiraa said Mughniyeh also met with Jemal Suleiman, head of the Palestinian Ansar Allah, and with Abu Mahujayn, Shehada Jawahr and Khaled Safayn, who lead Palestinian militias in the Bureij camp.

The report follows other indications of growing al-Qaida influence in Lebanon.

There have been reports, as yet unsubstantiated, that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, commander of al-Qaida operations in Iraq, has been receiving an increasing number of Lebanese Sunni Muslim supporters.

Also this week the Israeli debka.com web site, which maintains a wide circle of sources within Israeli intelligence, said an FBI-CIA team was currently in Lebanon, trying to discover whether al-Qaida was planning to participate in a major terror offensive against Israel from bases in Southern Lebanon.

"The Americans are concerned lest Mughniyeh has been tasked to orchestrate simultaneous strikes against Israel from its northern and southern borders," debka.com said.

The development of a close alliance between al-Qaida and Iran-backed organizations like Hezbollah would mark a dramatic strengthening of anti-American and anti-Israeli guerrilla capabilities in the Middle East. Given Iran's great and still growing influence among the 60 percent Shiite majority in Iraq, it could also open the way for future operational cooperation between al-Qaida and other insurgent forces in Iraq, and Iran-backed Shiite paramilitary groups there such as Moqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army.

In a parallel development, The Australian newspaper reported Wednesday that Israeli security chiefs fear Hezbollah militants may have already joined forces with Islamic Jihad and other Sunni Muslim Palestinian guerrilla groups on the West Bank

The report emerged after Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility for the suicide bomb attack on a shopping mall in the prosperous, middle class Israeli resort city of Netanya, north of Tel Aviv, Monday. Five people were killed and 40 wounded in the attack. Israeli Intelligence officials say Hezbollah has been using donations and other sponsorship to infiltrate the restive West Bank areas of Nablus, Jenin and Tulkarm, The Australian said.

Two members of a second militant group, the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, told the newspaper that that a man claiming to represent Hezbollah had recently asked them to join the organization.

Israeli suspicions of Hezbollah infiltration were given fresh impetus by the fact that the claim of responsibility for Monday's attack, which killed five people and wounded 55 others at the entrance to the Netanya mall, was first aired on Hezbollah television in Syria, the paper said. .

"We are looking at a proxy relationship between Hezbollah and Palestinian Islamic Jihad and their major terror masters, who are directly linked to the Iranian Islamic revolution," former Israeli military intelligence chief Erin Lerman told The Australian.

The Israeli reports and claims of growing ties between Hezbollah and al-Qaida, or between Hezbollah, backed by Iran, and Islamic Jihad, may also strengthen the hands of Bush administration hawks around Vice President Dick Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld who remain eager to confront Iran.

But they also may reflect the growing militancy of Iran's hard-line President Ahmed Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who in October publicly called for Israel to be "wiped off the map."

Some U.S. security analysts believe the growing public militancy and confidence of Ahmadinejad and other Iranian leaders reflects the fact that they may for the first time have full access to nuclear weapons bought or stolen clandestinely from former Soviet republics.

It may also reflect the Iranians observing the continuing U.S. inability to make significant progress in scaling down the level of operational violence of the still-spreading insurgency in Iraq.

http://www.upi.com/SecurityTerrorism/view.php?StoryID=20051206-045020-7899r

OK, Folks, Here we have the proverbial Goldmine for your ardent Mugniyeh Researcher... to wit,
1. A major news source mentions Mugniyeh, and without all the standard verbage (the 80's stuff). And it is from a local source. These guys are wired. Or someone is leaking information.

2. Mugniyeh is mentioned in a specific location, with specific people. Very rare data to actually reach print.

3. It is relatively current. This can only be a few weeks old.

4. It mentions the ties between Hezbollah and Al Qaeda. Old news to the reader of this thread, but confirms logical tie-in of Mugniyeh, Hezbollah, Iran, Islamic Jihad ( Mugniyeh's first fake terror group name to cover his actions, ain't that sweet,) and Al Qaeda.

5. Source is listed as Shiraa, a paper that opposes Hezbollah. Now kids, in the old days, before Rafik Hariri was assassinated, this mention of Mugniyeh would never have happed. But now it seems that his actions are making the press in Lebanon. Things have really changed there, and, they must want to bring Mugniyeh out of the shadows, so that his behavior can be more publicly recognized. You see, one of the differences between the Jihadist and us, is that Mugniyeh is well known to them, and barely know to us.

6. I was sort of waiting for this to happen. With the new party in power in Iran, I figured that they would call on Mugniyeh to stir things up again. I will bet that he did it sort of reluctantly ( lets face it, he's old, rich, and has a few wives, and his studies or Madrass to attend to) , and now that this is getting in the press, he is not too happy about it. This public airing of his actions is really not his style.

Lastly, you can expect things to heat up for Mugniyeh very soon now. No, they won't catch him, but he will become more public, either from our politicians or from Irans, this threads should start getting busy.

[Casey]

Hezbollah boosting ties to al-Qaida claim

OK, Folks, Here we have the proverbial Goldmine for your ardent Mugniyeh Researcher... to wit,
1. A major news source mentions Mugniyeh, and without all the standard verbage (the 80's stuff). And it is from a local source. These guys are wired. Or someone is leaking information.

2. Mugniyeh is mentioned in a specific location, with specific people. Very rare data to actually reach print.

3. It is relatively current. This can only be a few weeks old.

4. It mentions the ties between Hezbollah and Al Qaeda. Old news to the reader of this thread, but confirms logical tie-in of Mugniyeh, Hezbollah, Iran, Islamic Jihad ( Mugniyeh's first fake terror group name to cover his actions, ain't that sweet,) and Al Qaeda.

5. Source is listed as Shiraa, a paper that opposes Hezbollah. Now kids, in the old days, before Rafik Hariri was assassinated, this mention of Mugniyeh would never have happed. But now it seems that his actions are making the press in Lebanon. Things have really changed there, and, they must want to bring Mugniyeh out of the shadows, so that his behavior can be more publicly recognized. You see, one of the differences between the Jihadist and us, is that Mugniyeh is well known to them, and barely know to us.

6. I was sort of waiting for this to happen. With the new party in power in Iran, I figured that they would call on Mugniyeh to stir things up again. I will bet that he did it sort of reluctantly ( lets face it, he's old, rich, and has a few wives, and his studies or Madrass to attend to) , and now that this is getting in the press, he is not too happy about it. This public airing of his actions is really not his style.

Lastly, you can expect things to heat up for Mugniyeh very soon now. No, they won't catch him, but he will become more public, either from our politicians or from Irans, this threads should start getting busy.
I tend to agree with you 801.

The flip flopping on the al Qaeda/Palestine connection does not make sense to me.

This oversight reminds me of the "there aren't any insurgents entering Iraq to fight" that went on until it was almost too late.

The posturing for political power complete with military wing that is taking place is a little scarey in the grand scheme of things.

[The 801]

While I believe in the IH principle of no reposts, I have included on here for reference purposes. I have edited it for emphasis of certain items mentioned. Please refer to link for complete article. Thanks to petronas for bringing this to my attention.

IRAN: TEHRAN DENIES AL-QAEDA'S PRESENCE

Tehran, 5 Dec. (AKI) - The Iranian government has denied the presence of al-Qaeda in the country. "No al-Qaeda leader can currently be found in the Islamic Republic," Ali Larijani, the secretary of the High Council of National Security of Iran and the man behind the foreign policy of the new Iranian government, has said. "All the members and leaders of al-Qaeda who took refuge in our country, following the American bombardment of Afghanistan, have been indentified and returned to their countries of origin," said Larijani, who is also Iran's chief nuclear negotiator.

Arab and Western sources, contrary to what Ali Larijani has stated, are convinced that many of the leaders of the terrorist organisation are still present as refugees in Iran, where they continue to reside thanks to the protection of Islamic militia and certain extremists groups close to the new Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who came to power after the June presidential elections.

The same sources speak of the presence in Iran of the eldest son of the Osama bin Laden, Saad, as well as al-Qaeda's spokesperson, Suleyman Abu Gaith, and the Egyptian, Saif al Adel, one of the United States' most wanted terrorists who is believed to be a high-ranking member of al-Qaeda.

Contrary to what Ali Larijani has stated, in August of 2004, the Iranian minister of intelligence of the previous government of Mohammad Khatami had admitted to the presence in Iran of many al-Qaeda leaders whose arrests and trial were imminent. However the then minister of intelligence refused to provide a list of the al-Qaeda members in Iran.

According to a 2 December report by the Israeli Debka Net Weekly website, al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden is alive and and running new terrorist training camps in Afghanistan.


http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/GL09Df01.html

OK.
First, the reason I posted this here is because I feel that this concerns Mugniyeh. I believe that he brought these Al Qaeda members to Iran, and remain under protection due to his good graces, and those of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, who are now in power in Iran. It is a fairly safe bet to make that this change in official policy is a cover for the truth.

I further believe that a case can be made, contrary to other facts coming to light here, that Mugniyeh and Iran would be the best place to hide Bin Laden.

1) Other members of AQ are being housed there.
2) Mugniyeh was caring our Iranian interests when he originally met with Bin Laden and introduced him to Al Zawarhi.
3) Iran and Mugniyeh remain interested in using their proxies to further their re-ignited Islamic agenda.
4) Getting and Keeping Bin Laden out of sight and communications would be of benefit to Iran at this time. Like in the case of Mugniyeh, the less said, the better. Let others carry the torch. If his time is over, then he has done enough against the great Satan, if his time comes again, And Zaquari take the bullet, then he could be useful again. The present regime's ideology n Iran owes him a great debt. They may be building him and his followers a nuke, that way they don't have to use it themselves.

Finally, I might be dead wrong. I wouldn't mind, but I put the topic up for debate.

See ya, 801

[The 801]

Mugniyeh Associate in one of his first public crimes is released by germany.

Because I follow these things, I am, for the first time here, outraged at our allies in the war on terror.
Inthat:

Germany Releases U.S. Patriot's Hezbollah Murderer
By Debbie Schlussel
FrontPageMagazine.com | December 20, 2005

In June, we wrote about the 20th anniversary of hijacking of TWA flight 847 and murder of Navy diver Robert Dean Stethem by Hezbollah terrorists.

Stethem was a true American hero. Only 23 years old, he was tortured, beaten, and trampled to death by the Hezbollah terrorists for the crimes of being an American, a U.S. serviceman, and refusing--to his last breath--to denounce America.

We're sad to report that yet another prediction of ours has now come true. We predicted in June that Mohammad Ali Hamadi, one of the Hezbollah terrorists who murdered Stethem, would be released by the German government.

On Friday, the Stethem Family informed us that our worst fears have been realized and that Hamadi will not face justice for his brutal act of terrorism. Germany secretly released Hamadi to freedom in Lebanon.


Robert Dean Stethem, American Hero, RIP
The German government captured Hamadi in 1987. (Stethem's other three murderers--Imad Fayez Mugniyeh, Hasan Izz-Al-Din, Ali Atwa--remain free, and are believed to be in Lebanon, Iran, or Syria.) Hamadi was carrying explosives that were the same kind use in previous terrorist attacks. Unfortunately, Hamadi--who remains under indictment in the U.S.--was tried by the German government, not our. He was given life in prison without the possibility of parole. But there was always an understanding that Hamadi would be extradited to the U.S. to face justice, if the Germans ever released him.

Germany kept none of its promises and showed the world that it really has no resolve in fighting terrorism. The Stethem family learned Friday that Hamadi was released to freedom. Despite life without parole, Hamadi was up for parole twice and served only 16 years in prison. And unlike all other extraditions sought by the U.S. under an extradition treaty with Germany, Germany violated the extradition treaty and Hamadi's extradition was not granted. Reportedly, Germany did this for two reasons 1) to gain the release of a female German hostage, Susanne Osthoff (a German convert to Islam), from terrorists in Iraq (apparently, the Germans do negotiate with terrorists, and they trade terrorists for hostages); and Hezbollah has a strong connection with the ones in Iraq); and 2) in retribution for reported CIA terrorist camps in Europe. This is an outrage.

What's worse is that Germany released Hamadi clandestinely and provided armed security to escort him to freedom in Lebanon, where his two brothers and other family members are high-ranking Hezbollah officers. Hezbollah-dominated and Syrian-controlled Lebanon--where Hamadi is a hero for murdering Stethem--will never extradite Hamadi to the U.S. to face justice.

The Stethem family is very upset. And all of us should be, too.

Germany is supposed to be our ally in the War on Terror. But actions like freeing Hamadi clearly demonstrate otherwise. The fact that the U.S. government is not making a big deal out of this also speaks volumes.

Before 9/11, Hezbollah murdered more Americans than any other terrorist group. Both the Wall Street Journal and New York Times have confirmed that Hezbollah is a component of the Al-Qaeda network and is training Al-Qaeda terrorists at camps in Lebanon. Both have also reported that Hezbollah is training insurgents who murder our troops in Iraq. British Prime Minister Tony Blair recently reported that Qaeda explosives used in Iraq bear the trademarks of Hezbollah "craftsmanship."

But instead of publicly denouncing the actions of the Hezbollah and the German government in allowing a Hezbollah terrorist and murderer go free, our government is making nice with the enemy.

Top ranking federal officials--U.S. Attorney Stephen Murphy III, FBI Special Agent in Charge for Michigan Daniel Roberts, ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) Special Agent in Charge for Michigan and Ohio Brian Moskowitz, Citizenship and Immigration Services official Carol Jenifer--recently broke pita at the Detroit-area mosque of one of Hezbollah's and Iran's top agents in the United States. They laughed with him about Hezbollah being on the State Department terrorist list, seeming to scratch their heads as to why it's on the list. They clapped enthusiastically when he described what's going on in Southern Lebanon as "resistance, not terrorism."

It's not rocket science to make correct predictions like we make on this site--that Hamadi would be set free or that Islamic Jihad frontman Sami Al-Arian would be acquitted. Clueless, spineless appeasers like Murphy, Roberts, Moskowitz, and Jenifer, and the German government are running the show--and that makes the prospect of terrorists going free very predictable.

Robert Stethem must be looking down from Heaven and trying to make sense of what is happening here on mortal earth. He was an American patriot and for that, faced a brutal, early death. He would have been around 43, today. Around the same age, Murphy, Roberts, Moskowitz et al are patriotic only to themselves and their aggressive ambitions--and each continues to be promoted. When President Bush said, "You are either on our side or the terrorists' side," his own federal officials who oversee these three must not have been listening. (Moskowitz' boss, ICE Director of Investigations Marcy Forman-Friedman, reportedly told other ICE officials that she's glad Moskowitz "smoothed things over with the Islamic community of Detroit." That, not catching terrorists, is the priority at ICE.)

A lot has changed in 20 years since Robert Stethem gave his life in service to America. And not for the better. There is only one thing that hasn't changed: Robert Stethem and his family deserve justice.

And they have yet to get it.

http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=20610

Yea, its a right wing rag, but hey it's the news.

Five key facts about freed Hizbollah member
20 Dec 2005 12:10:42 GMT
Source: Reuters

Dec 20 (Reuters) - Hizbollah member Mohammad Ali Hammadi has returned to Lebanon after he was secretly released by Germany from a life sentence for killing a U.S. Navy diver in 1985, Lebanese political sources said on Tuesday.

Below are five key facts about Hammadi:

* Hammadi, a Shi'ite Muslim from south Lebanon now in his late 30s, was arrested Jan. 13, 1987, at Frankfurt airport after customs officials found liquid explosives in his luggage.

* He was convicted and sentenced at a trial that ended in 1989 of possession of explosives; of hijacking a U.S. commercial passenger airliner in Athens -- TWA Flight 847 -- on June 14, 1985; of beating and holding passengers aboard that flight, and of the murder of Robert Dean Stethem, U.S. Navy diver.

* At his trial he confessed to having helped stage the 17-day hijacking on Hizbollah's orders to help win release of 700 Lebanese detainees held by Israel but he denied any role in killing Stethem, 23.

* According to witnesses though, Hammadi and an accomplice (Mugniyeh - 801) took Stethem to the cockpit of the Boeing 727 jet and beat him. Then they shot him and threw his body on to the tarmac at Beirut airport.

* Hammadi had two brothers who were also with Hizbollah, Abdul-Hadi and Abbas Ali. Abdul-Hadi was chief of the group's security at the time while Abbas Ali was sentenced to 13 years of imprisonment in Germany for plotting the kidnapping of two Germans in the hope of forcing the release of his brother. Abbas Ali was released after he served his term.

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L20713696.htm

[Alli]

Reportedly, Germany did this for two reasons
1) to gain the release of a female German hostage, Susanne Osthoff (a German convert to Islam), from terrorists in Iraq (apparently, the Germans do negotiate with terrorists, and they trade terrorists for hostages); and Hezbollah has a strong connection with the ones in Iraq); and

2) in retribution for reported CIA terrorist camps in Europe.

Why would the terrorists want this particular man to exchange?

[The 801]

Alli,
Please allow me to comment on this a little later. But if you my understanding of Mugniyeh is correct then I suppose the following:

1. Mugniyeh never leaves someone on the battlefield. He actually set up the kidnapping of the Kuwaiti royal family (during an aircraft hijacking) to release his imprisioned Brother-in-law. I suspect he has been trying to get this guy out for a while ( like 20 years). This guy was the only direct Mugniyeh assocate ever really imprisioned.

2. Note that this guys brother was a security chief with hezbollah. Can can be assured that he is a personal friend of Mugniyeh. Mugniyeh is very loyal to his friends and or business associates.

3. This is a serious indication that Mugniyeh and Hezbollah are active in Iraq.

4. The real concern is, who negotiated this deal. Iran? Hezbollah? An Iraqi go between who is in contact with Hezbollah or Iran?

5. Is this a gesture towards Iran's new govenment. If so, we are in trouble.

This action indicates that we are still against the new/old order. We are in trouble.

[The 801]

Yea, I know, it's debka....

Chancellor Merkel Shakes up German Intelligence, Bids for Middle East Foothold
DEBKA-Net-Net-Weekly 233 of Dec. 9 Updated by DEBKAfile

December 20, 2005, 7:09 PM (GMT+02:00)


Ernst Uhrlau, Angela Merkel’s new head of the BND, Germany’s foreign intelligence service, is revealed by DEBKAfile’s counter-terror sources as the man behind Berlin’s secret decision to trade German archeologist Susanne Osthoff kidnapped in Iraq on Nov. 25 for the jailed Hizballah terrorist wanted in America, Mohammad Ali Hammadi.

Uhrlau attained international prominence as broker in the Hizballah-Israel prisoner swap and the failed effort to track down the missing Israeli navigator Ron Arad.

Hammadi was serving a life sentence without parole for hijacking a TWA airliner to Beirut in 1985 and killing a Navy SEAL diver, Robert Dean Stethem, whom he threw out of the window. A US extradition warrant was on file in Berlin with a promise it would take effect if the hijacker were ever released. A few days after the terrorist was flown to Beirut, Osthoff was freed by her Iraqi insurgent captors.

This hostage-for-terrorist swap will no doubt raise storms of protest in Washington and Jerusalem and cast a shadow on relations with the Bush administration which Schroeder was at pains to mend.

1. It is the first time since al Qaeda’s 9/11 attacks in America that a senior European ally in America’s global war on terror has succumbed to enemy pressure and bought a hostage’s release by freeing a convicted terrorist.

2. DEBKAfile’s counter-terror experts recall that Hammadi was assigned to hijack the TWA airliner by the notorious Imad Mughniyeh, veteran head of the Hizballah’s “security operations” and current organizer of al Qaeda’s infrastructure in Beirut. In the 1980s he specialized in hostage-taking, assassination, hijacking and bombing massacres against Americans and Israelis. Mughniyeh and Osama bin Laden have the same $25 m price on their heads. Hizballah repeatedly attacks Israel and its agents are planted deep inside Palestinian terrorist groups.
3. Hammadi’s repatriation to Lebanon shows that this country is still a haven and hub of operations for terrorists notwithstanding American clean-up efforts since the February assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafiq Hariri.

4. The swap of a hostage kidnapped by Iraqi guerrillas for a Lebanese Hizballah terrorist exposes for the first time the clandestine operational links between the Hizballah and Iraqi guerrillas and fellow-terrorists. It elevates the Lebanese Shiite group’s standing in Europe to a higher league in a way detrimental to American and Israeli security interests.

5. The shakeup of German intelligence, according to DEBKA-Net-Weekly’s intelligence sources, is the off-the-record motive behind the resignation of Detlev Mehlis as head of the UN team on the Hariri case.

He made the decision shortly after Merkel reshuffled Germany’s security and intelligence services, a step she took two days after sitting down in the chancellor’s office in Berlin on Nov. 30.

She made Uhrlau, who was the secret service coordinator in ex-chancellor Gerhard Schroeder’s office, head of the BND. The other key appointment was her transfer of Klaus-Dieter Fritsche from the top post at Germany’s domestic intelligence agency, the Verfassungsschutz, to secret services coordinator in the new chancellery.

Chancellor Merkel is clearly eager to bring into play the close and complex web of ties Uhrlau has cultivated over the years with top Iranian officials and intelligence chiefs, key members of the Syrian regime, Hizballah chiefs, and operatives of Islamist radical groups ideologically close to al Qaeda.

Uhrlau came to international prominence as broker of the Hizballah prisoner exchange last year. The new German chancellor, by promoting him to director of the BND, shows she expects Iranian issues, the war on al Qaeda and the radicalized Middle East to stay at the center of international affairs during her five-year tenure.

Mehlis, an expert in his own right in the labyrinthine intelligence-cum-terror organizations of the Middle East, does not argue with this perception. But in the eight months he has led the Hariri inquiry, he concluded that the majority of the Syrian and Lebanese officials involved in the assassination of the Lebanese leader belong to intelligence or terror establishments with which Uhrlau boasts excellent connections. By pressing ahead with his probe, Mehlis feared he would prejudice the new BND’s connections at the very moment that they might be of use to the new chancellor for promoting German influence in the Middle East. The German investigative prosecutor therefore decided to bow out rather than step into this minefield.

http://www.debka.com/article.php?aid=1123

Looks like I gotta add this guy to my associates of Mugniyeh list. Yea, I actually have such a file..... The Zany 801

[Alli]

A US extradition warrant was on file in Berlin with a promise it would take effect if the hijacker were ever released.
Does this mean the US now has the right to extradite him at any time, if he is found?

[FC-UK]

From: The 801

Well, since itshappening has happily returnedtl=1&mid=933 (http://www.vfw.org/index.cfm?fa=news.magDtl&dtl=1&mid=933)[/quote]

Timmerman is jewish , Frontpage as no more credibility than used tiolet paper.
You guys are a joke.

[The 801]

Please specify "joke".

The premise of this thread is that there is a terrorist who has broader power than Bin Laden, and who has successfully driven US foreign policy. And that he remains active today. This thread tracks his activities and related news.

All data can be confirmed though standard news sources. Please google news Mugniyeh.

The "slightly offended, but never heard of FC-UK" 801

[The 801]

Lebanon slams U.S. request to hand over alleged Hizbullah hijacker

By Rym Ghazal
Daily Star staff
Thursday, December 22, 2005

BEIRUT: The Lebanese government has criticized the U.S. demand that Lebanon hand over an alleged Hizbullah hijacker released by Germany last week after serving 19 years in jail for hijacking a U.S. airliner and killing an American passenger. "Originally they [the U.S. government] could have requested that Germany hand him over. Why are they asking us?" Prime Minister Fouad Siniora told reporters Wednesday.

Mohammad Ali Hammadi, 41, from the southern town of Deir Kifa, returned to Lebanon after serving 19 years in a German jail after being sentenced to life imprisonment by a German courting 1987 for his role in the 1985 hijacking of a TWA airliner and the murder of U.S. Navy diver Robert Dean Stethem in Beirut.

"He served his sentence in Germany and there are measures that will be completed in Lebanon ... Why are they asking us now?" said Siniora.

According to The Daily Star sources, Hammadi was freed quietly 10 days ago but his return to Lebanon was delayed because of the recent assassination of journalist Gebran Tueni, and hence he arrived Thursday last week, despite objections from Washington, which has vowed to bring him from Lebanon to face a U.S. judge.

Recently, on the 20th anniversary of the "terrorist hijacking operation," the U.S. government offered a reward of up to $5 million for information on the whereabouts of the TWA 847 hijackers, where it named the suspects that "are thought to be in Lebanon or Syria" and "need to be brought to justice,": Imad Fayez Mugniyeh, Hassan Izz-al-Din and Ali Atwaa.

Siniora said Hammadi had already served a term "close" to what he would have faced if he had been convicted in Lebanon.

He also said the Lebanese Judiciary was exploring whether his crime was covered by the general amnesty issued for crimes committed before 1991.

The Lebanese Justice Ministry released a short statement Wednesday in which it said that it would "study" Hammadi's status in Lebanon "according to Lebanese laws."

When contacted by The Daily Star, on the effect of Hammadi's case on Lebanese and American relations, especially if Hammadi is not handed over to the United States as demanded, neither Lebanese nor U.S. officials would comment.

To this date, Lebanon and the United States are not bound by an extradition treaty.

Contrary to speculations, George Assaf, a lawyer specializing in international law told The Daily Star, that "Hammadi's case is unlikely to be covered under the general amnesty law and hence the United States will come after the case."

"I suspect that the U.S. will try to bring different charges and prosecute him that way, as he already served a sentence and can't be judged on the same crime twice," said Assaf, who feels that Hammadi's release was "more political" in the first place.

"Before the incident in Iraq involving the release of a German hostage, there were no procedures being taken in Germany for his release," said Assaf, who explained that under German law, those convicted become eligible for release after serving 15 years and are reviewed by a parole court.

As for sending Hammadi directly to U.S. from Germany, Assaf said that Germany and any European country would reject a U.S. request for Hammadi's extradition on the grounds that he could have faced capital punishment in the U.S., which is against the European Law on the Convention of Human Rights.

Germany, an important broker between Hizbullah and Israeli officials over the issue of detainees in Israel and exchange of prisoners between the two sides, has denied any links between the two cases of the released German hostage, Susanne Osthoff, and Hammadi.

Lebanon's Al-Mustaqbal daily quoted diplomatic sources as saying Wednesday that Hammadi's release was part of a German mediation for a Hizbullah-Israeli prisoner swap, including missing Israeli navigator Ron Arad.

Meanwhile judiciary sources said that the Public Prosecutor of the Cassation Court in Lebanon, Saeed Mirza has denied Hammadi was being held temporarily in custody.
"Hammadi is not being sought after by Lebanese Judiciary and the judiciary didn't receive any official requests from the U.S. in that regards," said the sources.

At the same time, Hizbullah officials in Lebanon who would not confirm or deny Hammadi's links to Hizbullah, issued an official statement in which they confirmed his return to Lebanon, without any further elaboration.

Hammadi's brother, Abdel-Hadi, who is a senior special security official within Hizbullah, has been reported to have Hammadi residing in his home, was not available for comment. TWA flight 847 from Athens, Greece, to Rome was hijacked in June 1985 to Beirut, where the hijackers beat and shot Stethem, 23, of Waldorf, Maryland, and dumped his body on the tarmac. - With agencies

http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=1&categ_id=2&article_id=20952

Clever, clever bastards, uh? - The "ever vigilant" 801

[Alli]

OMG, this is outrageous! First of all, didn't he receive a life sentence? How is that deemed *close* to serving his sentence? Second wasn't there an agreement for him to be turned over to the US in the event of an early release? Why didn't Germany do this directly? Oops, their negotiations with the iraq terrorists must have skipped over this. :mad:

[Alli]

From CNS News (http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewForeignBureaus.asp?Page=\ForeignBureaus\archiv e\200512\FOR20051222a.html)

December 22, 2005

(CNSNews.com) - Germany freed the murderer of a U.S. Navy diver despite personal intervention by Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, the State Department has confirmed, amid speculation that Berlin let the Hizballah terrorist go as part of a deal to free a German hostage in Iraq.
Lebanon does not have an extradition treaty with the U.S., and Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Saniora appeared unmoved Wednesday by American requests that Hamadi be handed over.

"They could have asked Germany to hand him over to the United States," Lebanon's Daily Star quoted him as telling reporters. "Why are they asking us?"

In fact, the U.S. applied for Hamadi's extradition from Germany when he was first arrested in 1987, and State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said Wednesday it had repeatedly "over the years" since made it clear that it would like to see him stand trial in a U.S. court.

"At this point, I think what I can assure anybody who's listening, including Mr. Hamadi, is that we will track him down," McCormack said. "We will find him, and we will bring him to justice in the United States for what he's done."
---
Why did Germany refuse to extradite?

Reuters and several other media outlets asserted this week that Germany rejected Washington's 1987 U.S. request for Hamadi's extradition because he could have faced the death penalty in America.:rolleyes:

But according to a detailed case study on the extradition request, prepared by David Kennedy for the Project for the Study and Analysis of Terrorism at Harvard in 1988, the formal U.S. request for Hamadi's extradition the previous year included a paper signed by a top legal official giving assurances that the U.S. would not request capital punishment for Hamadi.

[The 801]

My guess, slightly educated, is that the german action was a gesture towards Iran. That is how Mugniyeh fits in. He is Iran's proxy in Hezbollah, Hamadi is the brother of the security chief in Lebanon during the time of Mugniyeh's rise (and still is), Iran supports Hezbollah through Mugniyeh. The Mugniyeh's are part of a powerful clan in Lebanon, and clan alliance is supreme in Lebanon.

So, I believe that germany's new govenment is hedging it's bets with Iran and its rising power in the region.

Things should start getting interesting very soon now.

The "might tie everything to that mugniyeh guy, but it all fits togeather too well" 801

[The 801]

Here is some historic detail on TWA 847, an early high profile Mugniyeh operation.

Germany frees Hezbollah member Hammadi
Tuesday, 20 December, 2005 @ 2:19 PM

Beirut, Lebanon - Germany has secretly released Hammadi ,a Hezbollah member jailed for life for killing a U.S. Navy diver and returned him to Lebanon despite an extradition request from the United States. Lebanese political sources said on Tuesday.

Political sources said on Tuesday that Mohammad Ali Hammadi, convicted of killing Navy diver Robert Dean Stethem during the 1985 hijacking of a TWA flight diverted to Beirut and sentenced to life without parole, was flown back to the Lebanese capital last week .

Diplomatic sources in Germany confirmed Hammadi's release but the German Foreign Ministry declined to comment.

Hammadi, now in his late 30s, was captured in 1987 and all attempts to have him exchanged with German hostages held in Lebanon in the late 1980s and early 1990s failed.

Hammadi's brother, Abdul-Hadi, was a senior security official of Hizbollah at the time.

News of his release could anger Washington as it had indicted him for Stethem's murder and had asked Berlin to extradite him to the United States if ever he was to be freed.

Hammadi's release occurred a few days before German hostage Susanne Osthoff was freed in Iraq. The archaeologist had disappeared on Nov. 25. Germany said on Sunday she was in safe custody. She has made no public statement since.

A Lebanese source said a senior German intelligence officer visited Damascus early this month but did not disclose the purpose of the trip. Syria is a key backer of Hezbollah.

The U.S. embassy in Berlin had no immediate comment on Hammadi's release. But several diplomatic sources there said Washington would not be pleased with Germany's action and that it could complicate relations between the two countries.

A German government official told Reuters that any suggestion of a connection between Osthoff's and Hammadi's release was "completely absurd".
A German court convicted Hammadi in 1989 of murder, air piracy and other crimes for his role in the June 1985 hijacking of the TWA passenger jet that was diverted to Beirut and Algiers and sentenced him to life in prison.
His sentence is one Germany reserves for the most serious and cruel crimes. It is difficult but not impossible to release someone who receives such a sentence after 15 years.

Stethem, a native of Waldorf, Maryland, was based in Virginia Beach, Virginia, at the time of the hijacking.

Hammadi's other brother, Abbas Ali, was sentenced to 13 years in prison for plotting the kidnapping of two Germans in Lebanon in the hope of forcing the release of his brother. He was released from jail after serving his term. (Additional reporting by Lou Charbonneau in Berlin)


Background information on TWA Flight 847

Trans World Airlines Flight 847 was hijacked on Friday June 14, 1985, while flying from Athens to Rome. Piloted by Captain John Testrake, the Boeing 727 departed at 10:10 am, carrying 153 passengers and crew, including flight engineer Benjamin C. Zimmerman, co-pilot Philip G. Maresca, and flight attendant Uli Derickson.

It was commandeered shortly after takeoff by two men who had smuggled pistols and grenades through the Athens airport security. A third hijacker, Ali Atwa, was bumped from the flight and was later arrested.

The plane stopped for several hours at Beirut, where 19 passengers were allowed to leave in exchange for fuel. The aircraft continued on to Algiers where 20 passengers were released during a five-hour stop, before heading back to Beirut. At the time, Lebanon was experiencing civil war, and Beirut was divided into sectors with different militia controlling different areas.

The Beirut International Airport, surrounded by a Shiite neighborhood, had no perimeter security and nearby residents could simply drive onto the runway.

During this stop, the hijackers identified an American Navy diver, Robert Stethem, among the passengers. They beat him, shot him in the right temple, and dumped his body out of the plane onto the tarmac. Several passengers with Jewish-sounding names were taken off the plane, but not released. Nearly a dozen armed men joined the hijackers before the plane returned to Algiers where an additional 65 passengers were released. It again returned to Beirut, landing on Sunday afternoon, and remained here.

The Greek government released the accomplice Ali Atwa and in exchange, the hijackers released eight Greek citizens. One of the passengers was Demis Roussos, a Greek folk singer.

The initial demands of the hijackers included the release of all Shiites captured by Israel in Lebanon, international condemnation of Israeli military activity in southern Lebanon, condemnation of U.S. actions in the Middle East, and condemnation of the March 8, 1985, car bombing in the Beirut suburb of Bir al Abed. Rumors in Beirut suggested that the car bombing, which killed 80 people, was linked to the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency.

By Monday afternoon, June 17, most of the hostages had been taken from the plane to a secure location. The 40 remaining hostages were protected by Nabih Berri, a moderate Shiite leader of the Amal militia. He was also an official in the fractured Lebanon government. One of the hostages was released when he developed heart trouble, the other 39 remained captive until June 30, when they were driven to Syria, boarded a U.S. Air Force plane, and flew to West Germany.

Israel released most of the prisoners within a month after the hijacking ended. They stated that the release was unrelated to the hijacking and had long been planned.

One of the hijackers, Mohammed Ali Hammadi, was arrested two years later in Frankfurt, Germany. He was tried and convicted of Stethem's murder and is serving a life sentence in Germany. On October 10, 2001, three of the alleged hijackers, Imad Mugniyah, Ali Atwa, and Hassan Izz-Al-Din were placed on the FBI Most Wanted Terrorists list. Rewards of $25 million for information leading to their arrests and convictions are currently being offered by the United States.

Stewardess Uli Derickson was widely credited with calming the hijackers and saving the lives of many passengers.
http://yalibnan.com/site/archives/2005/12/germany_frees_h.php

[The 801]

Two Mugniyeh associate Killed, information confused but it looks like the old boss got it..

Wonder if Mugniyeh as on board? He only flies domestically to Iran, according to last report.

Plane crash kills Iran commander
By Nasser Karimi, AP
Published: 09 January 2006
A small military passenger jet crashed in northwestern Iran today, killing the commander of the ground forces of the elite Revolutionary Guards and at least 12 other people, official media reported.

It was the second time in two months that a military plane has crashed in Iran. On both occasions, the planes were carrying passengers and attempting to make an emergency landing.

In Monday's crash, the plane, a Falcon of the Revolutionary Guards, was trying to make an emergency landing at Oroumieh, 560 miles north-west of the capital, Tehran, state television reported.

There were conflicting reports on what caused the crash. The official Islamic Republic News Agency reported the plane crashed because its landing gear jammed, preventing the wheels from being fully deployed. But the Revolutionary Guards' spokesman, Gen. Masoud Jazayeri, blamed bad weather and engine failure.

"It crashed near the airport due to the bad weather, lack of visibility and failure in both engines," Gen. Jazayeri told the television.

Jazayeri said that Gen. Ahmad Kazemi, commander of the ground forces of the Revolutionary Guards, and 10 other officers of the Guards were killed, the news agency reported.

State television said the plane's crew of two were also killed. However, the news agency and state radio said there were three crewmen. The discrepancy could not be immediately explained.

The Falcon, which is made by the French company Dassault, is the preferred aircraft of high-ranking military officers in Iran.

The news agency identified one of the other officers killed as Brig. Gen. Ghasem Soleimani, the commander of the Jerusalem Force, an anti-terrorism unit based in border areas.

However, later state radio said that Ghasem Soleimani was not on the plane, but Gen. Saeed Soleimani, Kazemi's chief of operations, was killed. The difference could not be immediately resolved.

Gen. Kazemi, a veteran of the 1980-88 war with Iraq, was appointed commander of the Guards' ground forces in August in a reshuffle after President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad took office.

In Iran, the Revolutionary Guards are a separate organization to the regular armed forces. Founded after the 1979 Islamic Revolution, the Guards have their own air, naval and ground components. President Ahmadinejad is a former commander in the Guards.

On 6 December, a military transport plane crashed into a 10-story building near Tehran's Mehrabad airport, killing 115 people. The plane, a US-made C-130, had suffered engine trouble and the pilot was returning to the airport when the aircraft suddenly lost height and slammed into the apartment building. Most of the passengers were Iranian journalists.

Iran has a history of aircraft accidents involving a heavy loss of life. The government has blamed the US trade embargo which makes it impossible for Iran to buy parts for its old US-built aircraft. But critics have also said planes are poorly maintained.


http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article337518.ece

Some Background on Kazemi:

Iran’s new elite army chief had Lebanese terror ties Wed. 24 Aug 2005

Iran Focus

London, Aug. 24 – The new commander of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) Ground Forces was involved in terrorist activities in Lebanon during the 1980s, analysts say.

Revolutionary Guards brigadier general Ahmad Kazemi was appointed on Saturday by Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to head the IRGC Ground Forces. Kazemi closely worked with the new Defence Minister Mostafa Mohammad-Najjar in Lebanon.

In a ceremony on Wednesday to mark Kazemi’s new post, the IRGC commander, Major General Yahya Rahim Safavi, acknowledged the general’s past activities in the Guards’ Lebanon Force.

“I am better informed than anyone of General Kazemi’s record of sacrifice, valour, and courage; from his presence in southern Lebanon and difficult battles in Kurdistan to his presence in the frontlines of the eight-year [Iran-Iraq] war” the news agency ISNA quoted Safavi as saying.

Before being appointed commander of the IRGC Ground Forces, Brigadier General Ahmad Kazemi was the commander of the IRGC Air Force. In that position, Kazemi was responsible for the production and development of Shahab missiles.

“The [IRGC] Air Force under the command of General Kazemi underwent serious development, and today the Guards Corps has the potent missile force of the Middle East”, Safavi said.

Iran has successfully tested the Shahab-3, which has a maximum range of 2,000 kilometres and can hit all cities in the Middle East.

In late July, Iran announced that it had fully developed solid-fuel technology in producing missiles, a major breakthrough that increases the accuracy of missiles.

Kazemi was also responsible for research and production of the Shahab-4 missile with a projected range of 3,000 km. Analysts say that Tehran is working round-the-clock to enhance the range and accuracy of the Shahab missiles which is capable of carrying a nuclear warhead and reaching the heart of Europe.

http://www.iranfocus.com/modules/news/article.php?storyid=3456

And some interesting information for those of you who track Mugniyeh as I do.....

A section from the New Yorker a while ago....

Mugniyah's operation—known as the external security apparatus—is Hezbollah's most lethal weapon. It is commonly believed that Mugniyah is behind nearly every major act of terrorism that has been staged by Hezbollah during the last two decades; he is thought to have agents not only in South America but in Europe, Southeast Asia, West Africa, and even the United States. His operatives in the Triple Frontier include Assad Ahmad Barakat, an important fund-raiser for Hezbollah. (Paraguayan police discovered a letter in which Hassan Nasrallah, the Hezbollah leader, thanked Barakat for his efforts on behalf of children orphaned when their fathers became suicide bombers.) Terrorism experts say that Ali Kassam, who runs a Shiite religious center in Foz, is a close contact of Mugniyah's as well, and so is a sheikh named Bilal Mohsen Wehbi, a Lebanese who was trained in Iran, and who reports to the Iranian Cultural Affairs Ministry. The Ministry often provides diplomatic cover for both Hezbollah operatives and Iranian intelligence agents. It is believed that Mugniyah takes orders from the office of Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, but that he reports to a man named Ghassem Soleimani, the chief of a branch of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps called Al Quds, or the Jerusalem Force—the arm of the Iranian government responsible for sponsoring terror attacks on Israeli targets.

http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?021028fa_fact2

Stay tuned. - 801

[The 801]

A Commentary

To All,
I know you guys think that I am a nut, posting away about a very dangerous person half a world away. But now I have become alarmed enough about the last weeks events to throw down a senario that I would be pleased if anyone could shed some finer light on.

It appears, by current news reports, that Mugniyeh's boss / handler has died. Brigider General Soleimani, to the best know information, was killed in an all too common airplane crash. So now what?

Since Mugniyeh is, or at one time, was a member of the Qods force, his religous affilations are common to those in power, he is a real can do guy, and it would be a step up, I believe that Mugniyeh is in a position to be seriously promoted in the increasingly dangerous Iranian regeim.

The part that disturbs me is that this current govenment is radicalized and getting a Nuke. This puts Mugniyeh in a likely command and control position of such a device in the govenment. And let us face it, Mugniyeh with a nuke, it makes me want to throw up just thinking about it.

So.

I will be tracking as best as open souce searhing can, attempt to locate the next leader of the Irans Jeruselam force is and report back.

But I just wanted to throw that out for examination. Any comments?

The "puts the fear in your gut, don't it?" 801

[The 801]

So I start serching, and I find this right away.

Iran Focus

Tehran, Iran, Jan. 12 – Iran’s hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Thursday evening that the Islamic Republic’s 1979 Islamic revolution was a great movement and a stepping stone to a final “great event” in the world.

Speaking to a crowd in the southern city of Roudan, Hormozgan province, Ahmadinejad said, “The Islamic Republic is the continuation of the path of the prophets which came to begin a great movement and the final occurrence”.

“The Islamic revolution was a great leap in leading the people and reaching the climax of history”, Ahmadinejad said.

http://www.iranfocus.com/modules/news/article.php?storyid=5274

See what I mean?

[rectar]

Two Mugniyeh associate Killed, information confused but it looks like the old boss got it..

Wonder if Mugniyeh as on board? He only flies domestically to Iran, according to last report.

Plane crash kills Iran commander
By Nasser Karimi, AP
Published: 09 January 2006
A small military passenger jet crashed in northwestern Iran today, killing the commander of the ground forces of the elite Revolutionary Guards and at least 12 other people, official media reported.

It was the second time in two months that a military plane has crashed in Iran. On both occasions, the planes were carrying passengers and attempting to make an emergency landing.

In Monday's crash, the plane, a Falcon of the Revolutionary Guards, was trying to make an emergency landing at Oroumieh, 560 miles north-west of the capital, Tehran, state television reported.

There were conflicting reports on what caused the crash. The official Islamic Republic News Agency reported the plane crashed because its landing gear jammed, preventing the wheels from being fully deployed. But the Revolutionary Guards' spokesman, Gen. Masoud Jazayeri, blamed bad weather and engine failure.

"It crashed near the airport due to the bad weather, lack of visibility and failure in both engines," Gen. Jazayeri told the television.

Jazayeri said that Gen. Ahmad Kazemi, commander of the ground forces of the Revolutionary Guards, and 10 other officers of the Guards were killed, the news agency reported.

State television said the plane's crew of two were also killed. However, the news agency and state radio said there were three crewmen. The discrepancy could not be immediately explained.

The Falcon, which is made by the French company Dassault, is the preferred aircraft of high-ranking military officers in Iran.

The news agency identified one of the other officers killed as Brig. Gen. Ghasem Soleimani, the commander of the Jerusalem Force, an anti-terrorism unit based in border areas.

However, later state radio said that Ghasem Soleimani was not on the plane, but Gen. Saeed Soleimani, Kazemi's chief of operations, was killed. The difference could not be immediately resolved.

Gen. Kazemi, a veteran of the 1980-88 war with Iraq, was appointed commander of the Guards' ground forces in August in a reshuffle after President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad took office.

In Iran, the Revolutionary Guards are a separate organization to the regular armed forces. Founded after the 1979 Islamic Revolution, the Guards have their own air, naval and ground components. President Ahmadinejad is a former commander in the Guards.

On 6 December, a military transport plane crashed into a 10-story building near Tehran's Mehrabad airport, killing 115 people. The plane, a US-made C-130, had suffered engine trouble and the pilot was returning to the airport when the aircraft suddenly lost height and slammed into the apartment building. Most of the passengers were Iranian journalists.

Iran has a history of aircraft accidents involving a heavy loss of life. The government has blamed the US trade embargo which makes it impossible for Iran to buy parts for its old US-built aircraft. But critics have also said planes are poorly maintained.


http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article337518.ece

Some Background on Kazemi:

Iran’s new elite army chief had Lebanese terror ties Wed. 24 Aug 2005

Iran Focus

London, Aug. 24 – The new commander of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) Ground Forces was involved in terrorist activities in Lebanon during the 1980s, analysts say.

Revolutionary Guards brigadier general Ahmad Kazemi was appointed on Saturday by Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to head the IRGC Ground Forces. Kazemi closely worked with the new Defence Minister Mostafa Mohammad-Najjar in Lebanon.

In a ceremony on Wednesday to mark Kazemi’s new post, the IRGC commander, Major General Yahya Rahim Safavi, acknowledged the general’s past activities in the Guards’ Lebanon Force.

“I am better informed than anyone of General Kazemi’s record of sacrifice, valour, and courage; from his presence in southern Lebanon and difficult battles in Kurdistan to his presence in the frontlines of the eight-year [Iran-Iraq] war” the news agency ISNA quoted Safavi as saying.

Before being appointed commander of the IRGC Ground Forces, Brigadier General Ahmad Kazemi was the commander of the IRGC Air Force. In that position, Kazemi was responsible for the production and development of Shahab missiles.

“The [IRGC] Air Force under the command of General Kazemi underwent serious development, and today the Guards Corps has the potent missile force of the Middle East”, Safavi said.

Iran has successfully tested the Shahab-3, which has a maximum range of 2,000 kilometres and can hit all cities in the Middle East.

In late July, Iran announced that it had fully developed solid-fuel technology in producing missiles, a major breakthrough that increases the accuracy of missiles.

Kazemi was also responsible for research and production of the Shahab-4 missile with a projected range of 3,000 km. Analysts say that Tehran is working round-the-clock to enhance the range and accuracy of the Shahab missiles which is capable of carrying a nuclear warhead and reaching the heart of Europe.

http://www.iranfocus.com/modules/news/article.php?storyid=3456

And some interesting information for those of you who track Mugniyeh as I do.....

A section from the New Yorker a while ago....

Mugniyah's operation—known as the external security apparatus—is Hezbollah's most lethal weapon. It is commonly believed that Mugniyah is behind nearly every major act of terrorism that has been staged by Hezbollah during the last two decades; he is thought to have agents not only in South America but in Europe, Southeast Asia, West Africa, and even the United States. His operatives in the Triple Frontier include Assad Ahmad Barakat, an important fund-raiser for Hezbollah. (Paraguayan police discovered a letter in which Hassan Nasrallah, the Hezbollah leader, thanked Barakat for his efforts on behalf of children orphaned when their fathers became suicide bombers.) Terrorism experts say that Ali Kassam, who runs a Shiite religious center in Foz, is a close contact of Mugniyah's as well, and so is a sheikh named Bilal Mohsen Wehbi, a Lebanese who was trained in Iran, and who reports to the Iranian Cultural Affairs Ministry. The Ministry often provides diplomatic cover for both Hezbollah operatives and Iranian intelligence agents. It is believed that Mugniyah takes orders from the office of Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, but that he reports to a man named Ghassem Soleimani, the chief of a branch of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps called Al Quds, or the Jerusalem Force—the arm of the Iranian government responsible for sponsoring terror attacks on Israeli targets.

http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?021028fa_fact2

Stay tuned. - 801..Come to my confessional and talk some more plees...

[The 801]

I missed this. But it is very interesting. It looks like Mugniyeh may be tring to get all of his comrades in arms who where caught freed. It make sense. Mugniyeh always backs up his family and friends to the end. Now he has the political clout in Iran he is using it that way.

Here's an artical I missed because of the spelling of the name :

Turkey releases bombing suspect under pressure from Iran
Tue. 19 Jul 2005

Iran Focus

Istanbul, Jul. 19 - The Turkish authorities released one of the chief suspects in the 1994 bombing of a Jewish community centre in Argentina that killed 87 people and injured 200 others and sent him back to Iran, a Turkish security official said on Tuesday.

The decision was taken by the Turkish government after intense pressure from Iran, the source, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, told Iran Focus.

Masoud Amiri was identified as a terrorist suspect by undercover officers of Milli Istihbarat Teskilati (MIT), the country’s security agency, when he arrived at Istanbul’s Ataturk International Airport on July 6, according to the Turkish official.

Amiri is one of eight chief suspects sought by Argentine investigators for their involvement in the bombing of Associacion Mutual Israelita Argentina, the Jewish community center in Buenos Aires, on July 18, 1994. On August 13, 2003, an Argentine court issued arrest warrants for the eight suspects. The request for the arrest of the suspects was transmitted to the Turkish authorities by Interpol, the security official said.

Seven of the suspects, including Amiri, were officials of the Iranian government, including former Intelligence (secret service) Minister Ali Fallahian. A German court has also issued an international arrest warrant for Fallahian for his involvement in the assassination of four Iranian dissidents in Berlin in September 1992. The eighth suspect, Imad Mughnia, is considered the operational mastermind of the Lebanese Hezbollah. United States law enforcement officials believe Mughnia is in Iran.

“Iran put a huge amount of pressure on our government to release Amiri immediately”, the Turkish security official said. “Our government didn’t want a full-blown diplomatic crisis with Iran just ahead of the conference of foreign ministers of Iraq’s neighbouring states, which opened here today”.

The Turkish Foreign Ministry notified the security services that Amiri had diplomatic immunity and had to be released immediately, the official said.

The decision to leak the news of the arrest and subsequent release of an Iranian bombing suspect seems to reflect the Turkish security services’ displeasure at Ankara’s soft approach to Tehran. Relations between the two neighbouring states have been strained in recent months over a number of security and commercial disputes. How to deal with Iran has reportedly become a matter of contention between Turkey’s Islamist leaders and the country’s powerful military and security agenci...

http://www.iranfocus.com/modules/news/article.php?storyid=2904&keywords=Mughnia

Yea, it just trails off like that.

[The 801]

Another thing I missed:

Financial Times

By Guy Dinmorein Washingon

American victims of the 1983 bombing of the US embassy in Beirut said yesterday they were planning to take legal action against Iran through European courts following a similar case that has already resulted in the freezing of Iranian assets held in a Rome bank account.

Twenty-nine victims of the suicide truck bomb that killed 63 people, including 17 Americans, won a court ruling on Wednesday in the US district court for Washington that Iran should pay $126m in damages.

The judge, in a 94-page opinion, cited evidence showing Iran had provided Hizbollah - the perpetrators of the Beirut attack - with arms, financial aid and other support.

The US government says there are no Iranian assets frozen in the US that can be used as compensation. As a result the plaintiffs are planning to target Iranian funds in Europe, where Iran has diplomatic and business ties.

A precedent was set last week when a civil court in Rome adopted a US court ruling that ordered Iran to compensate three American families for their relatives killed by Palestinian suicide bombers allegedly backed by Iran. The Rome court ordered Banca Nazionale del Lavoro to freeze an account held by the Iranian government. The amount was not disclosed.

Iran lodged a diplomatic protest with Italy's foreign ministry. It also threatened financial retaliation, fearing a flood of similar lawsuits that could entangle its assets in Europe.

Michael Martinez, attorney for more than 80 plaintiffs linked to the 1983 Beirut bombing, said there were three reasons for choosing Italy: its independent judiciary, its acceptance of the concept of seeking legal redress for terrorist acts and the belief that Iran had a lot of assets in Italy from oil trading.

In 1996 the US Congress amended the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act to permit American citizens to bring lawsuits against foreign states that had committed or supported terrorist acts and were deemed by the US State Department to be state sponsors of terrorism. That list presently includes Iran, Syria, North Korea, Cuba, Libya and Sudan.

http://www.iranfocus.com/modules/news/article.php?storyid=4901

'Iran must pay $126m to Beirut bombing victims'

Friday, December 16, 2005 - &#169;2005 IranMania.com
Related Pictures

Archived Picture - A US federal judge has ordered Iran to pay victims of a 1983 suicide bombing of the US embassy in Beirut $126 mln, lawyers for the victims said, AFP reported.

LONDON, December 16 (IranMania) - A US federal judge has ordered Iran to pay victims of a 1983 suicide bombing of the US embassy in Beirut $126 mln, lawyers for the victims said, AFP reported.

Judge John Bates of the US District Court for the District of Columbia ruled Wednesday that Iran supported Hezbollah militants in the April 1983 bombing, the first suicide attack ever against a US embassy.

Citing evidence that Iran provided Hezbollah with arms, money and other support, Bates ruled that Iran must pay 29 victims and their families $126 mln.

"We are pleased that the court has again recognized Iran to be at the center of this heinous act of terrorism and that Iran will be called to account for its actions," said Michael Martinez, a lawyer representing the victims.

"We are hopeful that we will be able to enforce the judgment soon," he said.

The embassy bombing killed 63 people, including 17 US nationals. Anne Dammarell, a former US Agency for International Development employee, who was wounded in the bombing was the lead plaintiff in the lawsuit.

"This lawsuit is our way of fighting back," she said in a statement. "It is the only way we have to make Iran accountable for the incredible pain it inflicted through its support of Hezbollah."

http://www.iranfocus.com/modules/news/article.php?storyid=4901

[Petronas]

Originally Posted by The 801
Mugniyeh with a nuke, it makes me want to throw up just thinking about it I wish I could say that you worry too much, but unfortunately I can't.


“We don’t shy away from declaring that Islam is ready to rule the world” ... Ahmadinejad dwelled on his recurrent theme that the return of the Shiite Messiah, the Mahdi, is not far away and Muslims must prepare for it. “We must prepare ourselves to rule the world" ... Ahmadinejad said.
http://www.iranfocus.com/modules/news/article.php?storyid=5166
Thu. 05 Jan 2006

The intelligence consensus reaching our sources is that within six weeks to two months, the centrifuges will have produced enough enriched uranium to build a single nuclear weapon. Tehran has reached this point of no-return ...
http://www.debka.com/
January 10, 2006, 10:17 PM (GMT+02:00)

[The 801]

A Most-Wanted Terrorist Is Spotted in Syria

By MEGHAN CLYNE - Staff Reporter of the Sun
January 25, 2006


WASHINGTON - One of the American government's most wanted terrorists visited Syria late last week with Iran's President Ahmadinejad, according to a former Reagan administration national security official and Iran watchers on Capitol Hill.

The former official, Michael Ledeen, now an author and scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, made the claim in an article published yesterday afternoon on the Web site of the conservative magazine National Review. Several American government officials refused to confirm that the Lebanese Hezbollah figure, Imad Mugniyah, was sighted at the meeting in Damascus last Thursday with Mr. Ahmadinejad and the Syrian dictator, Bashar Assad.

Major Matthew McLaughlin, a spokesman for the Central Command, the military division responsible for the Middle East, said, "Central Command keeps its eyes on various terrorists and terrorist groups within the region, but would not offer any comment on the whereabouts of a particular terrorist because the information is classified."

Congressional staffers familiar with America's Iran policy, however, said yesterday that while they had not received confirmation of Mr. Mugniyah's participation in the Ahmadinejad-Assad summit from American officials, they had heard from foreign "diplomatic sources" that the terrorist was at the meeting.

Mr. Mugniyah appears on the FBI's most wanted terrorists list along with Al Qaeda leaders Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri, and the government has offered a reward of up to $5 million for information leading to his capture. Mr. Mugniyah, of Lebanese origin but said to be living now in Iran, is described by the FBI as the "alleged head of the security apparatus" for Lebanese Hezbollah. He was indicted by America for his role in hijacking TWA Flight 847 in June 1985, a terrorist act in which an American citizen and Navy diver, Robert Stethem, was beaten and tortured, shot in the head, and his body dumped out on the Beirut International Airport runway.

Mr. Mugniyah is also linked to other attacks on Americans and reportedly has met with Mr. bin Laden.

Washington-based Iranian exile leader and a former Iranian minister of education, Manoucher Ganji, told The New York Sun yesterday that while he had not heard of Mr. Mugniyah's purported appearance in Damascus, the purpose of the Assad-Ahmadinejad meeting was to plot against America and Israel. Mr. Ganji said it would therefore make sense for a representative of Hezbollah to be present for the discussions.

News of the alleged connections among Messrs. Assad, Ahmadinejad, and Mugniyah came amid intensifying pressure on the governments of both Syria and Iran. The Assad dictatorship finds itself embroiled in increasing calls for the disarmament of Hezbollah and intensifying scrutiny of its alleged role in the assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri, whose death is under investigation by the United Nations.

And yesterday in the southwestern Iranian town of Ahvaz, in the oil-rich Khuzestan province, two bombs detonated in a bank and outside a government building, according to the Associated Press and Arabic news outlets. The explosions rocked Ahvaz on the same day that Mr. Ahmadinejad and his entire cabinet were scheduled to meet in the town, a trip that Mr. Ahmadinejad cancelled yesterday, citing forecasts for inclement weather. The bombs killed six and wounded 46.

It remained unclear yesterday who was responsible for the bombings, as scholars and analysts of Iran pointed to a violent opposition, separatist movements, and even the Ahmadinejad regime itself as possible culprits.

A fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, Patrick Clawson, told the Sun yesterday that the bombings were the latest episode in more than a year of ethnic minority unrest in Iran, where Sunnis, Arabs, Kurds, and Turks are outnumbered by the Persian Shia majority. As Mr. Ahmadinejad's "hard-liner" approach to nuclear armament - prompting increasing concern and action among Western governments - gains greater attention in America and Europe, Mr. Clawson said, Iranians are already aware that Mr. Ahmadinejad is a hardliner at home. The bombings, Mr. Clawson said, were likely a violent manifestation of Iranian outrage at the regime.

The scholar said the actions demonstrated that "the main victims of Iranian terrorism are Iranians," and that anti-Ahmadinejad sentiment among the Iranian population is one of America's most valuable weapons against Iranian extremism. "We have a natural ally in the people of Iran, and we should be using it," Mr. Clawson said.

Mr. Ganji, too, called upon Washington to respond to the attacks with greater support for Iranian democracy activists, both inside the Islamic Republic and in exile. "Washington has been paralyzed all these years, they're still paralyzed. They don't know what to do," Mr. Ganji said. He urged the American government to bring free TV and radio to Iran, and to provide assistance to the exile movement to provide for a peaceful transition to Iranian self-rule.

As for the explosions, Mr. Ganji said they were likely the work of separatists, and said that the violence by enemies of the mullahs' regime would likely set the Iranian pro-democracy movement back. Mr. Ganji condemned the violence, and said that almost all Iranians agree with the regime about Iran's territorial integrity, opposing separatism. The killing of innocent Iranians by separatists, the activist said, would likely increase Iranian support for the Ahmadinejad government.

Moreover, he said, "this is the kind of action that is certainly going to make the work of the non-violent opposition more difficult." The perpetrators of yesterday's attack are "in no way a responsible freedom movement," Mr. Ganji said, adding that the bombings would almost certainly result in the government's using the attacks as an excuse to jail scores of peaceful democracy activists.

An author and scholar of Iran, Kenneth Timmerman, said the attacks may have been perpetrated Ahmadinejad government to inflate its support. "The Iranian regime has a long track record of fabricating bomb attacks inside Iran to advance its own political agenda," Mr. Timmerman said, citing an arson attack in August 1978 orchestrated by Ayatollah Khomeini, originally blamed on the shah but designed by Khomeini's officials to spark the revolution that brought him to power. "I would not be surprised if Iran's Revolutionary Guards Corps were doing the same thing today, in a vain attempt to get Iranians to rally around the Islamic Republic," Mr. Timmerman said in an email to the Sun.

The signs of internal unrest in Iran also come amid increasing external pressure on the Islamic Republic. As America, Britain, France, Germany, and the United Nations work to defang Mr. Ahmadinejad's growing nuclear arms program, a movement is afoot in the American Congress to support Iranians hoping to replace the dictatorship with a free government.

In the Senate, Senator Santorum, Republican of Pennsylvania, has introduced the Iran Freedom and Support Act, which mandates government support for Iranian civil society and democracy movements. The legislation - which includes among its cosponsors almost half the Senate, with backing from both Republicans and Democrats - provides increased support for free press and broadcast outlets in Iran, and calls on the American government to facilitate a transition to democracy in the Islamic Republic resembling its anti-communist efforts in the Soviet bloc during the Cold War. Companion legislation has been introduced in the House by Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Republican of Florida, and has more than 330 cosponsors on both sides of the aisle. The House bill, while also calling on American support for Iranian democracy activists, also requires sanctions against the Ahmadinejad regime in response to its nuclear threat.

The White House spokesman, Scott McClellan, said yesterday, "the president has made it very clear that we stand with the Iranian people who seek greater freedom."

http://www.nysun.com/article/26427?page_no=1

OK, OK, looks like my prediction of Mugniyeh being kicked upstairs after the death of his boss is coming to fruition.

Now the sources here are the usual suspects, and it is unconfirmed, but logic would lead you to believe that Mugniyeh would and was there. And if he was, well, things should start to heat up on this thread.

Stand by for Adventure....

801

Also, by the way. If Mugniyeh has been moved up by the new rulers, then it is probible that Mugniyeh is a follower of the twelfth iman, or whatever that apocalyptic cult that the new rulers of Iran follow. I will have to post some information on that.

[The 801]

If this is correct, this could not be done without the knowledge of the new head of the head of the Iranian Qods Force, Brigadier General Mugniyeh. Yes, the guy that Mugniyeh replaced was a Brigadier General, so what would that make him?

Al-qaida man arrested; Zarqawi may be in Iran: Iraqi TV
- -
Baghdad: Iraqi police have arrested the fourth-ranking figure in al-Qaida in Iraq, state television said, while officials are investigating whether the group's leader, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, had fled to neighbouring Iran.

The brief report on Iraqiya television yesterday identified the suspect as Mohammed Rabei, also known as Abu Dhar, and said he was No 4 in the al-Qaida. It gave no further details. Meanwhile, a senior Iraqi security officer said the Iraqi government has been receiving information that al-Zarqawi may have moved to neighboring Iran after hot pursuit by US and Iraqi forces in western Iraq.
The officer said Iraq's intelligence services have received information that the Jordanian-born terrorist was spotted a few weeks ago in areas close to the Himreen Mountains, 120 kilometres south of Kirkuk and near the border with Iran. "We are dealing with this information carefully but intelligence services are working on the assumption that he has been planning to move to Iran after being besieged in the areas where he was operating inside Iraq," said the officer, who declined to be identified further because of the sensitivity of the investigation.

http://www.manoramaonline.com/servlet/ContentServer?pagename=manorama/MmArticle/CommonFullStory&cid=1139119013973&c=MmArticle&p=1002194839100&count=10&colid=1002258272837&channel=News

The " You will read it here first, and someone else will swipe it" 801

[The 801]

Mugniyeh's First Hijacking

U.S. seeks extradition of accused killer
Lebanon asked to hand over suspect from 1985 TWA hijacking
From Elise Labott and Beth Anne Rotatori


Monday, February 13, 2006; Posted: 10:26 p.m. EST (03:26 GMT)


WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The United States has formally asked the Lebanese government to extradite a Lebanese man accused of killing a U.S. Navy diver during an infamous 1985 hijacking, State Department officials and the victim's family said Monday.

Mohammed Ali Hamadi was released from a German prison in December after serving 19 years for his role in the hijacking of TWA Flight 847.

During the 17-day ordeal, U.S. Navy diver Robert Stethem, 23, was beaten and shot dead and his body dumped on a tarmac in Beirut -- an image captured by television cameras and shown around the world.

Officials said Jeffrey Feltman, the U.S. ambassador to Lebanon, has asked Lebanese authorities on several occasions to arrest Hamadi and turn him over to the United States for trial even though the two countries do not have a formal extradition treaty.

Feltman submitted a formal written request for Hamadi's extradition to Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora last week.

Hamadi was captured in 1987 in Frankfurt, Germany, and convicted for his role in the hijacking. He was paroled in December, and a German court allowed him to return to Lebanon.

The United States wanted Germany to turn over Hamadi to face a series of charges related to the hijacking, including one charge that could potentially carry the death penalty. But Hamadi is not likely to face a death sentence if he is extradited, according to the Justice Department.

Patrick Stethem, a brother of the murdered diver, said in December that he was "totally disgusted at the German government, and at the United States government for allowing this to have happened."

State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said in December the United States would "find [Hamadi] and bring him to justice in the United States."

Justice Department prosecutors secretly indicted Hamadi in 1985 in Washington and disclosed the charges in 1997, when they began efforts to have him brought to the United States.

Thirty-nine Americans were among those held hostage on the TWA flight, which was headed from Athens to Rome when it was commandeered. Only Stethem, the lone U.S. serviceman on the plane, was killed.

Last week, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and other top U.S. officials met with members of Stethem's family.

Patrick Stethem and another brother, Kenneth, told CNN that Rice briefed them on U.S. efforts in the case and reiterated that the administration would do everything in its power to bring Hamadi and others responsible for the murder to justice.

"It's always difficult to look in the eyes of those who have lost a loved one because of an act of terror," McCormack said Monday.

"I think we all remember that day. And Secretary Rice and this department are committed to doing everything that we can to see that the individuals responsible for that act of terror are brought to justice ... in a U.S. court."

Ali Atwa, Hasan Izz-al-din and Imad Fayez Mugniyah are also believed to be responsible for Stethem's killing and are included in the U.S. extradition request, but it is unclear whether those men are in Lebanon.

The FBI includes those three Lebanese natives on its list of most-wanted terrorists and links them to the Lebanon-based militant group Hezbollah.

Kenneth Stethem called the U.S. request a "positive action" that signaled the American commitment to fighting terrorism.

"The action backed up what they said they were going to do, and we're very grateful," he said. "It was quick, clear and decisive, what they did. And now Lebanon needs to decide whether they'll support terrorism or freedom."

Patrick Stethem called the extradition request a "symbolic action" for the family that "should've happened a long time ago."

He said he hopes it will serve as a starting point for further discussion between the U.S. and Lebanese government on bringing Hamadi and the others to justice.

http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/02/13/twa.hijacking/

[The 801]

Here's some interesting details in the smuggling field. I include this here because Mugniyeh is a smuggler, and probibly has an interest in this case.

Sunday, 04-Dec-2005 11:10AM United Press International
USTINET NEWS

LONDON, Dec. 4 (UPI) -- Gallaher, one of Britain's largest tobacco firms, is accused of allowing the illegal smuggling of its cigarettes.

Ptolomeous Tlais, a distributor who sold Gallaher's products throughout the Middle East, Africa, Latin America and Asia, claims the company set up a trading environment conducive to illegal activity, the Sunday Times of London reported.

The Cypriot-based businessman also alleges in papers lodged in Britain's High Court that a senior Gallaher executive encouraged him to smuggle products.

Gallaher, which makes Benson & Hedges and Mayfair cigarettes, denies the claims and says Tlais is responsible for the massive smuggling of its products, which cost the British exchequer hundreds of millions in lost duties over the past few years.

Gallaher products account for almost three-quarters of smuggled branded cigarettes seized by British customs, the newspaper said.

http://news.usti.net/home/news/cn/?/world.law/1/wed/ak/Ubritain-cigarettesmuggling.Rk43_FD4.html

Now,


The Sunday Times February 26, 2006

Tobacco giant accused of Hezbollah deal
INSIGHT
ONE of Britain’s biggest tobacco companies has been accused of agreeing to “enlist” the services of a militant Islamic group, according to papers lodged with the High Court last Friday.

Gallaher’s main distributor in the Middle East claims that the firm agreed to an approach to Hezbollah to recoup taxes of £1m that it had paid to the Iranian government, which funds the organisation. If successful, Hezbollah was allegedly promised a “success fee” of up to £287,000.

Hezbollah’s armed wing, which has been blamed for a series of atrocities, is a proscribed organisation in Britain and the United States. Those financing or supporting the group face criminal penalties.

The allegation has been made during an acrimonious legal battle between Gallaher and Tlais Enterprises, its main distributor in the Middle East, Africa and Latin America until last year. Each party is accusing the other of dubious business tactics and a trial is scheduled for the High Court next year.

Yesterday Gallaher, the maker of Benson & Hedges and Silk Cut cigarettes, “denied categorically” that it had entered into any arrangement with Hezbollah. The company, which will announce its financial results for 2005 on Wednesday, counter-claims that Tlais Enterprises is responsible for facilitating the smuggling of its products.

However, Tlais Enterprises, which is owned and run by Ptolomeous Tlais, a Lebanese businessman, states in a High Court claim which was lodged last week that: “Gallaher enlisted the services of a Middle Eastern group (that is proscribed in the US) to negotiate on its behalf, in an attempt to recover the duty.”

The group is Hezbollah, based in Lebanon, and correspondence between Tlais and Gallaher seen by The Sunday Times appears to substantiate the allegation. It is alleged that the plan was aborted after Hezbollah pulled out. It is not known whether the deal was brokered with the political or military wing of Hezbollah.

The UK does not formally ban links to the political party, but the US government makes no distinction between the two.

It is understood that a covert video recording of Gallaher executives discussing the matter will be disclosed in the court proceedings. Gallaher says it has not heard the recording.

The row over the payment of Iranian duties dates back to Gallaher’s decision to become a significant force in the estimated £4 billion Iranian tobacco market in 2002. In October of that year, Gallaher sent a high-powered delegation to accompany Tlais on a visit to Iran. It included Mark Rolfe, group finance director, and Norman Jack, then divisional director for the Middle East.

The company began shipping millions of cigarettes to Tlais Enterprises, via Dubai, from where they were sent on to distributors in Iran. But the cigarettes were found to be unfit for consumption as they had deteriorated, possibly during transit. Gallaher had, however, already paid the Iranian authorities more than £1m in duties to import the cigarettes which it was now unable to sell.

In June 2003, Rolfe and Jack travelled to the Middle East for a heated meeting with Tlais at the five-star Regency Palace hotel on the Mediterranean coast of Lebanon. Also present were Jack’s then boss Mounif Fawaz, Tlais’s brother known as Abu Ahmed, and Tlais’s lawyer Dinos Saveriades.

It was at this meeting that the Tlais Enterprises camp was alleged to have suggested that Hezbollah might be able to use its acknowledged influence with the Iranian government to recover the duty. The plan was said to involve transferring ownership of the cigarettes to Hezbollah, which would then reclaim the taxes.

A spokesman for Gallaher said: “At that meeting Mr Rolfe made it clear that it was normal for govenments to refund duty paid on goods which were damaged. Mr Tlais had some doubts about whether this would be possible in Iran. Mr Tlais’s brother made a reference to Hezbollah which Mr Rolfe interpreted as a joke in bad taste.”

However, Tlais alleges that Gallaher consented to the plan, although both sides agreed that Hezbollah would not be referred to directly in correspondence. Instead, they would simply refer to “the group”.

When Rolfe returned to Britain he immediately wrote to Tlais thanking him for the hospitality and the “full and frank” business discussions.

The “overall objective”, wrote Rolfe, was “to mitigate the losses suffered by Gallaher . . . since the more we can save, the more positive my fellow directors will feel about our business”. Rolfe then refers to Tlais Enterprises using its “own connections to attempt the duty recovery” in Iran.

Jack also wrote to Tlais, saying: “You are authorised to commence duty recovery procedures.” Tlais responded that they “were proceeding to arrange for the Dorchester (brand of cigarettes) to be transferred into the name of the group who are proceeding to attempt to recover the duty for the goods on your behalf”. Tlais also informed Rolfe that “the group” felt it had a “60% chance” of success.

In August 2003 an even more high-powered Gallaher delegation arrived in Lebanon for a meeting with Tlais. Rolfe and Jack were accompanied by Tom Keevil, Gallaher’s company secretary and lawyer, who had been copied in on earlier correspondence about the alleged Hezbollah deal.

After this meeting, Tlais received another letter from Gallaher stating: “The duty recovery issue in Iran is to be resolved . . . You stressed that there were no guarantees that the duty could be recovered but that you and your associates would do your best to mitigate losses in this area. You further advised that you believed the process had stumbled recently.”

Days later Tlais told Gallaher that Hezbollah was unable to help. According to a source close to the negotiations, the radical Islamic group had an objection to dealing with tobacco.

Tlais Enterprises still faces claims from its distributors in Iran who say they were left out of pocket. One, Sarfaraz Mobaraki, chairman of Parsian Fojan, wrote to Tlais on December 31, 2005: “Moving (the damaged cigarettes) for Hezbollah . . . brought us a very big loss.”

A Gallaher spokesman said: “Gallaher has never offered to pay any funds to Hezbollah. The true position with the damaged stock intended for the Iranian market is that Gallaher advised Tlais Enterprises to seek to recover duty through legitimate channels, since this would reduce the amount of money lost as a result of the damage to the goods. So far as we are aware, Tlais did not recover any duty.”

The Hezbollah allegation is the latest to surface during the legal battle between the FTSE 100 tobacco firm, worth £5.9 billion, and its former distributor. Last December The Sunday Times revealed that Tlais had accused Gallaher of “permitting” the illegal smuggling of its cigarettes.

Gallaher denies the claims and alleges that Tlais Enterprises was, in fact, responsible for the smuggling. It terminated Tlais Enterprises’s distribution contract because of concerns by British customs over the issue.

Tlais has also said there was a meeting between a senior Gallaher executive and Uday Hussein, Saddam’s son. He claims it was to follow up on the supply of cigarettes to Iraq despite United Nations sanctions.

Gallaher said in a statement at the time that any “imports were made without (its) knowledge or consent” and it had “no convincing evidence” that its executives were involved. In a statement yesterday Tlais said: “We are holding a large quantity of evidence that substantiates all aspects of the pleadings presented to the court.”

Jeff Jeffery, Gallaher’s head of corporate affairs, denied that the firm had been involved “in any way” with Hezbollah. He said: “Gallaher believes it has robust defences to the claims made by the distributor and will vigorously contest these claims in court.”

Insight: Jonathan Calvert, Michael Gillard, Andrew Rowell, Robert Winnett and Holly Watt


http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-2058698,00.html


What do you think? Cigerette smuggling to Iran, from Lebanon. An iranian tax problem solved by Hezbollah. Mugniyeh may be in a place to do such a thing.

Just thinkin. Lots of associates to reserch.

The "really pulls stuff out of his bum" 801

[Petronas]

Lebanon refuses to extradite Hezbollah suspects to the US
25 February 2006

BEIRUT - Lebanon has refused to extradite to the United States four suspected Shia Hezbollah members believed to have carried out attacks against Americans in Beirut during the 1980s, judicial sources said on Saturday. They said Lebanese authorities refused to extradite four Lebanese: Imad Moughaniyeh, Hassan Ezzeddine, Ali Atwe and Mohammed ali Hamadeh. Local media said that during her visit to Beirut earlier this week US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice had made the demand to Prime Minister Foaud Seniora.

Three of the four wanted Lebanese - Moughaniyeh, Ezzeddine and Atwe - are accused of participation in a 1983 attack on US Marines headquarter in Beirut in which more than 100 Marines were killed. The fourth Mohammed Hamadeh, who returned to Lebanon in December after he finished serving his jail sentence in Germany for possessing explosives, is accused by the United States of the 1985 highjacking of a TWA airliner during which a US Navy diver was killed.

Authorities have also rejected a US request to hand over Wassef Hassoun, an American of Lebanese origin who deserted the Marines in 2004 and left Iraq for Lebanon and then left the southern port city of Tripoli for the US. It was reported later that Hassoun has left the US and headed back to Lebanon.

The judicial sources said the general amnesty law which was adopted in 1991 after the 1975-1990 civil war ended in Lebanon covered incidents of which the four were accused. As for Hassoun, the sources gave no reason for rejecting his extradition.

http://www.khaleejtimes.com/DisplayArticle.asp?xfile=data/middleeast/2006/February/middleeast_February799.xml&section=middleeast&col

[The 801]

Mugniyeh related material, for your approval.

Tackling Iranian support for terrorism
By Lucy Stallworthy Mar 13, 2006, 12:44 GMT

WASHINGTON, DC, United States (UPI) -- Whilst Iranian attempts to export the Islamic Revolution have largely failed, the fundamentalist regime`s efforts to export terrorism have achieved devastating results.

Iran is classified by the U.S. State Department as 'the world`s most active state sponsor of terrorism.' Addressing a Heritage Foundation conference on Wednesday, analysts said the Iranian provision of weapons, funding and sanctuary for international terrorist organizations is an issue which U.S. foreign policy should seriously address.

Since the 1979 Islamic Revolution and the establishment of a conservative theocratic government, terrorism has been a key part of Iranian attempts to foster revolution within the Muslim world. 'For Iran, revolutionary terrorism has been the business of the state since 1979,' Dr. Christopher Harmon, Marine Corps University, said.

The Iranian promotion of terrorism incorporates a range of strategies. The cultivation of close-bilateral relations with other dubious states has been of central importance.

During the 1990s, Tehran deepened its political and military involvement in Sudan. The country has served as a convenient bridgehead for the transportation of Iranian fundamentalism into Africa. According to James Phillips, Research Fellow for Middle Eastern Affairs at the Heritage Foundation, Sudan 'became a new Lebanon where Iranian Revolutionary Guards trained Sunni revolutionaries in acts of violence.'

More recently, Iran has increased its links with the isolated North Korean regime, a fellow member of President Bush`s `axis of evil`. Pyongyang has sold Tehran ballistic missile technology which could be used to deliver weapons of mass destruction.

In addition, Iran is also directly funding militant Islamic groups. Tehran has long allied itself with the militant Palestinian group, Hamas. Indeed, in a viewpoint displayed on his official website, Ayatollah Khamenei states, 'the Palestinian problem is the problem of the Muslim world. Whether we know it or not, the fate of Palestine is the fate of us all.'

This support has intensified in the wake of Hamas` recent election triumph. In February, Ari Larijani, a senior Iranian security official, said 'the request for assistance to enable the (Palestinian) Authority to overcome existing problems is noted by Iran and we shall definitely help them financially.'

The Lebanese Shiite militant group Hezbollah has also received Iranian financial aid. Iran helped to establish Hezbollah during the 1980s, and the organization receives an estimated $60million per year from Tehran. 'Iran has nurtured Hezbollah to become a major power player in Lebanon,' Dr Kenneth Katzmen, specialist in Middle Eastern affairs at the Congressional Research Service, said.

Syria has been central to this alliance, and Iran has used Syria to ship weapons to Hezbollah. 'Syria has been a real partner in many Iranian projects,' Harmon said. According to Phillips, this support has had a devastating effect as, prior to the 9-11 attacks, Hezbollah was responsible for more American deaths than any other terrorist group.

Given the gravity of this problem, the Heritage conference participants called for a renewed focus on Iran`s activities as a sponsor of terrorism. 'It is time to bring home to the Iranians that supporting a nuclear weapons program has consequences,' Michael Kraft, former senior adviser in the State Department`s Office of the Co-coordinator for Counterterrorism, said.

The 9-11 Commission Report included new evidence of increased links between Iran and al-Qaida, and some observers contend that it is time for a new investigation. 'It is high time that the U.S. look in greater depth at these murky ties ... there is a role here for another commission,' Phillips said.

However, some observers believe the establishment of another commission to examine Iranian links to terrorist organizations would be a futile exercise. According to John Calabrese, a Middle East Institute Scholar, 'the United States has really cornered the market on commissions.' Calabrese questioned how many of the 9-11 recommendations have actually been adopted. 'I am not sure what we would find and whether this would translate into a higher public profile,' he said.

Other analysts take a harsher line on future U.S. policy towards Iran. Kraft said that Iranian links to numerous terrorist attacks against U.S. interests mean that Iran is already at war with America. 'If these are not acts of war, they are a pretty good imitation,' he said.

Kraft advocated closer analysis of existing sanctions against Iran. The use of sanctions dates back to the 1979 Export Administration Act, and Kraft suggested that 'before enacting new legislation, it might be worth consolidating existing sanctions.' He said that closed door hearings can play an important role in 'prodding the administration to take a good hard look at which are the solid sanctions.'

Calabrese endorsed the need for a closer analysis of existing sanctions. 'We have applied a whole panoply of sanctions since the revolution ... it is not clear that this has had any perceptible impact on Iran`s foreign policy and behavior,' he said.

Many observers also advocate a broader political solution to the Iranian sponsorship of global terrorism. Calabrese argued it is crucial to address the issues which have galvanized the Iranian-sponsored terrorist groups. Political solutions may be effective in cutting off the demand for Iranian support. In terms of the Israel-Palestine conflict, Calabrese said, 'If something can be resolved then it would seem to me that there are number of people in Tehran who would be willing to accept that they are not more Palestinian than the Palestinians.'

Copyright 2006 by United Press International

http://news.monstersandcritics.com/middleeast/article_1136644.php/Tackling_Iranian_support_for_terrorism

[The 801]

Mugniyeh associate captured by Isreal in the prision takeover.

Palestinian inmate surrenders, operation ongoing
Mar 14, 2006, 18:59 GMT

Palestinian prisoners are seen after they are arrested by Israeli soldiers in Jericho, Tuesday, 14 March 2006. The imprisoned Palestinian leader, Ahmed Saadat, and other men sought by Israel surrendered to Israeli troops Tuesday after a siege lasting several hours. Sa'adat and several men are wanted in connection with the murder of Israeli Tourism Minister Rehavim Ze‘evi in 2001. A large Israeli force entered Jericho Tuesday morning to seize militants held in the jail for killing the Israeli minister.

Sa'adat and several of his followers reportedly emerged from the Palestinian prison in Jericho in the West Bank with their hands up, Israeli media reported.

A spokesman for the Israeli defence forces, told reporters however, that the army's operation in Jericho was ongoing.

Sa'adat and several men are wanted in connection with the murder of Israeli Tourism Minister Rehavim Ze'evi in 2001.

A large Israeli force entered Jericho Tuesday morning to seize militants held in the jail for killing the Israeli minister. The incursion sparked a tense standoff with Palestinians in the oasis city and resulted in a wave of kidnappings in the Gaza Strip.

Witnesses and Palestinian officials reported that at least two Palestinians, including a policeman and a militant, were killed, and six wounded when the large Israeli force stormed the prison.

The Israeli army has said the prison was almost completely destroyed in the raid. It also said it was still trying to confirm that the six men it sought in connection with Ze'evi's death were among the 200 prisoners seized from the prison.

As the violence escalated Tuesday helicopters flew over the prison and tanks lobbed shells at it, while from time to time Palestinians attempted to throw Molotov cocktails and makeshift bombs at the soldiers.

Army bulldozers were also brought in to knock down the walls of the jail, edging closer to the militants inside.

Some 170 of the 200 prisoners held in the jail surrendered to the Israelis early on and were taken for interrogation.

But the target of the raid, Ahmed Sa'adat, leader of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), initially refused to surrender to the Israeli troops who were surrounding the jail.

Sa'adat and four other PFLP members, as well as Faud Shoubaki, a Palestinian leader accused of smuggling weapons to the Palestinian areas, were being held at the Jericho jail, guarded by British and American warders, for their role in the 2001 assassination.

They have been incarcerated in Jericho since 2002 under an agreement reached between Israel and the Palestinian Authority which ended a one-month-long Israeli military siege of the headquarters of the late Palestinian president Yasser Arafat in Ramallah.

Retaliating for Tuesday's raid, PFLP activists in the Gaza Strip and West Bank kidnapped 12 foreign nationals, set alight the British Cultural Centre in Gaza City, and attacked a closed representative building for the European Union. There were also reports of United Nations convoys being fired on in the Strip.

Palestinian security officials and eyewitnesses said the 12 were kidnapped in five incidents. A sixth kidnap attempt failed, they said.

Two Americans and two Australians were taken from the American school in Gaza City and two French women, members of the human rights group Medecins du Monde (Doctors of the World), were abducted near the village of Beit Hanoun in northern Gaza Strip.

A Swiss national, the head of the local Red Cross office, was kidnapped in the southern Gaza Strip city of Khan Younis, and two Korean and two French journalists were hauled from the al-Deera Hotel on the Gaza City beachfront.

Palestinian officials said an American citizen was also kidnapped in Jenin by PFLP militants.

The kidnappings were also a protest at the withdrawal of the joint British-American force that was entrusted with supervising the imprisonment of Saadat, Shoubaki and the others. According to Palestinian security sources, the monitors left the prison 15 minutes before the Israel military operation began.

In a briefing after the raid, the Israeli army told reporters that it had not consulted with the British and American troops before storming the prison.

British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw defended his decision to pull out British monitors, telling parliament in London on Tuesday that the security risks were 'unacceptable.'

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, in Vienna for a meeting with European Union officials, condemned the Israeli raid, accusing Israel of violating the terms of the 2002 agreement and warning against the harming of Sa'adat and the other prisoners.

He said he held both the United States and Britain responsible for the outcome of the raid because they withdrew their security forces shortly before the military operation.

A statement issued by his office said that the decision by the US and British warders to leave their posts was a 'grave violation' of the agreement reached in 2002.

Israeli Public Security Minister Gideon Ezra told Israel Radio that once it became clear the warders had left their posts, Israel had no option but to try nab the PFLP men, lest they be released by the incoming Palestinian government headed by the Islamic militant Hamas movement.

An Israeli Army statement said Israel 'decided to take action only when the Palestinian Authority violated its side of the agreement and the terrorists were no longer under the supervision of the American and British inspectors as specified in the agreements.'

The Israel Defence Force, said the statement, 'will act with all means necessary in order to prevent the release of the murderers of Rehavam Zeevi.'

http://news.monstersandcritics.com/middleeast/article_1136944.php/Palestinian_inmate_surrenders_operation_ongoing

and from:

http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/templateC05.php?CID=2068


Also within Arafat's compound, the IDF found official correspondence between the office of Fuad Shoubaki, the PA's chief finance and procurement officer, and the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades. The correspondence included procurement requests for bombs and ammunition, revealing that the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades is a bona fide group, with its own terrorist infrastructure and supply chain. Shoubaki, it should be remembered, was the primary PA figure behind the infamous Karine-A smuggling operation. Notwithstanding Arafat's promise to senior U.S. officials, Shoubaki was neither arrested nor interrogated, as reported by the official Palestinian news agency, WAFA.


Shoubaki is a direct associate of Mugniyeh.

[The 801]

Guess it's time to fire up this thread again. Lots of stuff happening, sorry I failed to post. Will play catchup. Oh yea, you read this here first as part of an analiyis a while back.

Iran’s president recruits terror master

Sarah Baxter, Washington and Uzi Mahnaimi, Tel Aviv

Plot for revenge attacks on West
IRAN’S president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, attended a meeting in Syria earlier this year with one of the world’s most wanted terrorists, according to intelligence experts and a former national security official in Washington.

US officials and Israel intelligence sources believe Imad Mugniyeh, the Lebanese commander of Hezbollah’s overseas operations, has taken charge of plotting Iran’s retaliation against western targets should President George W Bush order a strike on Iranian nuclear sites.

Mugniyeh is on the FBI’s “Most Wanted Terrorists” list for his role in a series of high-profile attacks against the West, including the 1985 hijacking of a TWA jet and murder of one of its passengers, a US navy diver.

Now in his mid-forties, Mugniyeh is reported to have travelled with Ahmadinejad in January this year from Tehran to Damascus, where the Iranian president met leaders of Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad and Hamas.

The meeting has been dubbed a “terror summit” because of the presence of so many groups behind attacks on Israel, which Ahmadinejad has threatened to wipe from the map.


Jane’s Intelligence Review cited “reports in recent weeks” of Mugniyeh’s presence alongside the president.

Michael Ledeen, a Middle East expert and former Pentagon and National Security Council official who wrote that Mugniyeh had “probably” been there, said last week senior American officials had confirmed it.

“It’s hard to identify Mugniyeh because he is said to have changed his face and his fingerprints,” Ledeen said. “But senior government officials have told me I was right. He was there.”

Shortly after the Damascus summit Henry Crumpton, head of counter-terrorism at the state department, singled out the elusive Mugniyeh as a threat. The Iranians, Crumpton said, “have complete command and control of Hezbollah. Imad Mugniyeh works for Tehran. And you can’t talk about Hezbollah and not think about Iran. They really are part and parcel of the same problem.”

Mugniyeh lives in Iran and has evaded capture for more than 20 years, despite a $5m American bounty on his head. Western intelligence reports claim he has many connections to terrorist cells in Europe, Africa, Latin America and the US and he is said to have met Osama Bin Laden.

“When and if the Iranians decide to hit the West in its soft belly, Imad will be the one to act,” a western intelligence source said last week.

An Israeli defence source claimed Mugniyeh was in regular touch with the new Iranian intelligence minister, Gholamhossein Mohseni Ezhei. The minister is a long-time confidant of Ahmadinejad and was appointed by him.

“We know that Mohseni Ezhei holds routine meetings with Mugniyeh, who is today Iran’s head of overseas operations,” said the Israeli defence source. “Since we know from previous Iranian terror attacks that it takes about a year to plan a substantial one, we should not be surprised if operations against western targets are already in high gear and Mugniyeh is certainly playing a major role.”

The young Mugniyeh first attracted the attention of the West when he was involved in the kidnapping, torture and mutilation of William Buckley, the CIA station chief in Beirut, in 1984. He kept his victim at the Sheikh Abdullah camp in the Lebanese Bekaa valley and was allegedly the last person Buckley saw before he died.

“Imad had good reason to retaliate,” said a well-informed source. “A car bomb killed his brother Jihad, who had taken Imad’s old job as bodyguard to Hezbollah’s spiritual leader.” Mugniyeh blamed the CIA, and Buckley was chosen to pay the price.

The kidnapping led to the Iran-contra affair, one of the most embarrassing episodes of the Reagan presidency, in which arms were swapped for hostages. But by the time the Americans were negotiating with the Iranians, Buckley was already dead.

Mugniyeh has also been linked to the demolition of the American embassy and marine barracks in Beirut in 1983 and is wanted in Argentina for his role in recruiting the bombers of the Israeli embassy and Jewish centre in Buenos Aires in the early 1990s.

Mugniyeh left Lebanon for Iran in 1994 with his wife and son after an assassination attempt. He is since believed to have played an active role in fomenting trouble in Iraq. Ledeen described him last week as the “spinal column of the terror war against America in Iraq from the beginning”.

According to Robert Baer, a former CIA agent who pursued Mugniyeh in the 1980s, “he is the most dangerous terrorist we have ever faced. Mugniyeh is probably the most intelligent, most capable operative we have ever run across, including the KGB or anybody else.

“He enters by one door, exits by another, changes his cars daily, never makes appointments by telephone — he is never predictable. He is the master terrorist, the grail we have been after since 1983”.

# Elite Iranian army officers who arrived in south Lebanon this month have taken command of thousands of rockets aimed at cities across Israel. They are believed to have been given control of the missiles by Hezbollah to deter possible Israeli attacks against Iran’s nuclear facilities

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2089-2147683_1,00.html

[The 801]

Apologizes upfront here, this is from the WorldNetDaily. But some data reported is accurate as best I can determine. I got his new boss wrong a few posts back. Sorry.
801

Ahmadinejad recruits
Hezbollah terror chief

'When the Iranians decide to hit the West
in its soft belly, Imad will be the 1 to act'
Posted: April 23, 2006
1:00 a.m. Eastern


© 2006 WorldNetDaily.com

When Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad traveled to Damascus in January, he took a special guest with him on the flight from Tehran – one of the world's most wanted terrorists.


Imad Mugniyah

Intelligence experts have told the London Times Ahmadinejad has recruited Imad Mugniyah, the Lebanese commander of Hezbollah's overseas operations, to oversee retaliation against Western targets if the U.S. orders a strike on Iran's nuclear facilities.

Mugniyah, now in his forties, is on the FBI's "Most Wanted Terrorist" list for past terrorist actions, including the hijacking of TWA Flight 847 in 1985 where one of the passengers, Robert Stethem, a U.S. Navy diver, was murdered. Mugniyah is also believed to be the last person to see William Buckley, the CIA station chief in Beirut, alive after he was kidnapped, mutilated and murdered by Hezbollah in 1984.


Mugniyah was one of three hijackers on TWA 847

Mugniyah and the Iranian president met with leaders of Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad and Hamas in Damascus in what has been called a "terror summit" because of the number of groups that have carried out attacks on Israel and Israelis over the years.

Ahmadinejad earlier "threatened to "wipe Israel off the map."

Mugniyah has avoided capture for 20 years, living in Iran and, reportedly, having changed his face and his fingerprints. He is said to have met with Osama bin Laden.

The Iranians "have complete command and control of Hezbollah," said Henry Crumpton, head of counter-terrorism at the state department. "Imad Mugniyah works for Tehran. And you can't talk about Hezbollah and not think about Iran. They really are part and parcel of the same problem."

An Israeli defense source told the Times Mugniyah meets regularly with Mohseni Ezhei, Iran's new defense minister appointed by Ahmadinejad.

"We know that Mohseni Ezhei holds routine meetings with Mugniyah, who is today Iran's head of overseas operations," he said. "Since we know from previous Iranian terror attacks that it takes about a year to plan a substantial one, we should not be surprised if operations against western targets are already in high gear and Mugniyah is certainly playing a major role."

"When and if the Iranians decide to hit the West in its soft belly, Imad will be the one to act," a Western intelligence source said.

Iran sent officers to southern Lebanon last month are in command of thousands of rockets aimed at Israel's cities. It is believed they've been given control of Hezbollah's missiles to attack Israel if Iran's nuclear sites are hit. U.S. officials and Israel intelligence sources believe Mugniyah is in charge of these operations.

Robert Baer, a former CIA agent tasked with pursuing the terrorist in the 1980s said Mugniyah "is the most dangerous terrorist we have ever faced. Mugniyah is probably the most intelligent, most capable operative we have ever run across, including the KGB or anybody else. He enters by one door, exits by another, changes his cars daily, never makes appointments by telephone – he is never predictable. He is the master terrorist, the grail we have been after since 1983."

http://worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=49866

[The 801]

Let us not forget that Iran and China are good friends. So their news might reveal something.

Sounds like Mugniyeh is in position all ready. Notice his trademark multiple attacks at same time mentioned here by people who know him.


Iran's supreme leader: US attack will cause global revenge

www.chinaview.cn 2006-04-26 19:34:19

TEHRAN, April 26 (Xinhua) -- The Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei warned on Wednesday that the United States would gain global revenge if it launches an attack on the Islamic republic, the state television reported.

"The Americans must understand that if they make a surprise attack on Iran, their interests around the world will be under retaliation, our country will give them diploid reply," Khamenei was cited as saying.

The supreme leader stressed that the U.S. has been threatening Iran for many years, but the Islamic republic would not be really concerned about it.

Earlier on Wednesday, Iran's hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad vowed that the country would neglect the UN calls to freeze its sensitive nuclear activities.

"We won't retreat from our legal rights," Ahmadinejad was quoted as saying by the official IRNA news agency.

"If the international institutions acknowledge our country's rights, we will also respect their demands, but if they deprive our legal rights, I don't think Iran could accept any requests," he said.

"If they can carry out their responsibilities legally, there's no reason for us to reconsider our relations with them," the president stressed.

The two leaders made the flinty remarks just two days before a nuclear deadline set by the UN Security Council expires, which demanded Iran to suspend all uranium enrichment activities by Friday.

Based on a Feb. 4 resolution, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) on March 8 handed over the Iranian nuclear issue to the UN Security Council.

After weeks of heated bargains, the 15-member Security Council on March 29 approved a non-binding presidential statement, asking Iran to suspend uranium enrichment activities in 30 days and demanding the UN nuclear watchdog to report on Tehran's compliance.

Mohamed ElBaradei, chief of the IAEA, is expected to submit the report to the Security Council in the coming days.

With the deadline looming, President Ahmadinejad said on Monday that he believed sanctions were unlikely, vowing to press ahead with the nuclear program.

He also warned that Tehran would "reconsider" its cooperation with the IAEA, hinting a possible withdrawal from the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, if western countries continued to prevent Iran from obtaining peaceful nuclear technologies.

Earlier this month, Iran officially declared that it had gained ticket to joining the global nuclear club by having produced 3.5 percent enriched uranium, a technological leap in the process for nuclear power plant construction, which immediately aroused strong international concern.

The United States has accused Iran of secretly developing nuclear weapons under a civilian front, but Iran dismissed the charge, saying that its nuclear program is fully peaceful. Enditem
Editor: Zhu Jin

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2006-04/26/content_4478116.htm

[The 801]

The Sunday Times

Plot for revenge attacks on West

Sarah Baxter, Washington and Uzi Mahnaimi, Tel Aviv

IRAN’S president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, attended a meeting in Syria earlier this year with one of the world’s most wanted terrorists, according to intelligence experts and a former national security official in Washington.

US officials and Israel intelligence sources believe Imad Mugniyeh, the Lebanese commander of Hezbollah’s overseas operations, has taken charge of plotting Iran’s retaliation against western targets should President George W Bush order a strike on Iranian nuclear sites.

Mugniyeh is on the FBI’s “Most Wanted Terrorists” list for his role in a series of high-profile attacks against the West, including the 1985 hijacking of a TWA jet and murder of one of its passengers, a US navy diver.

Now in his mid-forties, Mugniyeh is reported to have travelled with Ahmadinejad in January this year from Tehran to Damascus, where the Iranian president met leaders of Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad and Hamas.

The meeting has been dubbed a “terror summit” because of the presence of so many groups behind attacks on Israel, which Ahmadinejad has threatened to wipe from the map.

Jane’s Intelligence Review cited “reports in recent weeks” of Mugniyeh’s presence alongside the president.

Michael Ledeen, a Middle East expert and former Pentagon and National Security Council official who wrote that Mugniyeh had “probably” been there, said last week senior American officials had confirmed it.

“It’s hard to identify Mugniyeh because he is said to have changed his face and his fingerprints,” Ledeen said. “But senior government officials have told me I was right. He was there.”

Shortly after the Damascus summit Henry Crumpton, head of counter-terrorism at the state department, singled out the elusive Mugniyeh as a threat. The Iranians, Crumpton said, “have complete command and control of Hezbollah. Imad Mugniyeh works for Tehran. And you can’t talk about Hezbollah and not think about Iran. They really are part and parcel of the same problem.”

Mugniyeh lives in Iran and has evaded capture for more than 20 years, despite a $5m American bounty on his head. Western intelligence reports claim he has many connections to terrorist cells in Europe, Africa, Latin America and the US and he is said to have met Osama Bin Laden.

“When and if the Iranians decide to hit the West in its soft belly, Imad will be the one to act,” a western intelligence source said last week.

An Israeli defence source claimed Mugniyeh was in regular touch with the new Iranian intelligence minister, Gholamhossein Mohseni Ezhei. The minister is a long-time confidant of Ahmadinejad and was appointed by him.

“We know that Mohseni Ezhei holds routine meetings with Mugniyeh, who is today Iran’s head of overseas operations,” said the Israeli defence source. “Since we know from previous Iranian terror attacks that it takes about a year to plan a substantial one, we should not be surprised if operations against western targets are already in high gear and Mugniyeh is certainly playing a major role.”

The young Mugniyeh first attracted the attention of the West when he was involved in the kidnapping, torture and mutilation of William Buckley, the CIA station chief in Beirut, in 1984. He kept his victim at the Sheikh Abdullah camp in the Lebanese Bekaa valley and was allegedly the last person Buckley saw before he died.

“Imad had good reason to retaliate,” said a well-informed source. “A car bomb killed his brother Jihad, who had taken Imad’s old job as bodyguard to Hezbollah’s spiritual leader.” Mugniyeh blamed the CIA, and Buckley was chosen to pay the price.

The kidnapping led to the Iran-contra affair, one of the most embarrassing episodes of the Reagan presidency, in which arms were swapped for hostages. But by the time the Americans were negotiating with the Iranians, Buckley was already dead.

Mugniyeh has also been linked to the demolition of the American embassy and marine barracks in Beirut in 1983 and is wanted in Argentina for his role in recruiting the bombers of the Israeli embassy and Jewish centre in Buenos Aires in the early 1990s.

Mugniyeh left Lebanon for Iran in 1994 with his wife and son after an assassination attempt. He is since believed to have played an active role in fomenting trouble in Iraq. Ledeen described him last week as the “spinal column of the terror war against America in Iraq from the beginning”.

According to Robert Baer, a former CIA agent who pursued Mugniyeh in the 1980s, “he is the most dangerous terrorist we have ever faced. Mugniyeh is probably the most intelligent, most capable operative we have ever run across, including the KGB or anybody else.

“He enters by one door, exits by another, changes his cars daily, never makes appointments by telephone — he is never predictable. He is the master terrorist, the grail we have been after since 1983”.

• Elite Iranian army officers who arrived in south Lebanon this month have taken command of thousands of rockets aimed at cities across Israel. They are believed to have been given control of the missiles by Hezbollah to deter possible Israeli attacks against Iran’s nuclear facilities.


http://www.iranfocus.com/modules/news/article.php?storyid=6868

[exitwound]

One of the greatest, most little-known threats to our nation.

[stewey]

http://www.fbi.gov/wanted/terrorists/termugniyah.htm

IMAD FAYEZ MUGNIYAH FBI most wanted poster. This is some bad news, and makes you really suspect Iran in harboring other terrorists. The US should bring this up at the UN, although I doubt it'd do anything.

[The 801]

Ugg, The world net daily again. All those unnamed sources, all those unresearchable facts. Its a masma of conservative world view, served up with a healthy dolip of the John Birch Socity. And they love Mugniyeh.

I do not vouch for the accuracy of the following.

Iran's secret plan if attacked
codenamed 'Judgment Day'
8 Islamist groups funded to strike
U.S. military, economic interests
Posted: April 29, 2006
5:40 p.m. Eastern


&#169; 2006 WorldNetDaily.com

Tehran has recruited and funded eight Islamic fundamentalist organizations to undertake retaliatory strikes against U.S. and British military and economic interests across the Middle East – and perhaps in the U.S. and Europe – in the event Iran's nuclear facilities are attacked, reports a London Arab daily, Asharq Al-Awsat.

The plan, which has been heavily funded and was created by a number of experts in guerilla warfare and terrorist operations, includes suicide attacks against U.S. and British targets in the region as well as their allies. According to information gleaned from a senior source in the Iranian armed forces' joint chief of staff, logistical support for the groups that would participate in the plan comes from Brigadier General Qassim Suleimani of the of the Revolutionary Guards' al Quds Brigades.

"Most of Iran's visitors in the last four months, including the leaders of revolutionary groups in Iraq, Palestine and Lebanon, as well as the heads of Hezbollah cells in the Persian Gulf and Europe and North America were asked, when they met with the Iranian intelligence minister Gholamhossein Mohseni Ezhei and his aides: 'Are you ready to defend the Islamic revolution and vilayat e faqih (rule of the clergy)?'" the source said. "'If you agree to take part in the great jihad, what would you need to be ready for the great fight?'"

The leader of one of the Iraq groups that is part of the "Judgment Day" plan told the Iranians his men would turn Iraq into hell for Americans in the event of an attack on Iran. The Revolutionary Guards' military training camps have been made available to Moqtada al Sadr's Mahdi Army. Al Sadr has received more than $20 million from the Iranians.

Street-fighting training has been given in Isfahan, Iran, to members of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, as well as large sums of money and large quantities of arms.

As reported by WorldNetDaily, Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has recruited Imad Mugniyah, the Lebanese commander of Hezbollah's overseas operations, to oversee retaliation against Western targets following any U.S. strike on Iran's nuclear facilities.

Officers sent to southern Lebanon last month are in command of more than 10 thousand rockets aimed at Israel's cities. It is believed they've been given control of Hezbollah's missiles to attack Israel if Iran's nuclear sites are hit. U.S. officials and Israel intelligence sources believe Mugniyah is in charge of these operations.

"When and if the Iranians decide to hit the West in its soft belly, Imad will be the one to act," a Western intelligence source said.

Approximately 80 members of Hezbollah received training last year in ultralight aircraft and undersea operations in order to carry out suicide attacks.

Implementation of the plan is set to begin immediately following a strike on Iran's nuclear facilities and would progress in six stages:

* U.S. bases in Iraq and the Persian Gulf region to be struck by Iranian missiles.

* Suicide attacks in a number of Muslim countries against U.S. embassies, military bases, economic and oil-related facilities tied to U.S. and British firms, and targets in countries allied with the U.S.

* Attacks by Revolutionary Guards and Iraqi insurgents loyal to Iran against U.S. and British forces in Iraq.

* Hundreds of rockets launched by Hezbollah against pre-selected targets in Israel.

* If U.S. military attacks continue, more than 50 Shehab-3 missiles will be launched against Israel and 50 terrorist cells in the U.S., Canada and Europe will be given approval to launch attacks against civil and industrial targets in those countries.

* Maximize civilian casualties with germ agents and "dirty bombs."


http://worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=49982


Whewww. Sounds serious. All this was printed in Asharq Al-Awsat? I don't buy it.

[Hound]

http://www.forward.com/articles/7741

more of the same, mentions 28? Western targets

[stewey]

WND is occaisonally 100% right, occaisonally flat out wrong, and most of the time has information that is impossible to verify.

[The 801]

This is Mugniyeh and his link to purchasing and supplying SA-18 shoulder fired missles. For those of you who are longtime readers ( ie. a few generations of IH ago) you will remember that it was reported here about Mugniyeh purchasing SA-18's. I will find the post.

Iran, Hizballah, Iraqi Shi'ite Militias and SA-18's
Was an Iranian SA-18 Anti-Aircraft Missile via Hizballah Used by the al-Mahdi Army to Shoot Down a British Lynx?
By Steve Schippert

The fallout continues after a British Lynx helicopter was shot down in Basra, Iraq on Saturday. Four British troops were killed in the crash as British officials held Muqtada al-Sadr’s al-Mahdi Army responsible for the attack which utilized a Russian-made anti-aircraft missile. Following a rise in attacks in the south of Iraq, at the hands of militias funded and armed by Iran, British forces appear to be lowering their security activities, dramatically reducing their over-the-road patrols fearing IED’s, replacing them largely with helicopter patrols. This decision left the Iranian-backed militias, primarily the al-Mahdi Army and the Badr Brigades, relatively unchallenged and unfettered in their quest for dominance of Basra and the rest of southern Iraq.

Now that a helicopter has been shot down, there is talk in some circles of British withdrawal from Iraq altogether, while others see the incident as ‘A shot that changed the rules’. But the deputy commander of Multinational Forces - Iraq, British Lieutenant-General Sir Rob Fry, sees nothing in the talk of withdrawal. It is the Iraqi government’s job to track down and defeat these armed militias, and General Fry said that if they fail to do so, British troops may be deployed to do the job. Not only did the riots incited by the militias following the crash rightly disturb the Brits, but the stakes are now clearly higher and the specter of ceding southern Iraq to Iran via Shi’ite militias is feared an unpleasant reality.

After finding missile casings in the third floor of the building from where the missile was fired, it was confirmed that the missile used was a Russian design, quite possibly directly supplied from Iran or indirectly from Iranian child Hizballah or Syria. The article stops short of identifying the weapon for security reasons, but limits the field of potential suppliers rather specifically.

Iranian involvement in killing US, British and Iraqi forces via Hizballah facilitation has been going on for some time. It should be noted with interest that meetings have taken place publicly among Iranian, Hizballah and Syrian figures, including suspicion of activity from Imad Fayez Mugniyah, believed to be present with Ahmadinejad in a recent trip to Syria. Through proxies such as Hizballah, the al-Mahdi Army, the Badr Brigades (and others) and their press for nuclear weapons, Iran clearly seeks regional hegemony. This includes thinly veiled confrontation with Coalition forces within Iraq.

The primary Telegraph article referenced here stopped short of naming the model of the Russian-made missile used in the attack on the British Lynx, but did go so far as to say that “(h)undreds of the missiles [identified by/to The Telegraph] are known to have been sold to Iran and some to Syria, leading to speculation that some might have been passed to Iraq’s insurgents.” This includes several missile models, but points to two primary possibilities: The SA-18 Grouse (Igla 9K38) and possibly the even newer SA-16 Gimlet (Igla-1 9K310).

In recent years, attempts by Russia to sell the SA-18 Grouse in packages to Syria were halted under the objections of Israel, rightly fearing that any transfer to Syria would result in a transfer to Hizballah in Lebanon. The advanced SA-18, a vast improvement on the SA-7 already possessed by Hizballah, is feared by Israel as a threat to their civilian airliners more so than military aircraft. (The SA-7 was used in the failed attempt to bring down an El Al airliner taking off in Kenya. Perhaps an improved SA-18 would have found its mark with better targeting guidance, range and countermeasure [flare] evasion capabilities.)

Global Security notes the 1997 agreement by Russia to sell 500 of the SA-18’s to Iran, which is also reflected at the Federation of American Scientists (FAS) site as the number known in the Iranian arsenal, likely far more nearly a decade later. And, if Iran has them and desires it, Hizballah has them already as well. In fact, the Middle East Intelligence Bulletin noted in 2003 that it was suspected that Hizballah already had possession of the SA-18’s, shipped before Israel successfully pulled the plug on an earlier Russian-Syrian arms deal. If Hizballah received a number of the SA-18’s, it is only logical to conclude that Syria may have also. This would be consistent with The Telegraph’s numbers, saying that “(h)undreds of the missiles [500 as shown] are known to have been sold to Iran and some to Syria [following the Hizballah supply logic].

If Hizballah indeed has them, under the direction of Iran it is more than plausible that Shi’ite militias in the south of Iraq will have them as well, if and when Iran desire(d) it so. Gauging by the Hizballah assistance in bomb making (similar concealment and triggering techniques showing up in Iraq) and the capture of IED shipments directly from Iran across the Iraq border, an SA-18 threat in Iraq is very real.

It has been believed (though unconfirmed) that in January, an SA-18 was fired upon a C-130 transport carrying US Congress members from Baghdad to Kuwait. The Congressional passengers said that whatever was fired at the aircraft, countermeasures onboard allowed evasion of the missile. In an effort to further policy fitting US domestic aircraft with countermeasures against missiles, Barbara Boxer (D-CA) said, “We had a scare in Iraq in January, when my colleagues said they believed a shoulder-fired missile was fired at their plane.”

Was the British Lynx attack simply the first successful SA-18 attack since the January attempt at a high-value target?

http://inbrief.threatswatch.org/2006/05/iran-hizballah-iraqi-shiite-mi/

check out the link, it has great linking links in the artical.

[The 801]

This is what I have to put up with. Information from occupied Iraq.
Old news Xymphora.
And a lot of things that she says is wrong. It appears that she supports Ahmadinejad.
And now I am a raving Zionist, whatever that is.

Meet the new Osama, Imad Mughniyah
Xymphora

April 25, 2006

The Bush Administration needs a new terrorist attack before the fall. It has to keep control of Congress to avoid any impeachment problems, but must keep the polls close enough to be able to continue to use the crooked voting machines without the American public becoming suspicious and trashing them before the next presidential election (the Republicans haven't honestly won a presidential election since 1988, and won't be winning another one soon without a little electronic help). In order to sell the terrorism 'product' they need a new scary guy to front the operation. Bin Laden is past his sell-by date, and Al Zarqawi has been officially retired and really only worked the market for Iraq anyway. I think we now know who the new Osama is, a name from the past.

Michael Ledeen introduced the name in a column in January. The President of Iran visited Syria, and Ledeen wrote:

". . . it should not have surprised anyone that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad flew to Damascus last Thursday to meet with Bashar Assad, nor was it surprising that among his entourage were key Iranian officials in charge of Hezbollah, probably including the operational leader, Imad Mughniyah."


Note that Ledeen didn't really have any information that Ahmadinejad had brought Mughniyah, just that Ahmadinejad had brought Iranian officials with him, and Mughniyah was 'probably' with them. It actually seems highly unlikely that Ahmadinejad would brought Mughniyah along, especially given that Mughniyah is still a wanted criminal, and Syria would not want him around. Mughniyah is thought to be responsible for a number of attacks against Americans, including the 1983 bombing in Lebanon. Actually, only a raving Zionist would find it plausible that the President of Iran would pay an official visit to another country with an entourage which includes an internationally-wanted terrorist. In fact, Ledeen begs lots of questions in assuming Ahmadinejad brought officials with him who were 'in charge of Hezbollah', and the whole article is just more typical Ledeen lies and spin and innuendo.

Ledeen's unlikely guess is then repeated (full article here) in the New York Sun (note the completely misleading headline), and cites the meeting as a fact based on foreign (no doubt Israeli) 'diplomatic sources'. Finally, the story arrives fully developed, and as a certainty, in the London Sunday Times (with yet another wild headline). It is now supported by 'senior government officials', who Ledeen says, are convinced Mughniyah was there, despite the fact they don't know what he looks like and don't have his fingerprints. Must be identification by magic.

Mughniyah is perfect, as the story now ties together Iran, Syria and Hezbollah with a terrorist known to have a long involvement in attacks against Americans. The new Osama is ready to be held responsible for the next terrorist attack against Americans, and will be able to help the Republicans keep control of Congress without too much electronic help, and point the blame to whatever patsy the Israel Lobby wants to attack next.


http://www.uruknet.info/?p=m22850&l=i&size=1&hd=0

I will contact them about this.

[The 801]

While Mugniyeh tends to be a catch all terrorist, here is a story with hard to verify data about him directly trying to purchase SA-18 shoulder fired anti aircraft weapon.

"There is one mass-produced shoulder-held weapon in existence that meets the utility requirements of terrorists and it could be one day available to anyone with cash in hand. Made in Russia, it is called the SA-18 or 'Igla'; it resembles (to a small degree) the world war II bazooka in shape and weight but delivers a monstrous wallop at many times the distance of the original bazooka; it has an estimated range of between 5.2 and 8 kilometers (est. 3-5 miles). While the infamous bazooka in the 1940s was aimed through crude gun sights, the SA-18 has optical and infrared sensors.

One such terrorist, Imad Fayez Mugniyeh, a Lebanese (aka:Mughniyeh, dob 1962, 5'7") murdered CIA's Beirut-assigned William Buckley in 1984, thought to be living in Teheran, has been documented as a cash-rich seeker of the SA-18. Iran is providing Mugniyeh with all the funds he needs to get the SA-18 in great numbers - if only Russia will make them available. Mugniyeh wants to hand them out to his Hizbullah followers - he heads the Lebanese Hizbullah and is the leader of that organization's Special Overseas Forces.

Iran is concerned the West's war juggernaut will turn on them for being terrorist participants and supporters after the smoke clears in Iraq and has taken steps to make their relationship with Mugniyeh and his search for the SA-18 not appear in tandem. This is where Syria plays a role in the acquisition and deployment of Russian rockets. Iran pays the bill, Syria collects and makes them available, and Imad Mugniyeh participates as the military procurer.

The intelligence agencies in the West knew that Mugniyeh had approached several of the Russian republics and was very close to striking a deal. They also were aware that Russian President Vladimir Putin was not against the sales. At the time when pens were about to be placed to agreements, and hundreds of the missiles crated and shipped to Syria, the Chechen terrorists managed to strike terror in the hearts of Russians everywhere through their theater debacle. Among the most concerned was Putin and his fear the long range missiles he was about to ship out-of-country might be returned to him by way of his own Chechen threat. "

Thats the bulk of it. Dated 3/24/03

http://www.thepalmerpress.com/hizbullah1.html

This link is no good anymore. Don't know who the palmer press is. This was from an old post achived at:

http://ilovekisses.com/showthread.php?t=94&page=8&pp=15

This address will lead you to a place were my old Mugniyeh stuff is achived. Don't know why or who they are, but I'm glad its around.

[Hound]

Remember this? http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Peace/paship.html

Thats quite a menu isn't it?

[Vancouver]

I wouldn't worry about Uruknet, 801. (Uruk is Italian for Iraq, BTW.) Cheap, tedious, predictable mock-iconoclasm, typical of the pretentious European left. Notice their flattery of "President" Saddam Hussein, for example. Uruknet reminds me of Bev Giesbrecht. Nonentities, both of them.

[The 801]

Hound, great list. Never saw it before. Yeh, One of Mugniyeh's few failures. Thanks for the link.

[The 801]

The Washington Time editoral. This position is well supported by the information that has been documented on IH. Mugniyeh is called Mastermind. I like it.
Mastermind.


A logical imperative

TODAY'S COLUMNIST
By Farid Ghadry
May 10, 2006

Emboldened by the actions of its long-time strategic ally Iran, the Ba'athist regime in Damascus is thumbing its nose at the international community and has amply demonstrated its shrewd willingness to leverage regional terror for the purposes of weakening both democratic and U.S. interests in the Middle East.
In the past, the Assad regime had attempted to play a complex game of geopolitical kabuki theater and feigning of moral indignation, proclaiming its innocence to anyone who would listen. But it has done more than its share to bankrupt whatever reserves of trust may have existed between it and the international community by openly giving sanctuary and support to the radical terror group Hamas in Damascus; facilitating and arming militant Hezbollah, and allowing senior Iraqi former regime elements to become comfortably ensconced in ritzy Damascus suburbs to provide logistical and operational support to jihadists in Iraq like the Abu-Ghadiyah network. It is also working in tandem with Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps-Qods Force commanders like Ghassan Soleimani and senior Hezbollah terror chief and mastermind Imad Mughniyah on ways of weakening the emerging democracy and killing American soldiers.
The Bush administration can no longer ignore a Syria that is steadily marching toward amplified levels of terror proliferation and attacks against not only U.S. forces in the region but friendly countries like Jordan. What is clear here is that Syria's robust attempts at undermining democratic neighbors and fueling a wider terror war by proxy is that the Ba'ath have underwritten their very survival upon the Iranian grand strategy of weakening the U.S. by opening up multiple hostile fronts targeting its interests and democratic emergence.
Many have voiced concerns, some genuine and some illegitimate, against taking active measures in response to the irresponsible and pernicious policies of Bashir Assad. Indeed, a certain level of vacillation and inchoate calls for temperament have hampered the decision-making process of the Bush administration. Although blocking nonexistent U.S.-based assets may send a signal, it is hardly productive. Meanwhile, American enemies abroad grow exponentially bolder; evincing a negative correlation between the will of our enemies and our policy makers' weakness in action.
Regime change in Syria is a de facto necessity because as long as Assad and his surrounding "Saddam clones" are in power, the terror war against the Syrian people, the Lebanese and the Iraqis will only come to expand even further. Iran, Hezbollah and Wahabi terrorists are capable and willing to take the fight against the United States to the furthest reaches of the earth. The Syrian government has clearly indicated that it is ready to enable and further these efforts. As there is no escape for the United States from confronting the terror axis it faces today, there is no denying the logical imperative of regime change in Damascus.
The Syrian opposition, led by the Reform Party of Syria, has proposed to the Syrian opposition and the Bush administration, and continues to do so, a series of solutions in support of empowering the opposition, to institute an executive commission for transitional governance. This 100 percent Syrian-composed body, nurtured before Damascus falls, will represent all the people of Syria, without exception. Such a body will require recognition for international legitimacy.
Once an executive commission becomes a "fact on the ground," the United States must enable safe havens and "no-interference" areas for Ba'athist military forces as a means to encourage and embolden the Syrian people who would otherwise act to remove the Assad family dictatorship but do not out of fear of Ba'athist retribution. Syria's tyrants represent the interests of a miniscule portion of the population and are extremely vulnerable to popular democratic protest. Once the regime falls, the executive commission can and will fill the void.
Some policymakers fear a Hamas-like win in Syria by the Muslim Brotherhood, but they are unrealistically pessimistic. Although more and more women are donning the traditional hijab, often such actions are more symbolic than pious, since head scarves are one of the few forms of protest available to the Syrian people. Moreover, the Muslim Brotherhood cannot control the outcome of a post-Assad government if a truly representative and proportional framework of governance is in place.
The salient issue here is that the Assad regime is corrupt to its core and is doomed to spectacular failure. Any dominant strategy that seeks to prevent chaos and Islamist takeover must support and help build a functioning governance alternative based on pluralism and liberal principles.
Simply put, the lack of action against Syria today is aiding Iran, Hezbollah and Hamas, and feeds their proclivity to use violence as a tool of statecraft. The less the U.S. is prone to act decisively, the higher the tendency for further violence and not the other away around. Students of history remember the appeasement failures of Chamberlain against Hitler.
The fall of the Assad dictatorship would strike a mortal blow at Hezbollah and gravely weaken Iran and the Hamas-led Palestinian Authority. Help the Syrian opposition bring down the Assad regime, and you help advance Syria's and America's interests of seeing a democracy flourish in the region and beyond.
Mr. President, we urge you to act.

Farid Ghadry is president of the Reform Party of Syria.


http://www.washtimes.com/op-ed/20060509-090825-4473r.htm

[The 801]

Older artical:

The Iran Connection
Mon. 22 Nov 2004
US News & World Report

Special Report

22 November 2004

By Edward T. Pound

In the summer of last year, Iranian intelligence agents in Tehran began planning something quite spectacular for September 11, the two-year anniversary of al Qaeda's attack on the United States, according to a classified American intelligence report. Iranian agents disbursed $20,000 to a team of assassins, the report said, to kill Paul Bremer, then the top U.S. civilian administrator in Iraq. The information was specific: The team, said a well-placed source quoted in the intelligence document, would use a Toyota Corona taxi and a second car, driven by suicide bombers, to take out Bremer and destroy two hotels in downtown Baghdad. The source even named one of the planners, Himin Bani Shari, a high-ranking member of the Ansar al-Islam terrorist group and a known associate of Iranian intelligence agents.

The alleged plan was never carried out. But American officials regarded Iran's reported role, and its ability to make trouble in Iraq, as deadly serious. Iran, said a separate report, issued in November 2003 by American military analysts, "will use and support proxy groups" such as Ansar al-Islam "to conduct attacks in Iraq in an attempt to further destablize the country." An assessment by the U.S. Army's V Corps, which then directed all Army activity in Iraq, agreed: "Iranian intelligence continues to prod and facilitate the infiltration of Iraq with their subversive elements while providing them support once they are in country."

With the Pentagon's stepped-up efforts to break the back of the insurgency before Iraq's scheduled elections in late January, Iran's efforts to destabilize Iraq have received little public attention. But a review of thousands of pages of intelligence reports by U.S. News reveals the critical role Iran has played in aiding some elements of the anti-American insurgency after Baghdad fell--and raises important questions about whether Iran will continue to try to destabilize Iraq after elections are held. The classified intelligence reports, covering the period July 2003 through early 2004, were prepared by the CIA; the Defense Intelligence Agency; the Iraq Survey Group, the 1,400-person outfit President Bush sent to Iraq to find weapons of mass destruction; the Coalition Provisional Authority; and various military commands and units in the field, including the V Corps and the Pentagon's Combined Joint Special Operations Task Force. The reports are based on information gathered from Iraqis, Iranian dissidents, and other sources inside Iraq. U.S. News also reviewed British intelligence assessments of the postwar phase in Iraq.

$500 a soldier. Many of the reports are uncorroborated and are considered "raw" intelligence of the type seldom seen by those outside the national security community. But the picture that emerges from the sheer volume of the reports, and as a result of the multiplicity of sources from which they were generated, leaves little doubt about the depth of Iran's involvement in supporting elements of the insurgency and in positioning itself to move quickly in Iraq if it believes a change in circumstances there dictates such action. "Iran," wrote an analyst with the Air Force Office of Special Investigations on Dec. 5, 2003, "poses the greatest long-term threat to U.S. efforts in Iraq." An analyst at the V Corps summarized matters this way: "Iranian intelligence agents are conducting operations in every major city with a significant Shia population. The counterintelligence threat from Iran is assessed to be high, as locally employed people, former military officers, politicians, and young men are recruited, hired, and trained by Iranian intelligence to collect [intelligence] on coalition forces."

Even as Bremer's Coalition Provisional Authority and the U.S.-led military were pressing last year to consolidate their grip on Iraq, the intelligence reports indicate, the seeds of the insurgency were growing, in some cases with funding and direction from Iranian government factions. "Iranian intelligence will not conduct attacks on CF [coalition forces] that can be directly linked to Iran," wrote a senior Army analyst, "but will provide lethal aid to subversive elements within Iraq . . . in the form of weapons, safe houses, or money." In an interview, David Kay, the former chief weapons inspector for the Iraq Survey Group, said he believes that factions within the Iranian government have been plotting with and funding some insurgency groups. "I think we are in an intelligence war with Iran," Kay said. "There are Iranian intelligence agents all over the country [Iraq]." Another former American official, Michael Rubin, who worked for the Pentagon and the Coalition Provisional Authority, agrees. "Iran feels it should be the predominant power in the region," Rubin said. "With the U.S. out of there, they [will] have no real competition."

The intelligence reports reviewed by U.S. News appear to support those assessments. Examples:

Iran set up a massive intelligence network in Iraq, flooding the country with agents in the months after the U.S.-led coalition toppled Saddam Hussein's regime. Sources told American intelligence analysts that Iranian agents were tasked with finding information on U.S. military plans and identifying Iraqis who would be willing to conduct attacks on U.S. forces that would not be linked to Iran.

Iranian intelligence agents were said to have planned attacks against the U.S.-led forces and supported terrorist groups with weapons. Iranian agents smuggled weapons and ammunition across the border into Iraq and distributed them "to individuals who wanted to attack coalition forces," according to one report, citing "a source with good access." Separately, an Iraq Survey Group report said that Iranian agents "placed a bounty" of $500 for each American soldier killed by insurgents and more for destruction of tanks and heavy weaponry.

Iran trained terrorists and provided them with safe havens and passage across the border into Iraq, several of the reports say. The Iranian-supported Ansar al-Islam began carrying out bombings and other attacks against coalition forces and Iraqi citizens in the summer of 2003. One report, describing an interview with a source, said: "There were approximately 320 Ansar al-Islam terrorists being trained in Iran . . . for various attack scenarios including suicide bombings, assassinations, and general subversion against U.S. forces in Iraq." The reports linked Ansar al-Islam to al Qaeda and to Abu Musab Zarqawi, the most wanted terrorist in Iraq. "Among the more capable terrorist groups operating in Iraq," an analyst wrote in another report, "are al Qaeda, the al Zarqawi network, as well as Ansar al-Islam."

Iran has been a principal supporter of Moqtada al-Sadr, a radical Shiite cleric whose black-clad Mahdi Army fighters have clashed often with U.S.-led forces. Months before the worst of the insurgency in southern Iraq began last April, U.S. intelligence officials tracked reported movements of Iranian money and arms to forces loyal to Sadr. According to a V Corps report written in September 2003, "There has been an increase of Iranian intelligence officers entering" Baghdad, Najaf, Karbala, Basra, and Amarah. Sadr's fighters later engaged in fierce battles with coalition forces in each of those cities.

"Double game." Iran's permanent mission to the United Nations in New York did not respond to repeated requests for comment from U.S. News . In a sermon given last April, Ayatollah Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, a leading political figure in Iran, said that Americans were "a very effective target" but that Iran "does not wish to get involved in acts of adventurism." Separately, in New York last September, Iranian Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi denied that his country had funded or armed Sadr's Mahdi Army.

U.S. government officials, questioned about the intelligence reports reviewed by U.S. News , say the evidence of Iran's destabilization efforts in Iraq is persuasive. "We certainly do have a lot of evidence of Iranian mischief making," a senior Pentagon official said in an interview, "and attempts [at] building subversive influence. I would never underestimate the Iranian problem. . . . Iran is a menace in a basic sense."

Looking at the overall problem in Iraq, however, the official identifies Sunni Muslim extremists as the "hard core" of the insurgency. They include former supporters of Saddam and some foreign fighters--most prominently Zarqawi, whose network has claimed responsibility for some of Iraq's bloodiest bombings and the beheading of American Nicholas Berg and other western captives. Some terrorists, the official noted pointedly, are also using Syria as an outpost and safe haven.

More than a year ago, the Defense Intelligence Agency reached similar conclusions in a secret analysis headlined "Iraq: Who Are We Fighting?" The analysis cited foreign jihadists as "potentially" the most "threatening." An analyst with the Iraq Survey Group concluded that "[a]s time passes and more and more terrorists and foreign fighters come into Iraq, the situation will become more dangerous because you will get a more experienced enemy, with more training, resources, and experience."

Iran has obvious interests in Iraq. In the 1980s, Iran and Iraq fought a brutal eight-year war that claimed more than a million casualties. Despite the hostilities, the Shiite communities of both countries have deep ties. Shiites compose the majority of the population in both Iran and Iraq, accounting for 60 percent of the latter's 25.4 million people. Iraq is home to some of Shiite Islam's most important holy sites, and thousands of Iranians have taken advantage of newly opened borders to visit them. During Saddam's three decades of repression, Iran provided support and refuge for many of Iraq's Shiite religious leaders. Patrick Clawson, a leading expert on Iraq and Iran at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, says it is not surprising that Iran is heavily involved in Iraq. "It only makes sense that the government of Iran would want to have a network of contacts with the insurgents, develop friends, develop intelligence sources, provide them information about American assets and capabilities," he said in an interview. " . . . It is in their national interest." At the same time, Clawson says, Iran is playing "a double game"--stirring up trouble in Iraq while publicly professing support for Iraqi elections.

Understanding Iran's precise motives in Iraq is no simple matter. Ahmed Hashim, a professor of strategic studies at the U.S. Naval War College, says that the Islamic regime in Tehran does not always speak with one voice. "I think Iran has its hand in a lot of what's going on [in Iraq], but we shouldn't assume the government is unified," he says. "When you look at the Iranian system of government, if you say Iran, it could actually be the Ministry of Intelligence and Security, the [charitable] foundations, or various agencies of the government. They act almost independently." Another Iran expert, Kenneth Pollack, who served in the Clinton White House as director of Persian Gulf affairs on the National Security Council staff, believes Iran does not want chaos in Iraq. "The Iranian leaders are terrified of chaos in Iraq," he says, "and the spillover" aspect. Iran, Pollack adds, wants a stable, "independent" government headed by Shiites.

Whatever its objectives in Iraq, Iran has a well-documented history of supporting terrorist groups. For years, the State Department has identified Iran as the world's pre-eminent state sponsor of terrorism. American officials say the regime has provided funding, safe havens, training, and weapons to several terrorist groups, including Lebanon-based Hezbollah. The commission investigating the 9/11 attacks said in its final report that al Qaeda has long-standing ties to Iran and Hezbollah. Iran favors spectacular attacks, officials say, citing its alleged role in the 1996 bombing of the Khobar Towers in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, that claimed the lives of 19 U.S. servicemen. Six of the Hezbollah terrorists indicted in the attack "directly implicated" senior Iranian government officials "in the planning and execution of this attack," former FBI Director Louis Freeh wrote last year.

A wolf's claws. Freeh named two Iranian government agencies, the Ministry of Intelligence and Security, or MOIS, and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, an elite fighting unit and enforcer for the clerical regime. As the insurgency developed in Iraq, both played central roles in planning and funding some of the attacks on coalition forces, according to the intelligence reports reviewed by U.S. News. Early on, MOIS and the revolutionary guard corps were tasked with the job of creating instability in Iraq, the reports say. In some cases, Iran's agents allegedly worked with former Saddam loyalists, an odd marriage but one that shared a common goal: to drive U.S. forces out of Iraq. The reports detail how Iranian agents sought to recruit former regime loyalists and how one former Iraqi Intelligence Service officer, who had close ties to Saddam's late son, Uday, reportedly set up a front company for Iranian intelligence operations in Baghdad.

Only weeks after Saddam was ousted, in April 2003, Iran publicly signaled support for violence against the coalition. In a sermon on May 2, Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati, secretary general of Iran's powerful Council of Guardians, called on Iraqis to stage suicide attacks to drive U.S.-led forces from Iran. The Iraqi people, he said, "have no other choice but to rise up and stage martyrdom operations. . . . The Iraqi people were released from the claws of one wolf and have been caught by another wolf." Two months later, U.S. News has learned, coalition forces uncovered a document describing a fatwa , or religious edict, that had reportedly been issued in Iran for its Shiite supporters in Iraq. The fatwa urged "holy fighters" in Iraq to get close to the enemy--the U.S.-led troops. These fighters, the fatwa said, should "maintain good relations with the coalition forces" but at the same time create "a secret group that would conduct attacks against American troops." U.S. analysts could not confirm that the ruling was issued by Iranian clerics, but they believe it was credible. Wrote one analyst: "It seems that they [the Iranians] want them [Iraqi Shiite supporters] to be close to the coalition forces and outwardly respect them so that they can gather intelligence that will assist them in their mission."

Before long, Iran's Ministry of Intelligence and Security stepped up its intelligence operations in Iraq, many of the intelligence reports suggest. Agents set up "significant" intelligence cells in key Iraqi cities, several reports said, including Baghdad, Najaf, Karbala, Kut, Basra, and Kirkuk. MOIS agents also set up a "listening post" in a city in southeastern Iraq to monitor the activities of U.S. forces. In southern Iraq, 10 Iranian agents reportedly began operating out of two rooms at a Shiite mosque. Iran, according to the reports, also sought to place spies within Bremer's Coalition Provisional Authority, then running Iraq's affairs, and they followed and photographed coalition forces. Four Iranians, believed to be MOIS agents, were detained in late July 2003 for photographing a hydropower plant near the central city of Samarra. Power plants became a frequent target of insurgents. In one case, U.S. intelligence officials learned that a MOIS agent, a man named Muhammad Farhaadi, videotaped coalition operations in Karbala, a city south of Baghdad, then took the tape back to Iran.

During the summer and fall of 2003, U.S. analysts' reports describe how MOIS and its operatives sought to develop information from Shiites in the south and from Sunnis in the north on the activities of U.S.-led forces. In the fall of 2003, an analyst for the Air Force Office of Special Investigations wrote: "Iranian intelligence has infiltrated all areas of Iraq, posing both a tactical and strategic threat to U.S. interests."

Bribes and border crossings. MOIS also sought to cultivate former Iraqi intelligence officers who might help develop intelligence on the plans and activities of the Coalition Provisional Authority and U.S.-led forces, several reports said. "Former IIS [Iraqi Intelligence Service] officers are highly sought-after targets by U.S. intelligence," said an October 2003 report issued by the Air Force Office of Special Investigations, "not only for their current and former knowledge of Iraqi activities but also because many IIS officers will likely have a wealth of intelligence information on Iran. Iran knows this and will strive to recruit former IIS officers before the U.S. is able to do so. The environment is ripe for double-agent operations, and loyalties can never be certain."

The intelligence reports detail precisely what Iran was after. Its "collection priorities" included finding out what weapons U.S. troops were carrying and what kind of body armor they were wearing. Iranian agents also sought information on the location of U.S. Army and intelligence bases; on the routes traveled by U.S. convoys; on the operations of the Special Forces' elite Delta Force; and on the plans of the U.S. military and intelligence inside Iraq. A military report said a source had reported that the Iranians were pressing to find out whether the Israeli intelligence agency, Mossad, was active in Iraq. According to the report, MOIS directed its agents "to collect information on the Israeli intelligence presence in northern Iraq." Iran's "primary objective in Iraq," wrote another analyst, citing a good source, "is to create instability so coalition forces will focus on controlling the unstable situation rather than concentrating on reconstruction efforts."

MOIS agents carried cash, reports said, to bribe Iraqi border police in order to obtain safe passage into Iraq. In reality, however, all the Iranians had to do was walk across the border at any number of crossing points, where they could blend in amid Iranians coming to Iraq to visit relatives, do business, and worship at Shiite shrines, according to the intelligence reports and several senior Army officers interviewed by U.S. News. "The borders were wide open," says one senior officer. "It suggests that terrorists could come over pretty easily. My God, there were busloads of Iranians crossing the border without interference." Another U.S. Army officer was so concerned that Iranian spies and Islamic jihadists were crossing into Iraq that he visited a border site in a mountainous region northeast of Baghdad last January. "I saw over 1,200 people come over [to Iraq] in an hour, and there were no [coalition] troops there," the officer recalls. "I did not see them armed, but then a lot of them came across in carts and some in vehicles and donkeys, and you wouldn't know. If only 1 percent of them were combatants," he adds, "you can see the problem."

Iranian agents had plenty of help waiting inside Iraq. Numerous intelligence reports say that members of a Shiite militia group in Iraq known as the Badr Corps aided Iran in moving agents, weapons, and other materiel into southern Iraq--sometimes under the cover of humanitarian organizations. The Badr Corps has served as the armed wing of one of the most popular Shiite political parties in southern Iraq, the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, or SCIRI. The leaders of both SCIRI and the Badr Corps, which now calls itself the Badr Organization, have maintained close ties to Iran for about two decades. Iraqis associated with SCIRI and Badr opposed Saddam's regime and fled to Iran in the early 1980s, where their organizations were established. They began returning to Iraq in droves after U.S.-led troops invaded Iraq in March 2003, prompting Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to warn the Badr Corps not to interfere in Iraq. Badr leaders say they have no hostile intentions toward U.S. forces, but their loyalties remain much in doubt. Just last month, Iraq's national intelligence chief, Mohammed al Shahwani, accused the Badr Organization of killing 10 of his agents on orders from Iranian leaders. Badr, which denied the charges, was said to have disarmed this past summer, as part of an agreement with the new Iraqi government that would allow its members to serve in the new Iraqi Civil Defense Force.

Yet Badr's historical ties to Iran, as described in U.S. and British intelligence reports, offer little in the way of reassurance. While saying that SCIRI and Badr have "made some attempts to emphasize independence from Iran," a British Defence Intelligence Staff report on "Armed Groups in Iraq," dated Nov. 21, 2003, says that the Badr Organization retains "strong links" to Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps." The IRGC, the report says, "has funded, trained, and armed" the militia group, whose membership it estimated at between 18,000 and 20,000. The report says that some Badr members were unhappy with their leader, Abul Aziz al-Hakim, who commands both SCIRI and Badr, and had returned to Iran. At the time, the report says, Badr was "well equipped" with "small arms, mortars and RPG s [rocket-propelled grenades]," T-55 series tanks and a "variety of artillery and antiair pieces." Other intelligence reports say that an Iranian government agency--probably the IRGC--had provided Badr with global positioning systems to better target U.S.-led forces.

Some of the most important information on Iran has been provided by an Iranian exile group, the Mujaheddin-e-Khalq. The MEK fled Iran after the 1979 revolution and later relocated with Saddam's support to Iraq, where it continued to advocate the overthrow of the Iranian clerical regime. U.S. forces now are guarding its 3,800 members at Camp Ashraf, the MEK's sprawling compound northeast of Baghdad. Designated a terrorist organization by the State Department, the MEK nevertheless has provided American officials with significant intelligence on Iran's nuclear weapons programs. The MEK, wrote one Army analyst, is "quite proficient at intelligence collection." Other analysts said that the MEK also had provided valuable on-the-ground intelligence to Army Special Forces after the invasion of Iraq. "The SF guys claim the [MEK] are a valuable intel asset," wrote an Army sergeant who had met frequently with the MEK, "and are generally reliable." At the same time, an Army team wrote that it was important to be mindful that, given that its stated goal is to topple the government in Tehran, the MEK's reports "were designed to inform as well as influence American policy toward . . . the Iranian regime."

A red truck. Relying on its own agents inside Iran and other sources, the MEK has given Army personnel detailed reports on what it says have been Iran's efforts to destabilize Iraq. In its reports, some of which were reviewed by U.S. News, the MEK reported on the intelligence-collection methods of Iran's MOIS, arms shipments from Iran to Iraq, and the involvement in these operations of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps's so-called Qods Force, or "Jerusalem Force."

In December last year, MEK intelligence officers provided the Army with a detailed report and maps on what it called "a widespread network for transferring and distributing arms from Iran to Iraq" through the Ilam region in western Iran. The MEK said its sworn enemy, the Badr Organization, was involved in the network. According to the MEK's operatives, both Badr and the Iranian command staff were based in Iran at the border town of Mehran. "In order to control and manage the intelligence and terrorist activities in Iraq," a MEK intelligence officer wrote, "the Qods Force has recently moved part of its command staff from Tehran to the border city of Mehran." His report also identifed the areas in western, northwestern, and southern Iran where Qods Force commanders operated, along with the identities of more than a dozen commanders.

The MEK's reports contain detailed information on arms shipments. On Dec. 4, 2003, the MEK reported, Iranian agents moved 1,000 rocket-propelled grenades and seven boxes of TNT from western Iran to Iraqi resistance groups. A week later, Iran's Qods Force moved "a number of Mirage submachine guns" into Iraq in a "truck loaded with cement bags under which the arms were hidden," according to another report. Later that month, the MEK said, an Iraqi working for Iran drove a red fruit truck--a "cover for a consignment of arms," including RPG s, mortars, and Kalashnikov rifles--across the border into Iraq.

The dissident Iranian group also provided American intelligence officers with information on how Hezbollah was aiding Iran in gathering intelligence in Iraq. Hezbollah, a bitter enemy of Israel with close ties to Iran and Syria, collected information on American and British troops, photographed them, then sent the information to Qods Force commanders in Iran, according to MEK intelligence reports.

Intelligence officers for the MEK also said they had learned that Hezbollah had some 800 operatives in Iraq as of last January, including assassination teams. "The teams assassinate their opponents," a MEK intelligence officer reported, "and carry out sabotage operations." The MEK claimed that Hezbollah had assassinated an Iraqi man who had provided information to coalition forces.

Other sources provided similar information, including Mossad, the Israeli intelligence agency. Mossad warned U.S. intelligence officials in October 2003 that Hezbollah planned to set up a resistance movement that would cause mass casualties, according to a report prepared by the Defense Intelligence Agency's Joint Intelligence Task Force--Combating Terrorism. Iran, the report said, was calling the shots. "Should such mass casualty attacks be considered," the task force wrote, "they [Hezbollah] must first receive approval from Iran." The Iranians "do not want the U.S. and the coalition to focus attention on Iranian support for terrorist networks or other anti-coalition activities they're involved with," said a report by an analyst for a U.S. Central Command support team in Iraq. "Iran is also trying to ensure it has a great deal of influence in Iraq, and one way of doing that is to supply weapons to anti-coalition groups."

Iranian agencies put the intelligence they gathered to practical use, planning, funding, and training attackers, according to many of the intelligence reports reviewed by U.S. News. In November of last year, the Iraq Survey Group received information that Iran had formed small groups of fighters to conduct attacks in cities across Iraq. "Iran had reportedly placed a bounty on U.S. forces of U.S. $2,000 for each helicopter shot down, $1,000 for each tank destroyed, and $500 for each U.S. military personnel killed," the Iraq Survey Group reported. Iranian agents were also suspected in the assassination of at least two prominent Iraqis. In the fall of 2003, there were two reported plots against Bremer, the Coalition Provisional Authority administrator. The Iraq Survey Group, citing a source who "has provided reliable information in the past," said a senior Iranian cleric in Tehran set up a special 100-member army, known as al Saqar, which means eagle in Arabic, to assassinate Bremer and carry out other terrorist attacks. The Eagle Army, the Iraqi Survey Group was told, had trained for 30 days at an Iranian terrorist camp. This alleged plot and others reportedly planned against Bremer came to nothing. There were many reported plots against Bremer during his one-year tenure in Baghdad, and throughout his time there he was provided with blanket security. He declined to be interviewed for this story.

Mastermind. Jihadists saw Iraq as an opportunity. In a report quoting a source who was not otherwise characterized, a U.S. Special Operations task force wrote that "the Lebanese Hizballah leadership believes that the struggle in Iraq is the new battleground in the fight against the U.S." In fact, other analysts wrote, Hezbollah and Ansar al-Islam were among the most active groups in Iraq, although al Qaeda operatives also were believed to be operating there soon after the invasion.

Ansar al-Islam is a small group of Arabs and Iraqi Kurds that is believed to have figured in some of the most violent attacks in Iraq. American and British intelligence, the reports show, concluded that Ansar al-Islam was working closely with Iran, and also al Qaeda, in its terrorist attacks against coalition forces. Military intelligence reports suggested that the group was believed to be linked to two horrific bombings in Baghdad last year--the attack on the Jordanian Embassy on August 7, in which 17 people were killed, and the August 19 bombing that devastated the United Nations headquarters in Baghdad. That attack killed 22 people, including U.N. envoy Sergio Vieira de Mello. Intelligence reporting indicated that the mastermind of the U.N. attack was Zarqawi, the terrorist who has continued to bedevil coalition forces, and that al Qaeda operatives also played a role. A "reliable source with good access" said that Zarqawi had coordinated his plans for attacks in Iraq with Ansar al-Islam's top leader, Abu Abdullah al-Shafii. The reports did not link Iran directly to either the U.N. attack or the Jordanian bombing. But one British defense report noted pointedly: "Some elements [of Ansar al-Islam] remain in Iran. Intelligence indicates that elements" of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps "are providing safe haven and basic training to Iran-based AI [Ansar al-Islam] cadres."

Funneling money. A separate report from the British Secret Intelligence Service, quoting a source who "has proved fairly reliable," said that Iranian government agencies were also secretly helping Ansar al-Islam members cross into Iraq from Iran, as part of a plan to mount sniper attacks against coalition forces. There were also multiple American intelligence reports identifying Iran as a chief supporter of Ansar al-Islam. U.S. intelligence received information that an Iranian was aiding Ansar al-Islam "on how to build and set up" improvised explosive devices, known as IED s. An analyst for the U.S. Central Command offered this assessment: "AI [Ansar al-Islam] is actively attempting to improve IED effectiveness and sophistication."

As might be expected, given the volume of the intelligence reports reviewed by U.S. News , some of the information was contradictory. In some cases, Hezbollah, for instance, was said to be planning direct attacks against coalition forces. In others, it was said to be working only behind the scenes in fomenting violence in Iraq.

Perhaps Iran's most significant involvement in Iraq has been its support for Moqtada al-Sadr, the radical, anti-U.S. cleric. His Mahdi Army militia engaged in a series of vicious battles with coalition forces in the holy southern Shiite cities of Najaf and Karbala, and in the teeming Baghdad slum known as Sadr City, between April and October this year. Like most of its operations in Iraq, the intelligence reports indicate that the Iranian regime has tried to mask its support of Sadr. He visited Tehran in June 2003 for a ceremony marking the death of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the spiritual leader of the 1979 revolution, but it is not known whether he received any commitment from Iran at that time. U.S. intelligence reports say that Iran used Hezbollah to train and provide funds to Sadr's Mahdi Army and may also have used front companies to funnel money to him. For a time, the reports suggest, Sadr appeared to be getting funds from a senior Shiite religious leader living in Iran, the Grand Ayatollah Kazem al-Haeri, who advocates an Islamic state in Iraq. But by mid-October 2003, according to a special operations task force, Haeri withdrew his "financial support" from Sadr. The ayatollah later publicly cut his ties with Sadr.

There was no such break with Hezbollah. The first sign that the terrorist group planned to support Sadr is reflected in a July 29, 2003, U.S. intelligence report. Citing Israeli military intelligence, the report says Hezbollah "military activists" were attempting to establish contacts with Sadr and his Mahdi Army. The next month they did. By late August, according to a report prepared by a U.S. military analyst, Hezbollah had established "a team of30 to 40 operatives" in Najaf "in support of Moqtada Sadr's Shia paramiltary group." The report, based on a source "with direct access to the reported information," said that Hezbollah was recruiting and training members of Sadr's militia. A later report, citing "multiple sources," said that Hezbollah was "buying rocket-propelled grenades . . . antitank missiles" and other weapons for Sadr's militia.

Intelligence analysts also tied Sadr to Hassan Nasrallah, the secretary general of Hezbollah. "Reporting also confirms the relationship between . . . Sadr and Hassan Nasrallah," an Army report said. The report cited unconfirmed information indicating that a top adviser to Nasrallah, who is based in Lebanon, had delivered funds to Sadr in Najaf.

Other reporting indicated that the Mahdi Army may have received support from former Saddam supporters and other anticoalition groups. Intelligence analysts were aware, as early as the fall of 2003, that Sadr could become a serious problem. At that time, there had been no confirmed attacks on coalition forces, only Sadr's tough rhetoric, in which he denounced the United States and called the Iraqi Governing Council illegal. But, as a British defense intelligence report said, "stockpiling of heavier weapons, along with public anti-CF [Coalition Force] rhetoric, could indicate a willingness to take more direct action against CF."

"The honeymoon is over." Direct action was precisely what Sadr took, after Bremer ordered his Baghdad newspaper shut down, in March this year, accusing it of "inciting violence" against U.S.-led forces. Days later, after American soldiers arrested a Sadr aide, fierce fighting erupted between U.S. troops and Sadr's forces. In August, Sadr's Mahdi Army surrendered the Imam Ali Shrine in Najaf, and last month he reached a cease-fire with the United States and Iraq's interim government. Sadr's fighters began turning in their weapons, as part of an agreement to disband, and Sadr signaled his intention to get involved in the political process. He remains influential with many Shiites, and American officials know that, if the Iraqi venture is to succeed, they must do everything they can to keep the majority Shiites happy. "Beware if we lose the goodwill of the Shi'ites. The honeymoon is over," an Army captain wrote in October 2003, months before the battles with Sadr's forces began. "Arresting Sadr, the son of a martyr, will only fuel Shiite extremists' animosity, and strengthen their recruiting efforts."

Managing the Sadr situation, some government and intelligence officials say, is a microcosm of the far more difficult challenges America faces in responding to Iran's activities in Iraq. Iran clearly has the potential to stir up far more trouble than it has, particularly in the largely Shiite southern half of Iraq. But so far, as it continues its elaborate dance with the West over its ambitious nuclear program, the Islamic regime has yet to turn the heat up full blast in Iraq, evidently secure in the knowledge that it can do so when and if it sees the need to. "I would not put it past them to carry out spectacular attacks," says David Kay, the former chief U.S. weapons inspector in Iraq, "to demonstrate the cost of a hostile policy. That is the policy issue--can we learn to live with Iranian nuclear capacity.

http://www.iranfocus.com/modules/news/article.php?storyid=741&keywords=Hizballah

[Hound]

http://inbrief.threatswatch.org/2006/01/hezbollah-operation-leader-wit/

[The 801]

Hound,
I don't think that that is a picture of Mugniyeh. I haven't ever figured out how to post pictures, but if you go back to the photo's of the TWA hijacking that helped start Mugniyeh down the road of mayhem, you will find a few photo's of that fellow pictured. He was in the hijacking, But I am certain that it is not Mugs. If you want more proof, let me know and I will dig out my reasoning.

[Hound]

Hound,
I don't think that that is a picture of Mugniyeh. I haven't ever figured out how to post pictures, but if you go back to the photo's of the TWA hijacking that helped start Mugniyeh down the road of mayhem, you will find a few photo's of that fellow pictured. He was in the hijacking, But I am certain that it is not Mugs. If you want more proof, let me know and I will dig out my reasoning.


On closer inspection you are right. I thought I had found a rarer photo. Here's the one widely circulated.

The link suggests he may have visited Damascus also recently

[The 801]

Not to repeat myself, but if you want to see a real picture of Mugniyeh, check out Robert Baer's book "See no evil". He hunted Mugniyeh and has printed one or two pictures of him that he has found. The narrow face guy above is him.

Now I figure he is heavier, and wealthy and and living in Qods Iran.

[The 801]

evidence of Mugniyeh's handy work, or one of his smuggling operations. Sorry it is debka.


Fresh Supply of Iranian Weapons for New Batch of Iraqi Shiite Terrorists

DEBKAfile Exclusive Report

May 15, 2006, 3:55 PM (GMT+02:00)

In the past two weeks, Iran has been pumping into Iraq two types of extra-lethal weapons in very large quantities. They have already taken their toll in the shooting down of two military helicopters - one American and one British – and an estimated 19 deaths of US military personnel.

DEBKAfile’s military and intelligence sources estimate the delivery to Iraqi insurgents as consisting of around 1,000 SA-7 Strela ground-air missiles made in Iran, and a very large quantity of a newly-developed roadside bomb, loaded with compressed gas instead of ball bearings and cartridges, to magnify their blast and explosive power.

The supplies have been distributed across Iraq - Basra and Amara in the south, Baghdad and its environs, Haditha in the west, and Mosul in the north.

The new bombs, developed jointly by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards and the Lebanese Hizballah, have already gone into service with the Shiite terrorists on the Lebanese border with Israel. Israeli military sources say it is only a matter of time before the deadly roadside bombs, already used in Iraq, will also reach Palestinian areas in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

In Iraq, the new weaponry has had three major effects:

1. The guerrilla-terrorist groups which received the shoulder-carried, highly mobile Strela missiles have scored three hits in fourteen days. On May 6, they fired a missile from one of Basra’s crowded alleys and downed a British military helicopter, killing all four military personnel aboard. Sunday, May 14, Iraqi insurgents shot down an American helicopter, killing its two crewmen over Yussifiya, inside the Triangle of Death south of Baghdad.

2. The number of roadside bomb attacks, their precision and lethality is going up all the time. Sunday, May 14, four US soldiers died in these blasts in the western Anbar province and Baghdad, while 2 British soldiers were killed and another injured at the same time near Basra. In seven days, the British force stationed in southern Iraq lost seven men, a record for that space of time in the three-year war. In the first half of May, US troop losses spiraled to 19, most of them the victims of the new roadside bombs.

3. Together with the new Iranian weapons, a new array of Shiite terrorist groups has sprung up and is hitting American and British troops. The coalition has imposed a blackout on this disturbing development.

Until now, the insurgent forces fighting the coalition consisted mostly of Baathists, Islamist and al Qaeda. The only Shiite enemy was the radical Mogtada Sadr and his Mahdi Army. The appearance of the new Shiite insurgents is a dread milestone in the Iraq war, one which has caught US and UK commanders by surprise and unprepared for the steep rise in troop losses.

DEBKAfile’s Exclusive Iraq sources offer some information on the new groups. One is located north of Baghdad and calls itself Brigades of the Imam Kazim. Another, called Brigades of Imam Ali, claimed the attack on April 27 in Nasiriya in which one of their new roadside bombs killed two Italian troops. In the Rostumiya region south of Baghdad, a Shiite group called Brigades of the Imam Hadi has begun operating. Our sources report that this group has been firing Katyusha rockets at American bases in the region, similar to the mortar attack directed at a British base in Amara Monday, May 15.

After each attack, these unknown quantities issue bulletins describing their actions, some accompanied by video footage from the scene of action.

The blackout was imposed on the new Shiite groups in the absence of American or British intelligence on who they and their commanders are, how they operate and what makes them tick. Research must start from square one to find out whether they are being controlled from Tehran, some Iraqi Shiite faction or elements which chanced to lay hands on the new-fangled weaponry.

http://debka.com/article.php?aid=1165

[The 801]

N.Y. HEZBOLLAH HUNT


FEDS FEAR STRIKE AMID NUKE SHOWDOWN


By NILES LATHEM Post Correspondent



May 22, 2006 -- WASHINGTON - The Hezbollah terror group - one of the most dangerous in the world - may be planning to activate sleeper cells in New York and other big cities to stage an attack as the nuclear showdown with Iran heats up, sources told The Post.
The FBI and Justice Department have launched urgent new probes in New York and other cities targeting members of the Lebanese terror group.

Law-enforcement and intelligence officials told The Post that about a dozen hard-core supporters of Hezbollah have been identified in recent weeks as operating in the New York area.

Sources said the activities of these New York-based operatives are being monitored by FBI counterterrorism agents as part of a nationwide effort to prevent a possible terror strike if the confrontation with Iran over its nuclear program spins out of control.

Additional law-enforcement attention is being centered on the Iranian Mission to the United Nations, where there have already been three episodes in the last four years in which diplomats and security guards have been expelled for casing and photographing New York City subways and other potential targets.

The nationwide effort to neutralize Hezbollah sleepers in the United States, being spearheaded by the FBI and Justice Department's counterterrorism divisions, was triggered in January in response to alarming reports that Iran's fanatical president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, met with leaders of Hezbollah and other terror groups during a visit to Syria.

Among those attending the meetings, according to reliable reports, was Hezbollah's chief operational planner, Imad Mugniyah - considered one of the most dangerous terrorists in the world - who is responsible for the bombings of the 1983 U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut and who, more recently, provided Iraqi guerrillas with sophisticated explosive devices.

U.S. officials stressed there is no intelligence information pointing to an imminent attack by Hezbollah.

But officials said they have detected increased activity by Hezbollah operatives - including more heated rhetoric by its leaders and in Internet chat rooms as the U.S.-Iran diplomatic showdown heats up.

"Hezbollah is a group that the U.S. has to be concerned about in the current climate. Hezbollah is already coming under heavy pressure by the Cedar Revolution in Lebanon, and Ahmadinejad is under pressure on the nuclear issue," said Walid Phares, an outside terror expert who has briefed law-enforcement officials on Hezbollah in recent weeks.

"They are well funded, very well organized, and we assume that their penetration of the U.S. is deeper than al Qaeda's. It is only rational for the U.S. to think in pre-emptive ways. An attack here is clearly in the realm of the possible," Phares added.

A U.S. counterterrorism official called the latest effort a "major undertaking," with separate probes also under way in Los Angeles, Boston and Detroit.


Hezbollah has so far limited its activities in the United States to fund-raising and criminal enterprises. The FBI has already taken down two major rings, one in Charlotte, N.C., and one in Detroit, in which members were smuggling cigarettes, Viagra and baby formula, and kicking profits back to Hezbollah.

http://www.nypost.com/news/regionalnews/64107.htm

[The 801]

Report: Israel warns of World Cup terror

Saudi newspaper says Israel warned US, European intelligence service of possible attempts by Hizbullah cells to carry out attacks during upcoming soccer tournament in Germany in bid to prove to international community that Tehran is capable of retaliation if attacked

Roee Nahmias

Israel has warned European and American intelligence bodies of possible attempts by Hizbullah cells, led by Imad Mugniyah, to carry out terror attacks during the upcoming World Cup tournament in Germany, the Saudi Al-Watan newspaper reported on Friday.


According to the report, the terror plot is aimed at proving to the international community that Tehran is capable of retaliation if attacked.


Sources in Washington said a joint US-European operations room has been set up to deal with such a scenario; to this end, two American
aircraft carriers, along with a French ship are making their way to the Indian Ocean and Persian Gulf.


US officials opposed to an attack on Iran fear the Bush Administration would take advantage of such terror attacks to launch an offensive that, according to the officials, would settle the Iranian nuclear crisis and boost the president’s approval rating.


The officials added that should the terror attacks be masterminded by a third party, they would still be used to justify an attack on Iran.


Al-Watan also reported that the CIA and European intelligence services have enhanced their activity against Arab and Muslim institutions in Europe following the September 11 attacks. A security official in Brussels told the newspaper that intelligence services planted surveillance equipment in a number of Arab and Islamic embassies and in the officers of major international corporations with ties to Muslim and Arab countries.


The source added that undercover agents, mainly women, have infiltrated Arab and Islamic institutions; e-mails, faxes and phone calls originating from these institutions are also monitored, and even the garbage cans outside the buildings are searched for any information on the nature of the messages relayed by these organizations and their activities, according to the source.

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3255447,00.html

[booklover]

This is one scary thread.....:(

[The 801]

Thanks Booklover. I believe that studying Mugniyeh is to see into the beast. Wait till he goes public. You know. This weeks new big thing. Anyway, follow along:

Iran, Towards a War Pretext Incident? Hezbollah Plotting World Cup Attack

by Kurt Nimmo

June 2, 2006


Yedioth Internet: Hezbollah Plotting World Cup Attack
Sunday May 28th 2006, 9:00 pm

“Israel has warned European and American intelligence bodies of possible attempts by Hizbullah cells, led by Imad Mugniyah, to carry out terror attacks during the upcoming World Cup tournament in Germany,” reports Yedioth Internet. “According to the report, the terror plot is aimed at proving to the international community that Tehran is capable of retaliation if attacked.”

Of course, if Iran actually does this, it will demonstrate its leadership has gone stark raving bonkers, as it would provide an ironclad pretext for Israel and the United States to shock and awe the nation into Stone Age submission. Considering this, and the fact the Israelis and neocons are shopping for just a handy pretext, we can assume with a fair degree of accuracy the above mentioned “intelligence bodies,” with the unmentioned Mossad taking the lead, are responsible for conjuring up this nonsense.

Determined to demonize Iran to such a degree that bunker-busting and possibly mini-nuking the country actually becomes viable—or salable, especially if the World Cup is attacked—an earlier Yedioth report claims, by way of the neocon newspaper the New York Post, “that Hizbullah may be planning to activate sleeper cells in New York and other big cities to stage an attack as the nuclear showdown with Iran heats up,” even though Hezbollah “would not jump to Tehran’s defense if the U.S. launched a strike against its nuclear programme but would step in if the conflict spread to Lebanon, its deputy chief said…. Sheikh Naim Kassem told Reuters that the guerrilla group, which was established by Iran in the early 1980s but has since grown into a political party with 14 seats in parliament, had no plans to get involved in regional battles.”

It should be remembered that Hezbollah was organized in response to Israel’s illegal and brutal invasion of Lebanon in 1982, although the corporate media, and even the online encyclopedia Wikipedia (seemingly amenable to and biased in favor of Zionism), prefer to characterize the organization as little more than “an amalgamation of various violent Shi’a extremists” determined to “spread the Islamic Revolution” at the behest of Iran, the late Ayatollah Seyyed Ruhollah Khomeini, and in the name of the Guardianship of the Jurisprudents (a Shi’a Twelver doctrine regarding Islamic leadership).

In fact, Hezbollah was forged out of Israeli atrocities against the people of southern Lebanon, as the Israelis are known to deal harshly with Arabs in countries they invade and, in the case of Palestine and the area known as the Shebaa Farms, territory they illegally occupy. In fact, Hezbollah remains engaged in a low-intensity conflict with Israel precisely over Shebaa Farms and continual Israeli border crossings and provocations. Naturally, the corporate media, so patently slanted in favor of Israel and dismissive (when not entirely omissive) of its long-standing crimes against Arabs and Muslims, cannot be expected to be objective, especially now that attacking Iran is so obviously part of the Straussian neocon and Israeli game plan.

Of course, there is no way to predict if there indeed will be attacks during the World Cup tournament in Germany, but if there are we can expect the Straussian neocons and their Israeli collaborators to take full advantage of the situation. “US officials opposed to an attack on Iran fear the Bush Administration would take advantage of such terror attacks to launch an offensive that, according to the officials, would settle the Iranian nuclear crisis and boost the president’s approval rating,” adds Yedioth, failing to mention the other half of the story—such an attack was long ago conjured up in Israel by fanatical Jabotinskyites who stand to gain, not Hezbollah, now a bona fide political party with a substantial standing in the Lebanese parliament.

It is, to say the least, crazy to believe Iran would launch a terrorist attack against Germany simply to demonstrate to “the international community that Tehran is capable of retaliation if attacked,” and it is also crazy to believe Hezbollah would collaborate in such a feverish and stupid operation that would assuredly result in a fresh round of privation and misery for the Lebanese people.

Addendum

No sooner did I post the above, I came across an article allegedly published by al-Watan al-Arabi, a Lebanese weekly, posted on Laura Mansfield’s blog. “I don’t know how credible this report it—so please take it for what it is. The translation comes from the US Government FBIS Translations,” warns Mansfield.

“Recently, the US intelligence acquired reports and information warning that the Hizballah US cells would shortly be given the green light. Al-Watan al-Arabi has learned that the US intelligence has started to take these threats extremely seriously and has made a list of possible targets in light of these reports and information and the Iranian precedents in this regard. According to informed sources, these US expectations consider the likelihood that a huge bridge, a nuclear reactor, a high-rise building, or a financial center might be targeted. They have been expecting that Iranian intelligence might entrust Hizballah with mounting further dangerous attacks, rather than destabilizing the country, spreading panic, and threatening the security of citizens,” a completely natural series of events, considering the equivocating neocons and their Israeli collaborators need Iran invaded, posthaste.

Al-Watan al-Arabi continues:

One of the scenarios called for serious preparations against Hizballah cells carrying out suicide operations targeting top US officials in response to a plan of assassinations, which Tehran says a secret US unit had entered Iran to carry out. An expert says that the plan has failed twice in assassinating President Ahmadinezhad but has succeed in liquidating several officials from the Revolutionary Guard and the intelligence, and that the hard-line wing in Tehran decided to retaliate in kind. Thus, Iran asked one of the Hizballah cells in Latin America to carry out this retaliation and that they had crossed the US border from Mexico some weeks ago.

Indeed, the information provided by this expert goes so far as to affirm that a secret assassination unit belonging to Hizballah received training on such operations at the Imam Ali Camp near Tehran and that some reports went so far as to indicate that the official who would be targeted is US Vice President Dick Cheney.

It seems that selecting Cheney for assassination was for two reasons. The first is logistical; namely, the difficulty of targeting the US President in view of the protection measures around him. The second is political and is due to the Iranian leadership’s conviction that the man behind the planning of wars against Iran is the vice president who leads the US hard-line current and who is supervising the entire project of changing regimes in the region.

How exactly Hezbollah will hit one of the most reclusive vice presidents in U.S. history, who is obviously covered by a phalanx of armed goons every single time he ventures out into public, is not mentioned. But never mind. Such “scenarios” are not intended to make sense, but rather build layer by layer the impression that Iran is a rogue and criminal state, determined not only to develop nukes and use them against our “friend” Israel, but also take out our beloved vice president.

Indeed, as Bush says, the neocons are “catapulting the propaganda,” and it is reaching a hysterical and surrealistic point of no return that will ultimately rival the lies and deceptions in the months leading up to the Iraq invasion.

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=NIM20060602&articleId=2559

[The 801]

Mugniyeh is not mentioned, but everywhere he would be involved, I take note. - The 801

U.S. studying Iran's retaliation options

By KATHERINE SHRADER
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER


WASHINGTON -- If cornered by the West over its nuclear program, Iran could direct Hezbollah to enlist its widespread international support network to aid in terrorist attacks, intelligence officials say.

In interviews with The Associated Press, several Western intelligence officials said they have seen signs that Hezbollah's fundraisers, recruiters and criminal elements could be adapted to provide logistical help to terrorist operatives.

Such help could include obtaining forged travel documents or off-the-shelf technology - global positioning equipment and night goggles, for example - that could be used for military purposes.

The senior officials spoke only on condition of anonymity because of the sensitive positions they occupy.

Hezbollah ( Mugniyeh - 801) was responsible for the 1983 bombings of the U.S. Embassy and the Marine barracks in Beirut, Lebanon. The group's Saudi wing, in coordination with the larger Lebanese Hezbollah, is blamed for the Khobar Towers bombing in Saudi Arabia in 1996 that killed hundreds of American servicemen. ( Mugniyeh Implicated again - 801)

Tensions between Iran and the U.S. and its allies have grown over Iran's expanding nuclear program. Iran insists its aims are peaceful; leading U.S. officials say they are convinced the Iranians intend to develop a nuclear weapon within the next decade.

John Negroponte, head of the U.S. intelligence network, suggested in an interview aired Friday by the British Broadcasting Corp. that an Iranian bomb could be a fact in as little as four years away, although he admitted, "We don't have clear-cut knowledge."

The U.S. and five other world powers agreed Thursday on a plan designed to persuade Iran to give up its nuclear ambitions. Iran's president, without directly mentioning the proposal, pledged Friday that the West would not deprive his country of nuclear technology.

The Bush administration and U.S. allies know Iran could order attacks. Some officials believe that threat is a bargaining chip worth more to Iran if kept in reserve.

Given that diplomacy could fail to defuse the nuclear standoff, U.S. intelligence agencies are studying Iran's options to retaliate: using oil as a weapon, attacking Americans in Iraq and elsewhere, ( using Mugniyeh's network) unleashing Hezbollah (Mugniyeh is a senior offical in charge of forign operations - 801 again ) or deploying other tactics.

To the State Department, Hezbollah is a militant Lebanese group classified as a terrorist organization. Its terrorist wing, the Islamic Jihad Organizationlamic Jihad was Mugniyeh's "nom de guerre" and probibly created it) is a global threat with cells in the Middle East, Europe, Africa, South America, Asia and North America. Before the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, Hezbollah was responsible for more American deaths than any other single terrorist organization. (Sentence should read - " Before the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, Mugniyeh was responsible for more American deaths than any other single terrorist organization)

Yet in many countries, Hezbollah is praised for providing education, medical care and housing, particularly in Lebanon's south, and raising money for it is legal.

So far there are no signs the Iranian-backed group is planning an imminent attack on U.S. interests. But that possibility has counterterrorism agencies keeping close watch as the friction with Iran grows.

U.S. analysts believe the potential is greater for Iran to use terrorism to retaliate, rather than to strike first. But they have considered scenarios under which Iran may view its own pre-emptive attack as a deterrent.

One senior official said that if Iran was backed into a corner and considered U.S.-led military action as inevitable, the Iranians might calculate that terrorism could break international unity, increase pressure on the U.S. or shift American public opinion.

U.S. analysts, however, are cautious in their judgments about what might lead Iran to order strikes.

Hezbollah, which means Party of God, was founded in 1982 to respond to Israel's invasion of Lebanon.( Mugniyeh was there, and probibly helped - 801) The radical Shiite organization advocates for Israel's elimination and the establishment of an Islamic government in Lebanon modeled after the religious theocracy in Iran.

With some exceptions, Hezbollah has not targeted the United States in recent years - a strategic decision that gives the group more freedom to operate, according to one U.S. counterterrorism official.

On orders from Iran, Hezbollah was tied to a string of kidnappings and assassinations of Westerners in the 1980s, including the abduction of the CIA's station chief in Tehran, William Buckley, in 1984. (Mugniyeh is reported to have personally tortured Buckley to death, and have to have sent Ronald Reagan and CIA Chief Casey video tapes of him doing it - 801)

Hezbollah is accused of bombing the Israeli Embassy and a Jewish community center in Argentina in the early 1990s, killing more than 100. The group denies the charges.( Mugniyeh has been indited on this in Argentina- 801)

A former chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee said before and right after the Sept. 11 attacks that Hezbollah was believed to have the largest embedded terrorist network inside the U.S. "I have no reason to believe that there has been a dismantlement of that capability," said former Sen. Bob Graham, D-Fla.

Steven Monblatt, the head of the Organization of American States' Inter-American Committee Against Terrorism, said tensions with Iran could lead Hezbollah to take steps to prepare attacks on Western interests in Latin America and elsewhere.

"I think it is legitimate to be concerned about situations where terrorist groups will not have an operational base, but will have made the preparations to establish one," said Monblatt, a former State Department official. "I don't know anyone alleging an operational cell right now. Now, how do you distinguish an operational cell from a sleeper operation - a more kind of logistical base?"

Leadership in Hezbollah is exercised by Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, a Shiite Muslim cleric who took over after Sheik Abbas Musawi was killed in southern Lebanon in an Israeli helicopter strike in 1992.(Mugniyeh has been a member of the shira council in Lebannon and is a confedant of Nasrallah and hosts him in Iran - 801)

Hezbollah gets significant support from Iran, Shiite communities and particularly the Lebanese diaspora. One official said the group has access to several hundred million dollars a year, much of it going to the social service network in southern Lebanon.

The organization has been linked to all kinds of organized crime, including drug trafficking, drug counterfeiting and stolen baby formula. The substantial profits are thought to be funneled almost entirely back to the Middle East.

Kevin Brock, a career FBI agent who is now deputy director of the National Counterterrorism Center, recently told reporters that the U.S. has active investigations into Hezbollah around the world.

"The prioritization obviously has been al-Qaida, but that doesn't mean Hezbollah has dropped off the screen by any stretch of the imagination," Brock said.

The FBI and other law enforcement agencies have had success in breaking up Hezbollah-linked crime rings, including a cigarette-smuggling operation in North Carolina. (whoopie)

This year, the Justice Department announced an indictment charging 19 people with a global racketeering conspiracy to sell counterfeit rolling papers, contraband cigarettes and counterfeit Viagra. Portions of the profits, law enforcers allege, went to Hezbollah.

Extensive operations have been uncovered in South America, where Hezbollah is well connected to the drug trade, particularly in the region where Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay meet. The area has a large Shiite Muslim immigrant population. (Lots of data on this elsewhere on thread)

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/1107AP_Iran_Hezbollah.html

[The 801]

Let's look in on what is finally getting some attention. You know, where the real terrorist countries are........

Iran Is a Leader in Terror, Rumsfeld Tells Defense Group

By MICHAEL R. GORDON
Published: June 4, 2006

SINGAPORE, June 3 — Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld told a gathering of defense experts here on Saturday that Iran was “one of the leading terrorist nations in the world.”

Mr. Rumsfeld also questioned why Russia and China would allow Iran to participate in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, a regional organization that includes Russia, China and Central Asian nations.

Iran has observer status in the group, and the Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is expected to attend a summit meeting that the organization is holding in Shanghai this month.

“It strikes me as passing strange that one would want to bring into an organization that says it is against terrorism one of the leading terrorist nations in the world: Iran,” Mr. Rumsfeld said.

His pointed comments were made at an important moment in American diplomacy. This week, the Bush administration reversed a refusal to hold direct talks with Iran that had lasted decades. The administration said it was willing to join European allies in negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program if Teheran first suspended its efforts to enrich uranium.

At the same time, Washington has been seeking Russian and Chinese cooperation in fashioning a common negotiating strategy. Both nations are members of the United Nations Security Council, which the United States would like to impose punitive measures if Iran does not accept a package of incentives and suspend its nuclear enrichment activities.

The United States and its European allies recently agreed on the package of incentives, which are to be conveyed to Iran in the coming days. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has said that Iran must respond within weeks. President Ahmadinejad has rebuffed the offer, but America officials said this may not be the final word.

In his comments, Mr. Rumsfeld said that President Bush had presented Iran with the opportunity to defuse the confrontation over its nuclear program through diplomacy and that more time was needed to assess the prospects for a diplomatic settlement.

“The information has just been communicated to them, and it seems to me the appropriate thing now to do is to wait and see which path the Iranian government will take,” he added.

But he painted a dark picture of Iran, saying that it had a long history of “being engaged in terrorist activities” and, thus, was not an appropriate participant in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. The Russian- and Chinese-dominated organization was established in 2001 and one of its stated goals is to counter separatist and terrorist groups.

Singapore’s prime minister, Lee Hsien Loong , said Friday that Iran’s role in the Shanghai organization was a way for Russia and China to demonstrate their influence. Iran, he said, had applied to upgrade its presence to full-fledged member. By agreeing to consider this, he said, “Russia and China have reminded the West of their combined influence on world-turning events.”

India, which also has observer status in the organization, said Iran’s participation in the upcoming summit as an observer was a matter for Iran to decide. “Who am I to decide on their behalf?” said the Indian defense minister, Pranab Mukherjee.

One of the main themes in Mr. Rumsfeld’s address here was the need for more inclusive institutions. The United States was concerned last year when an East Asian summit was held that included 10 members of the Association of South East Asian Nations, as well as China, Korea, Japan and other countries, but which excluded the United States.

Mr. Rumsfeld repeated a theme from last year’s address — that China needed to be open about how much it was spending on its military and what the funds were being used for.

Russia, he said, had sought “to constrain the independence and freedom of action of some of their neighboring countries.” Defense officials said this was a reference to the pressure that Moscow has put on Central Asian nations to curtail military ties with the United States as well as to Russia’s difficult relationship with Georgia and Ukraine.

Mr. Rumsfeld’s presentation and that of other defense officials were made at an annual conference organized by the International Institute for Strategic Studies. Neither China nor Russia sent high-level officials to the conference. Iran has made its own forays into the region. Last month, President Ahmadinejad visited Indonesia where, Mr. Lee noted, he received a hero’s welcome from Indonesian students.

“This showed how successfully Iran has portrayed itself as a leading Muslim country, its nuclear program as a project in which Muslims worldwide should take vicarious pride, and the issue as a nationalist struggle,” Mr. Lee said. “We have to refocus on the core issue, which is nuclear proliferation and Iran’s obligations under the Nonproliferation Treaty.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/04/world/middleeast/04rumsfeld.web.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

[The 801]

I can find no independant confirmation of the artical below.

Syria behind a plot to destabilize Qatar
By Olivier Guitta

Last week, Qatari authorities proceeded to arrest about 100 Syrian workers and five Syrian intelligence officers. The Kuwaiti daily Al Seyassah explained that Qatar had foiled a destabilization plot against the monarchy. This plot, reportedly conceived by Assad's brother in law Assef Shawkat (also wanted in conjuction to the murder of ex Lebanese Pm Rafik Hariri) with the help of Hizbullah Imad Mugniyeh activating sleeping cells in the Gulf, targeted vital and strategic centers in Qatar. Syria wanted to take revenge on Qatar because of its vote at the UN for resolution 1680 which calls for a final drawing of the borders between Syria and lebanon and the reestablishment of normal diplomatic relations between the two states.
This story, if proven accurate, only shows how Syria is still using tactics of a terrorist state.

Since Iran has been so much in the limelight, Syria has been left on the backburner. That's why unfortunately the Cedar Revolution of Spring 2005 is only a fading memory and Syria is back to its old tricks.

http://counterterrorismblog.org/2006/06/syria_behind_a_plot_to_destabi_1.php

[Vancouver]

Ah, I think I've found Mugniyeh.
http://img124.imageshack.us/img124/702/elvisro427yb.jpg

[The 801]

I think he looks pretty shiek in that outfit.

[The 801]

Older artical, nice overview. Check out the documented new boss of Mugniyeh.

Iran’s president recruits terror master

Sarah Baxter, Washington and Uzi Mahnaimi, Tel Aviv
Plot for revenge attacks on West
IRAN’S president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, attended a meeting in Syria earlier this year with one of the world’s most wanted terrorists, according to intelligence experts and a former national security official in Washington.

US officials and Israel intelligence sources believe Imad Mugniyeh, the Lebanese commander of Hezbollah’s overseas operations, has taken charge of plotting Iran’s retaliation against western targets should President George W Bush order a strike on Iranian nuclear sites.

Mugniyeh is on the FBI’s “Most Wanted Terrorists” list for his role in a series of high-profile attacks against the West, including the 1985 hijacking of a TWA jet and murder of one of its passengers, a US navy diver.

Now in his mid-forties, Mugniyeh is reported to have travelled with Ahmadinejad in January this year from Tehran to Damascus, where the Iranian president met leaders of Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad and Hamas.

The meeting has been dubbed a “terror summit” because of the presence of so many groups behind attacks on Israel, which Ahmadinejad has threatened to wipe from the map.

Jane’s Intelligence Review cited “reports in recent weeks” of Mugniyeh’s presence alongside the president.

Michael Ledeen, a Middle East expert and former Pentagon and National Security Council official who wrote that Mugniyeh had “probably” been there, said last week senior American officials had confirmed it.

“It’s hard to identify Mugniyeh because he is said to have changed his face and his fingerprints,” Ledeen said. “But senior government officials have told me I was right. He was there.”

Shortly after the Damascus summit Henry Crumpton, head of counter-terrorism at the state department, singled out the elusive Mugniyeh as a threat. The Iranians, Crumpton said, “have complete command and control of Hezbollah. Imad Mugniyeh works for Tehran. And you can’t talk about Hezbollah and not think about Iran. They really are part and parcel of the same problem.”

Mugniyeh lives in Iran and has evaded capture for more than 20 years, despite a $5m American bounty on his head. Western intelligence reports claim he has many connections to terrorist cells in Europe, Africa, Latin America and the US and he is said to have met Osama Bin Laden.

“When and if the Iranians decide to hit the West in its soft belly, Imad will be the one to act,” a western intelligence source said last week.

An Israeli defence source claimed Mugniyeh was in regular touch with the new Iranian intelligence minister, Gholamhossein Mohseni Ezhei. The minister is a long-time confidant of Ahmadinejad and was appointed by him.

“We know that Mohseni Ezhei holds routine meetings with Mugniyeh, who is today Iran’s head of overseas operations,” said the Israeli defence source. “Since we know from previous Iranian terror attacks that it takes about a year to plan a substantial one, we should not be surprised if operations against western targets are already in high gear and Mugniyeh is certainly playing a major role.”

The young Mugniyeh first attracted the attention of the West when he was involved in the kidnapping, torture and mutilation of William Buckley, the CIA station chief in Beirut, in 1984. He kept his victim at the Sheikh Abdullah camp in the Lebanese Bekaa valley and was allegedly the last person Buckley saw before he died.

“Imad had good reason to retaliate,” said a well-informed source. “A car bomb killed his brother Jihad, who had taken Imad’s old job as bodyguard to Hezbollah’s spiritual leader.” Mugniyeh blamed the CIA, and Buckley was chosen to pay the price.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2089-2147683,00.html

[The 801]

MUgniyeh attended this meeting. The results:

New Syria-Iranian defense treaty opens way for Iran`s Revolutionary Guards to deploy on Israel’s Golan border by summer’s end

June 19, 2006, 11:57 AM (GMT+02:00)

Iranian defense minister Gen. Mustafa Najjar said: “Syria’s security is part of Iran’s security,” when he signed a new military treaty with his visiting Syrian counterpart, Gen. Hassan Turkmani (picture) in Tehran last Thursday June 15.

Sunday, June 18, Israel’s parliamentary foreign affairs and defense committee inspected its northern border, along with the deputy chief of staff Moshe Kaplinsky and OC Northern command Udi Adam. Both Tehran and Damascus referred to the tour as Israel’s response to their new treaty.

DEBKAfile’s military sources add: At the signing ceremony, the Syrian official waved away reporters’ questions on whether Iran would be establishing a military base in Syria – “The language of a (foreign) military base in our country is alien to us. I want to say that it is not on the agenda.”

Nonetheless, military sources note that he rejected the term “bases” - but did not rule out “foreign forces” in nSyrian bases, which Persian Gulf and Pakistani military sources are certain was agreed secretly between the two countries. They have learned that Iran has offered to deploy Revolutionary Guards on the Golan border with Israel by the end of summer, because as Najjar said at the signing: “We have a common front against Israel’s threats.”

DEBKAfile’s Tehran sources disclose the Iranians seek to attain three objectives by deploying RG units to the Golan heights:

1. Another direct front line against Israel.

2. A forward position for an Iranian electronic warning station to sound a timely alarm of the takeoff of American warplanes or missiles from the eastern Mediterranean basin on their way to attack.

3. The station can also keep electronic track of movements on Israeli air and missile bases, covering also Arrow anti-missile missile systems.

The Syrian military delegation, which spent five days in Tehran, brought a year of secret negotiations to their conclusion. The breadth of Syrian-Iranian military relations can be measured by the military treaty’s financial scope of $800 m and the size of the delegation Damascus sent to Tehran - 60 officers representing every branch of the Syrian armed forces, including intelligence and munitions industries.

For years, both countries have supported the Lebanese Hezbollah militia and anti-Israeli Palestinian factions including Hamas and Islamic Jihad, which maintain headquarters in Damascus

http://www.debka.com/

[The 801]

Guess why I posted this here.

Iran aiding Shiite attacks inside Iraq, general says
By Michael Gordon The New York Times

Published: June 22, 2006
WASHINGTON
Iran has stepped up its support for violent Shiite groups in Iraq and is providing the weapons and training so they can attack American troops, the top American commander in Iraq said Thursday.

"They are using surrogates to conduct terrorist operations in Iraq both against us and against the Iraqi people," the commander, Gen. George W. Casey Jr., told reporters. "It is decidedly unhelpful." He said that the Iranian assistance had increased since January and that this had emerged as an important factor in weighing further reductions in American forces in Iraq.

General Casey's comments were his most forceful and explicit criticism of Iran's involvement in Iraq, and came at a sensitive time in American-Iranian relations. The Bush administration has offered to conduct direct talks with Iran in an effort to persuade it to abandon its suspected nuclear weapons program.

The general spoke at a Pentagon news conference after meeting with Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld to discuss plans for reducing American forces in Iraq. General Casey said he was confident there would be troop cuts this year but stressed that there would be a "gradual reduction over time." Mr. Rumsfeld said General Casey would consult the Iraqi authorities before submitting a final recommendation on how reductions should be made.

American officials have criticized Iran's involvement in Iraq before. But General Casey's remarks were unusually specific. He said the Iranian security forces were training Shiite groups with the approval of the authorities in Tehran.

"We are quite confident that the Iranians, through their covert special operations forces, are providing weapons, I.E.D. technology and training to Shia extremist groups in Iraq," the general said. I.E.D. stands for improvised explosive devices, or roadside bombs.

Some training is being carried out in Iran, he said. In other cases, Hezbollah, the Lebanon-based terrorist group, is providing weapons and training at Iran's behest.

General Casey said there was no evidence that Iranians had crossed into Iraq to direct the attacks, but said the assistance appeared to be a result of an official policy of the Iranian government, and not the actions of a faction. "You would assume that they're not doing that independently, that there is some central direction from somebody in Tehran," he said.

One indication of additional Iranian support, he said, was an increase in the number of attacks with bombs that feature shaped charges, which focus the explosive power in a single direction. That type of bomb is specially designed to destroy armored vehicles, and American commanders have previously asserted that these bombs have been built in Iran and shipped to Iraq.

General Casey had previously forecast "fairly substantial" troop cuts in 2006. Those cuts have yet to materialize. American forces in Iraq have dropped from 138,000 in March to 126,900 now, and relatively modest reductions are expected over the next several months.

He said setting a timetable and deadline for withdrawing American troops from Iraq - as Senator John Kerry and some other Democratic lawmakers have proposed - would undermine his efforts.

"I feel it would limit my flexibility," he said. "I think it would give the enemy a fixed timetable. And I think it would send a terrible signal to a new government of national unity in Iraq that's trying to stand up and get its legs underneath it."

General Casey offered a generally upbeat interpretation of the efforts made by the Iraqi government to rein in militias and establish a coalition government. He said the Iraqi military was improving. By the end of the summer, he said, 75 percent of Iraqi brigades would be assuming the lead in military operations.

He said there were indications that some Sunnis who had opposed the new government were now considering whether to drop their armed resistance and play a political role.

The general said that the death of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi had weakened Al Qaeda, but that it remained a threat. "They're hurt, but they're not finished, and they won't be finished for some time," he said. He said the group is "still quite capable of conducting terrorist acts across Iraq."


WASHINGTON Iran has stepped up its support for violent Shiite groups in Iraq and is providing the weapons and training so they can attack American troops, the top American commander in Iraq said Thursday.

"They are using surrogates to conduct terrorist operations in Iraq both against us and against the Iraqi people," the commander, Gen. George W. Casey Jr., told reporters. "It is decidedly unhelpful." He said that the Iranian assistance had increased since January and that this had emerged as an important factor in weighing further reductions in American forces in Iraq.

General Casey's comments were his most forceful and explicit criticism of Iran's involvement in Iraq, and came at a sensitive time in American-Iranian relations. The Bush administration has offered to conduct direct talks with Iran in an effort to persuade it to abandon its suspected nuclear weapons program.

The general spoke at a Pentagon news conference after meeting with Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld to discuss plans for reducing American forces in Iraq. General Casey said he was confident there would be troop cuts this year but stressed that there would be a "gradual reduction over time." Mr. Rumsfeld said General Casey would consult the Iraqi authorities before submitting a final recommendation on how reductions should be made.

American officials have criticized Iran's involvement in Iraq before. But General Casey's remarks were unusually specific. He said the Iranian security forces were training Shiite groups with the approval of the authorities in Tehran.

"We are quite confident that the Iranians, through their covert special operations forces, are providing weapons, I.E.D. technology and training to Shia extremist groups in Iraq," the general said. I.E.D. stands for improvised explosive devices, or roadside bombs.

Some training is being carried out in Iran, he said. In other cases, Hezbollah, the Lebanon-based terrorist group, is providing weapons and training at Iran's behest.

General Casey said there was no evidence that Iranians had crossed into Iraq to direct the attacks, but said the assistance appeared to be a result of an official policy of the Iranian government, and not the actions of a faction. "You would assume that they're not doing that independently, that there is some central direction from somebody in Tehran," he said.

One indication of additional Iranian support, he said, was an increase in the number of attacks with bombs that feature shaped charges, which focus the explosive power in a single direction. That type of bomb is specially designed to destroy armored vehicles, and American commanders have previously asserted that these bombs have been built in Iran and shipped to Iraq.

General Casey had previously forecast "fairly substantial" troop cuts in 2006. Those cuts have yet to materialize. American forces in Iraq have dropped from 138,000 in March to 126,900 now, and relatively modest reductions are expected over the next several months.

He said setting a timetable and deadline for withdrawing American troops from Iraq - as Senator John Kerry and some other Democratic lawmakers have proposed - would undermine his efforts.

"I feel it would limit my flexibility," he said. "I think it would give the enemy a fixed timetable. And I think it would send a terrible signal to a new government of national unity in Iraq that's trying to stand up and get its legs underneath it."

General Casey offered a generally upbeat interpretation of the efforts made by the Iraqi government to rein in militias and establish a coalition government. He said the Iraqi military was improving. By the end of the summer, he said, 75 percent of Iraqi brigades would be assuming the lead in military operations.

He said there were indications that some Sunnis who had opposed the new government were now considering whether to drop their armed resistance and play a political role.

The general said that the death of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi had weakened Al Qaeda, but that it remained a threat. "They're hurt, but they're not finished, and they won't be finished for some time," he said. He said the group is "still quite capable of conducting terrorist acts across Iraq."

http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/06/23/africa/web0623iran.php

[The 801]

Opinion piece mentions Mugniyeh. Interesting thought.

Persian Whispers of Escalation in Meshaal’s Ears
Iranian and Syrian Influence Guides Hamas’ Damascus HQ as Civilian Kidnapping & Execution Tactics Push Israel to Brink
By Steve Schippert

Escalation in the fighting in Gaza and the West Bank is looking imminent, as the new Hamas tactic of kidnapping and execution of Israeli civilians looks to trump the kidnapping of the IDF soldier over the weekend. The body of 18 year old Israeli citizen Eliahu Asheri has been found, reportedly burned, and the Popular Resistance Committees have claimed that he was executed for Israel’s failure to end the incursion. Aaron Klein reported from Israel that the body of a 62 year old man was also found. He had been missing since Friday. Klein also noted that there were reports of many more kidnappings in the West Bank in what appears to be a clear tactic being employed by Hamas of abduction and execution, not unlike the tactics employed by al-Qaeda in Iraq. With this development, the Israeli incursion will no doubt no longer hinge solely on the fate of the captured IDF soldier.

Hamas’ Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh blasted the United States for the incursion as he called on the UN to intervene, saying that the US had “given the green light to aggression.” But the aggression has been primarily displayed by Hamas terrorists via Izzadin el-Kassam and Hamas’ various farm teams, including the Popular Resistance Committees, the Saladdin Brigade and the Army of Islam.

Even al-Jazeera noted that, regardless of the size of the Israeli incursion and the bombings and artillery barrages, no Palestinians have been hurt.

The “green light to aggression” was clearly given from Damascus, not Washington. For its sake, the US Secretary of State, Condolleezza Rice, criticized Israel for “not giving diplomacy a chance” to work. And if he is to be taken at face value, Hamas’ Gaza-based Prime Minister Haniyeh has found himself powerless as his calls for the Hamas-dominated PRC to release the captured Israeli soldier - and thereby end the incursion - have gone not only unheeded, but rebuffed. Simply put, at this point, Haniyeh has no effective or recognized authority over the Hamas operations, attacks, abductions and executions.

To understand who is calling the shots, one must first look to Damascus and Khalid Meshaal, Hamas’ ‘political’ leader who keeps Hamas headquarters operations in Damascus – along with Iran’s foreign policy arm, Hizballah - under the protective arm of Syria. But Meshaal does not and indeed cannot operate independently, especially when the effects include massive Israeli military response. Meshaal hears two birds chirping loudly in his ear, one chirping in the Arabic of his host and the other chirping in the Persian of the global terror masters.

It may be coincidence, but Iran has been relatively quiet in the past month, specifically Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, whose public comments are normally and regularly controversial and/or defiantly confrontational. If Iran is attempting to fly beneath the radar, one way of doing so is to have the collective radar redirected in another direction entirely. Iran has the influence and control to do precisely that through an Arab-Israeli escalation via Hamas & Hizballah proxies.

In late January, Recall that Ahmadinejad met with Hamas and Hizballah leadership in Damascus earlier this year, reportedly with Imad Fayez Mugniyah in tow. Much was made of this reported appearance by the notorious international operational leader of Hizballah.

Thomas Joscelyn noted and speculated that Iran wanted Mughniyah to be seen, sending a clear message. Wrote Joscelyn in January, “Why was Mughniyah at the terror summit? I would bet that the Iranians wanted us to see him there. They know that his presence indicated that terrorism was still their preferred foreign policy tool.”

The terrorist arm connected to that preferred foreign policy tool is Hizballah, itself a creation of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps in 1980. The Iranian created, funded and guided Hizballah has been coordinating, arming and funding Palestinian terrorists, ever more increasingly since Hamas’ electoral victory gave Iran a new window of influence in both Gaza and the West Bank. Palestinian terrorists themselves have confirmed this. Zakariya Zubeidi, al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades’ Jenin leader said openly, “Without the help of our brothers in Hezbollah we could not have continued our struggle. They give us money and weapons. We coordinate our military operations.”

Can there be any doubt that the same cooperation and coordination exists between Hizballah and Hamas as well, in addition to Fatah’s al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, et al? And where there is Hizballah, there is Iran standing behind, beside and over them, guiding the beneficiaries of their bankroll. Even to the skeptical must recognize the significance of Ahmadinejad’s openly publicized January meeting with his own new ‘Coalition of the Willing’ and and the fact that Hamas’ own headquarters are practically across the street from that of Hizballah in Bashar Assad’s Damascus.

Earlier this year, Hamas terrorists were arrested, charged with and confessed to smuggling weapons into Jordan from Syria. Jordan had found several weapons caches in the kingdom and the arrested men who confessed had “monitored Jordanian intelligence officers and foreign tourists, apparently for a possible attack.” Recall for context the Hamas connections to the recent bombings of the tourist resorts in the Sinai in Egypt.

Factor in the new weaponry wielded over the weekend, with advanced anti-tank missiles that took out a world-class Merkava tank. Hamas is not acting alone. Not in Gaza. Not in the West Bank. Not elsewhere.

Israel knows this plainly and sent a message to Bashar Assad (and indirectly to Tehran) when IAF fighters served up a dawn wake-up call in the form of a sonic-boom, flying at low altitude directly above the Syrian dictator’s seaside home. Curiously, both Syrian state television and a commentator guest on CNN defiantly boasted that Syrian air defenses had fired on the flight of jets. Any anti-aircraft professional worth his weight in salt would inform them that, unless there was a splash or two, perhaps the reaction should be more reserved. The Israeli aircraft fired no ordnance and the Syrian anti-aircraft, if it indeed did fire (which is questionable), clearly missed. It was a message, not an attack.

CNN anchor Wolf Blitzer ominously teased the coverage of the Israeli flight as a sign of possible serious escalation of the conflict. While a serious further escalation of the conflict is not out of the question and quite possibly likely, the Israeli dry flyover is not the cause. It is in reaction to an existing escalation.

Though not as visible and as easy to report as a flight of IAF jets, the escalation has already existed - through both Hizballah and Meshaal - in the form of Syrian and Iranian direction. Through Syrian and Iranian command, cooperation, coordination, funding, training, and arming, Hamas and other Palestinian terrorist groups are currently fighting their sponsors’ war.

More executed Israeli civilians dumped on the streets of the West Bank and Gaza and this bloodless limited incursion will take on a whole new face.

http://analysis.threatswatch.org/2006/06/persian-whispers-of-escalation/

[uchiuke123]

http://counterterrorismblog.org/

July 12, 2006
Imad Mugniyah likely behind the capture of Israeli soldiers
By Bill Roggio


Imad Fayez Mugniyah

Hezbollah has conducted a highly successful raid into Israeli territory, attacking a Israeli Defense Force outpost along the Israel-Lebanese border, killing three soldiers and capturing two after they were wounded. Four Israeli soldiers were killed when their tank ran over a land mine in Lebanon during follow-up operations to free the captured soldiers. An additional soldier was killed when attempting to recover the bodies of the four tankers.

Hezbollah carefully planned and selected the personnel for this operation, and executed with precision. The attack began with an artillery barrage along the Israeli frontier. An IDF outpost, with well trained Israeli troops, was overrun, and Hezbollah had the time to take the two wounded Israeli soldiers hostage. The land mine used to destroy the tank during the Israeli follow-up raid into Lebanon was deliberately set to catch the IDF while pressing forward, and large enough to destroy a well armored main battle tank. The Israeli search and rescue combat team took heavy fire once they crossed the border. Hezbollah laid a trap for the IDF.

The sophistication of this attack indicates Imad Fayez Mugniyah, Hezbollah's chief of military operations was directly involved. Mugniyah has a long history of successful military and terrorist operations across the globe. Mugniyah has a history of conducting similar snatch and grab operations against the Israelis. He was responsible for capturing three Israeli soldiers in Lebanon, and the abduction of an Israeli colonel in Kuwait in 2000.

Mugniyah began his career in terrorism in the 1970s with Force 17, the personal bodyguard detachment for Yassar Arafat, and later joined Hezbollah. His more infamous terror attacks include the April 1983 bombing of the U.S. embassy in Beirut, killing 63; the October 1983 simultaneous truck bombings on the U.S. Marine and French paratrooper barracks in Beirut, killing 241 Marines and 58 French soldiers; the hijacking of TWA 847; the kidnappings and murders of U.S. military, intelligence and diplomatic personnel in Beirut; the bombing of the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires, Argentina in 1992, killing 29 people; the bombing of an Israeli cultural center in 1994, killing 86 people. He is suspected of direct involvement in the 1996 bombing of the Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia, killing 19 U.S. servicemen.

Mugniyah has extensive links with the Iranian intelligence services, and has been directly linked to al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden, and recently deceased al-Qaeda in Iraq commander Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. Mugniyah is on FBI's list of 22 most wanted terrorists, with a $5 million dollar reward for information leading to his capture. U.S. Special Forces aborted a raid to capture Mugniyah in the Persian Gulf in 1996. He was believed to have visited Syria in January of 2006, attending a meeting with Iranian President Ahmadinejad and Syrian President Assad.

The Hezbollah raid and subsequent capture of two Israeli soldiers has placed Israel in a difficult situation. After Hamas' operation in Gaza, which also included the capture of an Israeli soldier, and the subsequent Israeli incursion into Gaza in attempt to free him, Israel now has fight on a second front. An Israeli reserve division is being mobilized to deploy to the Lebanese frontier. After today's attack, Israel conducted multiple strikes by air and sea, bombarding Hezbollah positions and bridges leading away from the attack site to prevent easy movement of the Hezbollah strike team. The IDF also struck at Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command positions just ten miles south of Beirut.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert referred to Hezbollah's strike was an "act of war" by Lebanon. "The Lebanese government, of which Hezbollah is a part, is trying to shake regional stability. We are already responding with great strength," said Olmert. The U.S. has directly implicated Iran and Syria (and by default, Mugniyah, their proxy). There are several motivations for Hezbollah's attack: Iran wishes to shift focus from their nuclear program to Israel; Syria Syria seeks an excuse to re-occupy Lebanon; Lebanon has been under pressure to disarm Hezbollah; Hezbollah wishes to gain prestige but striking at their hated enemy while providing assistance to Hamas; the destabilization of the nascent Lebanese democracy would be a blow to the U.S. democracy promotion program.

uchiuke123

[The 801]

Umm, the shit has hit the fan, and guess who has finally gotten what he was after.....

The Same War
Hezbollah, natch.

By Michael Ledeen

No one should have any lingering doubts about what’s going on in the Middle East. It’s war, and it now runs from Gaza into Israel, through Lebanon and thence to Iraq via Syria. There are different instruments, ranging from Hamas in Gaza to Hezbollah in Syria and Lebanon and on to the multifaceted “insurgency” in Iraq. But there is a common prime mover, and that is the Iranian mullahcracy, the revolutionary Islamic fascist state that declared war on us 27 years ago and has yet to be held accountable.


It is very good news that the White House immediately denounced Iran and Syria, just as Ambassador Khalilzad had yesterday tagged the terrorist Siamese twins as sponsors of terrorism in Iraq. For those who doubt the Iranian hand, remind yourself that Hezbollah is a wholly owned subsidiary of the mullahcracy (with Syria providing some supplies, and free run of the territory), and then read what Iraq the Model had to say yesterday, Wednesday:

Hizbollah is Iran's and Syria's partner in feeding instability in Iraq as there were evidence that this terror group has a role in equipping and training insurgents in Iraq and Hizbollah had more than once openly showed support for the “resistance” in Iraq and sponsored the meetings of Baathist and radical Islamist militants who are responsible for most of the violence in Iraq.

Notice, please, that he says Iran “sponsored the meetings of Baathist and radical Islamist militants...” He is talking Sunnis here, the same Sunnis who, according to CIA deep thinkers and scads of academic experts, cannot possibly work closely with Shiites like, ahem, the mullahs of Tehran. Iraq the Model isn’t burdened by this wisdom, and so he just reports what he sees on the ground in his own country.

Notice also that over the weekend there was a “security summit” in Tehran, involving all of Iraq’s neighbors, at which Iran’s moonbat President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad made one of his trademark understatements about Israel. “The existence of this regime will bring nothing but suffering and misery for people in the region,” he mildly commented, and then said that the anger of the people might soon “lead to a vast explosion that will know no boundaries.”

Sounds to me like he knew something before the rest of us. As well he should, because Iran has been quite busy in Lebanon of late. The Lebanese Tourism Ministry’s Research Center announced an amazing statistic in early July: in the first six months of the year, 60,888 Iranian tourists visited Lebanon. No other Asian country came close (the Philippines ranked second, with a bit over 12,000). I don’t think that there’s enough disposable income in mullahland to cover the expenses of more than ten thousand people a month headed for the Beirut beaches. Do you think, as I do, that a goodly number of those “tourists” were up to no good? Maybe some of them were working for the Revolutionary Guards Corps? Or were Hezbollah operations people? I’ll bet you your favorite farm that one of them was the world’s most wanted man, Imad Mughniyah, the operations chieftain of Hizbollah, the world’s most lethal terrorist organization.

Actually I won’t bet; it would be unethical. We know that Mughniyah flew to Damascus a while back with Ahmadinejad, and went to Lebanon to work with his buddies.

In this war, there is no meaningful distinction between Iran and Syria, they work in tandem. It’s just that Iran gives the orders and Syria obeys.

There’s a lot of fanciful analysis of the recent expansion of the war, revolving around a general “why?” and a more specific “why now?” Someone said that Iran was trying to distract world attention from the upcoming U.N. showdown over the mullahs’ atomic program, which seems silly to me. A U.N. debate serves Iran’s interest. It deflects attention from our growing awareness of Iran’s centrality in Iraq, and the urgency of going after the regimes in Tehran and Damascus. That is where Iran’s doom lies, not in the endless charade about the nukes.

I don’t think it is worth our time and energy to try to answer the “why now?” except to agree with Allahpundit who remarked that there does seem to be something special about dates numbered “11.” The important thing to keep in mind is that both the Gaza and northern Israel attacks were planned for quite a while, which means that Iran wanted this war, this way. It isn’t just a target of opportunity or a sudden impulse; it’s part of a strategic decision to expand the war.

Iran has been at war with us all along, because that’s what the world’s leading terror state does. The scariest thing about this moment is that the Iranians have convinced themselves that they are winning, and we are powerless to reverse the tide. As I reported here several months ago, Khamenei told his top people late last year that the Americans and Israelis are both politically paralyzed. Neither can take decisive action against Iran, neither can sustain prolonged conflict and significant casualties. Meanwhile, the Supreme Leader said, the terrorists are all working for Iran, and we will expand the terror war.

Don’t think for a moment that they worry about victims in Gaza or Lebanon. They are delighted to see Israel fighting on two fronts, because they will use the pictures from the battlefield to consolidate their hold over the fascist forces in the region. After a few days of fighting, I would not be surprised to see some new kind of terrorist attack against Israel, or against an American facility in the region. An escalation to chemical weapons, for example, or even the fulfillment of the longstanding Iranian promise to launch something nuclear at Israel. They meant it when they said it, don’t you know?

The only way we are going to win this war is to bring down those regimes in Tehran and Damascus, and they are not going to fall as a result of fighting between their terrorist proxies in Gaza and Lebanon on the one hand, and Israel on the other. Only the United States can accomplish it.

Last week, President Mikheil Shaakashvili of free Georgia came to Washington and reminded us–not that it was much noticed — of America’s revolutionary mission. But President Bush heard it. “I just sent over to President Bush the letter that Georgian freedom fighters sent...seven years ago, and it never made it to the White House. It was intercepted by KGB and all the people who wrote it were shot,” Mr. Saakashvili said during a visit with the president in the Oval Office. “I'm sure lots of people out there in Korea (and he might well have added, Syria and Iran) are writing similar letters today. And I'm sure that those letters will, eventually, (arrive)...because that's a part of the freedom agenda that President Bush has and we strongly believe in.”

As do millions of Syrians and Iranians. And you know what? Millions of Arabs all over the Middle East do too. Give them a chance to fight for their freedom, as we did with the Georgians. The longer we dither, the more likely it becomes that we will sadly and unnecessarily find ourselves in a military confrontation of some sort, with all the terrible consequences that entails.

Faster, please. Your options are narrowing. You cannot escape the mullahs. You must either defeat them or submit to their terrible vision. There is no other way.

http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=NDE4MDA3NDUyYjA0ZGY1MzQ4NjM5NjM1MWY4NDVkZGM=

Note: on a scholarly note, this is mainly an opinion piece.

[The 801]

Mainly old news here for those who follow this thread, except for identifying the person who identified Mugniyeh in Syria a few months ago.

Hizballah: Iran's Tool
By Patrick Goodenough
CNSNews.com International Editor
July 14, 2006

(CNSNews.com) - The Iranian-created and funded organization at the center of the unfolding conflict between Israel and Lebanon is considered one of the most dangerous terrorist organizations in the world, responsible for the deaths of more Americans than any other group apart from al-Qaeda.

Since its establishment in the early 1980s, the Hizballah has carried out a proxy war on behalf of Iran and Syria against Israel, focusing on South Lebanon but also targeting Israeli and Jewish institutions in Europe, Latin America and Asia.

The Shi'ite group's involvement in terror attacks against Americans has been deadly too. The group brought the Islamist strategy of suicide bombing to the world's attention in 1983, when it killed more than 350 people, including 241 U.S. servicemen and 58 French troops, in a series of attacks in Beirut.

It has also long been associated with kidnapping of Western hostages in Lebanon, including a U.S. Marine Corps colonel and a CIA station chief, both subsequently killed by their captors. Five Israeli soldiers who were captured or disappeared in or near Lebanon between 1982 and 1997 remain missing in action, with suspected involvement of Hizballah or allied groups.

Hizballah was also responsible for another hostage situation targeting Americans - the June 1985 hijacking of a TWA airliner during an Athens-Rome flight. The terrorists diverted the plane to Lebanon with its 153 passengers and crew, and murdered U.S. Navy diver Robert Stethem, dumping his body onto the Beirut runway.

Hizballah claims as its greatest success forcing Israel's decision in 2000 to withdraw its troops from a narrow buffer zone it had maintained in southern Lebanon for 18 years.

Since the Israeli departure, the group has focused more attention on political activities while continuing attacks against Israel and refusing to disarm, despite a U.N. Security Council resolution requirement that it do. The Lebanese government has been powerless or unwilling to enforce the resolution.

In elections last year Hizballah won 14 seats in Lebanon's 128-member parliament. Along with its Shi'ite ally Amal, which won 15 seats, it's regarded by many Lebanese as the legitimate representative of the country's largest religious community.

The U.S. declared Hizballah a terrorist group long before 9/11, while Canada did in 2002 and Britain and Australia have both banned the Hizballah "External Security Organization."

As in the case with Hamas in Gaza, Hizballah and its backers have been fighting a propaganda campaign aimed at drawing a distinction between its military and political "wings."

The drive has been particularly successful in Europe, where many countries have refused to place Hizballah in its entirety on an E.U. terror list, arguing that the organization conducts political and social welfare activities too.

The Netherlands government was a notable exception, saying in a 2004 intelligence assessment that its investigation found the group's political and terrorist functions to be controlled by a single co-ordinating council.

"The Netherlands has changed its policy and no longer makes a distinction between the political and terrorist Hizballah branches," it said.

Other attacks researchers have attributed to Hizballah include a series of bombings in Paris in 1986, which killed 13; an unsuccessful attempt to carry out attacks in Cyprus in 1988; a plot, foiled by Spanish police, to carry out attacks against Jewish targets in Europe in 1989; an unsuccessful attempt to detonate a car bomb outside a Jewish community building in Romania in 1992; the bombing of a small passenger plane carrying 18 passengers in Panama in 1994; and a planned 1996 attack, also foiled by police, on an Israeli institution in Paris.

Former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage in 2002 called Hizballah a member of the international terrorist "A-team."

Terror alliance

One of the FBI's most wanted men is Imad Fayez Mugniyah, the head of Hizballah's security apparatus since its inception.

He has been linked to the 1983 Beirut bombings, the kidnapping and torture of hostages, the death of Stethem in the TWA hijacking, the bombings of the Israeli Embassy and a Jewish community center in Argentina in the early 1990s, at the cost of 114 lives, and the 1996 bombing of the Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia, which killed 19 U.S. servicemen.

A number of reports over the years have dealt with Mugniyah's intimate links with Iran, and especially with its Revolutionary Guard, whose former senior members - including President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad - now dominate Iran's government.

Last January, American Enterprise Institute scholar Michael Ledeen reported that Mugniyah was believed to be among Hizballah figures present at a meeting in Damascus with Ahmadinejad and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

Western security specialists regarded that meeting as a reaffirmation of a longstanding Iran-Syria-Hizballah terrorist alliance.

The Israeli government said Thursday the fingerprints of Iran and Syria were all over this week's events in Lebanon and northern Israel, triggered when Hizballah crossed into Israeli territory, killed eight Israeli soldiers and abducted two others.

Iran and Syria are also backers of the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas, whose kidnapping of an Israeli soldier last month sparked the continuing crisis in Gaza.

A number of political analysts have attributed the widening conflict to Iran's concerns about the growing international pressure on its nuclear programs.

Ledeen does not believe Iran is driven by worry over a nuclear showdown, however.

"A U.N. debate serves Iran's interest," he wrote in the National Review Online Thursday.

"It deflects attention from our growing awareness of Iran's centrality in Iraq, and the urgency of going after the regimes in Tehran and Damascus. That is where Iran's doom lies, not in the endless charade about the nukes."

Ledeen argued that Iran was the "common prime mover" behind the war now running from Gaza to Israel, through Lebanon and to Iraq via Syria.

"Iran has been at war with us all along, because that's what the world's leading terror state does. The scariest thing about this moment is that the Iranians have convinced themselves that they are winning, and we are powerless to reverse the tide."

http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewForeignBureaus.asp?Page=/ForeignBureaus/archive/200607/INT20060714b.html

[Petronas]

Prophetic words from last year:

THE UNKNOWN KING OF TERROR and the Coming Lebanon Civil War
March 29, 2005

...Imad Mugniyeh and the Hezbollah, at the direction of Iran, will ignite another civil war in Lebanon, destroying that country’s chances for democracy and freedom from Syrian colonial control – and halting thereby George Bush’s Middle East Freedom March right in its tracks. ...

http://www.windsofchange.net/archives/006563.php

[The 801]

Debka: Current Mugniyeh Location Published.

This is debka, so take it for what it is worth. But it makes a lot of sense, so I won't put it down.

For those of you who follow Mugniyeh, that it is very very rare to get any sort of current location information about Mugniyeh. The best I have seen in the last 4 (5 - oh my gosh, how long have I been doing this?) years is a 2 week old location give after the recent Irainian / Syrian summit.

Technically, the yearly Iranian terror summits have been documented in advance, but no specific locations (Terhran only ) and no specific Mugniyeh mention, except in the past tense later.

DEBKAfile Exclusive reveals: Hizballah leader Hassan Nassrallah and top command are holed up in Hermel, the northern Lebanese panhandle bordering Syria

July 17, 2006, 11:02 AM (GMT+02:00)

Among them, according to DEBKAfile’s military and Iranian sources, are Hizballah’s “chief of staff” Ibrahim Akil, its head of intelligence and terror Imad Mughniyeh and commander of special operations Halil Harab.

The group fled their Beirut HQ Saturday night, July 15, and went to ground in the emergency staff bunkers prepared in advance of their July 12 attack on Israel.

After failing to prevent the top Hizballah leaders’ escape from Beirut, the Israeli air force headed north Monday morning, July 17, and is clobbering the Hermel region.

DEBKAfile adds: The Hermel drug-farming pocket bordered north and east by Syria is the haunt of smugglers who use the remote, strategically placed region to move fighters, weapons, cash and drugs across Syria into Iraq and as a staging post to other parts of the Middle East. The smuggling gangs’ overlord is Mughniyeh, a triple Hizballah-Iran-al Qaeda agent and terrorist executive, who has figured high on the US wanted terrorist list for more than two decades. On his orders, the smugglers recently relocated their main operation from the Syrian-Iraqi border to the Syrian-Lebanese border in preparation for the new warfront against Israel. In the last 48 hours, Iran has used this illicit route to beat the Israeli air, sea and land blockade and pump quantities of rockets, anti-air and anti-tank missiles and other advanced weapons systems to Hizballah for a fresh escalation.

Syria's role in this smuggling operation is critical.

DEBKAfile’s Iranian sources add that the holds of all the Iranian passenger flights landing in Damascus from Thursday, July 13, have been crammed with weapons for Hizballah.

Friday and Saturday, 25 Iranian Revolutionary Guards officers, anti-tank and anti-air missile experts, arrived in mufti in the Syrian capital. They were led by the smugglers across mountain routes into Lebanon. Mughniye, a confidant of Iran's Ali Khamenei and Osama bin Laden, is constantly at Nasrallah’s side. He is believed by Israeli intelligence to have engineered the kidnap of the two Israeli soldiers on which sparked the hostilities July 12.

http://www.debka.com/headline.php?hid=2905

In the past, it has been documented here that Mugniyah is one of the largest weapon and drug smugglers in the world.

The 801

[The 801]

Where is Hermel?

In the Bakka vally....

http://www.fallingrain.com/world/LE/1/Hermel.html

Looks nice. cool map.

[Klaus]

From: http://infowars.com/articles/ww3/haaretz_israel_hesbollah_fight_not_reach_zenith.ht m



ANALYSIS: Israel-Hezbollah fighting yet to reach its zenith

Haaretz | July 17, 2006
By Ze'ev Schiff


Excerpt:

Israel will also try to target the 12 most senior members of Hezbollah, who are hiding in bunkers deep in the Dahiya quarter in southern Beirut. These men are strategic targets and they include Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah, Ibrahim Akil, Imad Mughniye and others. These senior figures constitute the group's equivalent of a General Staff and its political-diplomatic cabinet.

[The 801]

It gets busy on this thread sometimes....
As always, cross and confusing information about Mugniyeh abound.

From
Hezbollah Spurns Secret Overture on Lebanon Truce

.....The Israeli daily Ha'aretz reported that Israeli aircraft were honing in on the underground bunkers in Lebanon occupied by Hezbollah's military leadership. Those expected to be found inside include Imad Mugniyah, a master terrorist who plotted the 1983 operations that killed 241 American Marines stationed in Beirut. Mr. Mugniyah was America's most wanted terrorist before the attacks of September 11, 2001.

In January, Israeli soldiers on the border with Lebanon told the Sun that photographs of Hezbollah positions on the Lebanese side suggested that Mr. Mugniyah made regular visits to that front.

http://www.nysun.com/article/36219?page_no=2

[iranshiapower]

dont talk shit if u know where our brother is u would hve killed the shia bin laden--so bla bla bla

[The 801]

LInks to information please.

This section allows opinion supported by facts. Supporting links would be appreciated. Otherwise, Rant and Rave is your section.

Have a nice day.

[The 801]

Confirmed: Hezbollah Terror Operatives, "Sleeper Cells" Poised in the U.S
By Douglas J. Hagmann, Director, Northeast Intelligence Network
Tuesday, July 18, 2006

Operatives of the Lebanese Islamic terrorist organization Hezbollah, the same group presently firing missiles into Israel and labeled as one of the most dangerous Islamic terrorist group in the world, are believed "to be planning to activate sleeper cells located in New York and other larger cities inside the U.S." to stage attacks Americans. "The FBI and Justice Department have launched urgent new probes in New York and other cities targeting members of the Lebanese terror group." Law-enforcement and intelligence officials stated that "about a dozen hard-core supporters of Hezbollah have been identified in recent weeks as operating in the New York City area (alone)."

The above appeared in an article published in The New York Post on May 22, 2006. Not surprisingly, that very same information was verified through several sources within law enforcement agencies and agents contacted by the Northeast Intelligence Network this weekend.

One federal law enforcement official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, stated, "We are very concerned about sleeper-cell activation due to the current ‘effervescent’ situation between Hezbollah in Lebanon and Israel." The same source confirmed that there is "active surveillance of known surveillance operatives" in New York, and added that surveillance is also being conducted by agents in other U.S. cities.

The U.S. designated Hezbollah as a foreign terrorist organization in 1997 and listed it as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist (SDGT) in 2001. Three members of Hezbollah: Imad Mughniyeh, Hasan Izz-al-Din, and Ali Atwa, are on the FBI's "Most Wanted Terrorists" list for their role in the 1985 hijacking of TWA Flight 847 during which a U.S. Navy diver was brutally murdered.

The extent of Hezbollah activity in the U.S. was first exposed in June, 2002, when two Charlotte, North Carolina, brothers, Mohamad and Chawki Hammoud, were convicted of providing material support to Hezbollah through a cigarette smuggling ring that knowingly directed money to the terrorist organization. In that case, the terror cell reported directly to a senior Hezbollah military commander in Lebanon and was part of a larger North American network responsible for raising funds and procuring dual-use technologies for Hezbollah. Items were purchased in the U.S. as well as Canada; they included goggles, global positioning systems, stun guns, naval equipment, nitrogen cutters and laser range finders.

According to the same federal source providing information to the Northeast Intelligence Network, Detroit is the main center of Hezbollah's fundraising activity in the U.S. Their international operational budget is estimated to be $200-$500 million annually, including $100 million in contributions provided directly by Iran. Other sources of funding include Syria, U.S. and other national charitable organizations, individual donations, legitimate business, and illegal trade such as illegal arms trading, cigarette smuggling, currency counterfeiting, credit card fraud, theft, operating illegal telephone exchanges, and drug and arms trafficking.
The Presence of Hezbollah in Canada

Investigation by the Northeast Intelligence Network, verified by contacts within CSIS and U.S. federal agencies, confirmed that Hezbollah — banned in December 2002 - has an active presence in Canada. According to Canadian intelligence, Hezbollah raises money, recruits terrorists, purchases military supplies, and forges travel documents in Canada. Money is raised in Canada in much the same fashion as in the Unites States - through credit card scams and counterfeit rings. In two cases, alleged Hezbollah agents wanted for terrorist activities overseas were found hiding in Canada. Hezbollah theft rings have stolen luxury cars in Canada and sent them to Lebanon for use by senior Hezbollah officials.

The North Carolina Hezbollah terror cell cited above was part of a larger Hezbollah network that included Canadian operatives. The Canadian part of the network was reportedly operated by Mohammed Hassan Dbouk and his brother-in-law Ali Adham Amhaz, who allegedly received money from Hezbollah officials in Lebanon and engaged in credit card and banking scams in Canada in order to finance the purchase in Canada and the U.S. of military items which were then smuggled into Lebanon.

Amhaz was indicted in North Carolina in March 2001 on charges of providing material support to Hezbollah. In October 2001, Canadian authorities arrested him based on an American arrest warrant calling for his extradition. Amhaz was freed in December 2001 after the U.S. dropped the arrest warrant; the U.S. indictment against him still stands, although Dbouk has since fled back to Lebanon.
May 22, 2006: The New York Post about Hezbollah Operatives in New York

The May, 2006 article outlined that "additional law-enforcement attention is being centered on the Iranian Mission to the United Nations, where there have already been three episodes in the last four years in which diplomats and security guards have been expelled for casing and photographing New York City subways and other potential targets."

This weekend, our federal source added to this earlier article, stating, "we know that Hezbollah, an extension of Iran and Syria, have insinuated operatives into sensitive areas within the U.S. "in anticipation of these events." Our source declined further comment about the reference to "sensitive areas," although stated that some known operatives who are under active surveillance "have access to high-profile target areas."

"Sources said the activities of these New York-based operatives are being monitored by FBI counterterrorism agents as part of a nationwide effort to prevent a possible terror strike if the confrontation with Iran over its nuclear program spins out of control.

The nationwide effort to neutralize Hezbollah sleepers in the United States, being spearheaded by the FBI and Justice Department's counterterrorism divisions, was triggered in January in response to alarming reports that Iran's fanatical president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, met with leaders of Hezbollah and other terror groups during a visit to Syria.

Among those attending the meetings, according to reliable reports, was Hezbollah's chief operational planner, Imad Mugniyah - considered one of the most dangerous terrorists in the world - who is responsible for the bombings of the 1983 U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut and who, more recently, provided Iraqi guerrillas with sophisticated explosive devices."

A U.S. counterterrorism official called the latest effort a "major undertaking," with separate probes also under way in Los Angeles, Boston and Detroit.

Hezbollah has so far limited its activities in the United States to fund-raising and criminal enterprises. The FBI has already taken down two major rings, one in Charlotte, N.C., and one in Detroit, in which members were smuggling cigarettes, Viagra and baby formula, and kicking profits back to Hezbollah.

Walid Phares, a highly-recognized private terror expert who has briefed law-enforcement officials on Hezbollah in recent weeks, described Hezbollah as being very "well funded, very well organized, and we assume that their penetration of the U.S. is deeper than al Qaeda's. It is only rational for the U.S. to think in pre-emptive ways. An attack here is clearly in the realm of the possible," Phares added.

Reference source: New York Post, Author: Niles Lathem, Post Correspondent; Date: May 22, 2006

RELATED: Iranian-backed Shock-troops Poised to Strike? February 24, 2005, Foundation for Defense of Democracies

Barbara Newman, a Senior Fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, is the co-author of the powerful new book Lightening Out of Lebanon: Hezbollah Terrorists on American Soil, which exposes the presence of Hezbollah terror cells in more than a dozen major U.S. cities.

Nicole, an independent investigative researcher working on behalf of the Northeast Intelligence Network, contributed to this article.

http://www.canadafreepress.com/2006/hagmann071806.htm

Let's cut the chase here folks:
Mugniyeh is gonna hit the mainstream press like a sledgehammer very soon. They have ignored him long enough. I think my job here is almost done.

[The 801]

This has some information I hadn't seen. It is an opinion piece. Posted for the fun of it.

The history looks pretty accurate though.

Conspiracy Theory
John Weisman | July 18, 2006
Early this past February I was in Paris for a few days to do some preliminary research for an upcoming project. Two of my dozen-plus meetings were with the man who formed the basis for the character of Shahram Shahristani in Direct Action, my novel (released last month in paperback by Avon) about the search for an al-Qa'ida master bombmaker. The real Shahram is an Iranian &#233;migr&#233; whose background is military intelligence. He has also, over the years, trafficked in everything from carpets to arms to information.

He was also connected to what has been come to be knows as the Iran Contra affair, and because of that involvement he is on the CIA's black list. In fact, there is a pair of burn notices attached to Shahram's file at Langley, telling all and sundry he is a fabricator, a no-goodnik with a personal agenda, and that he is to be shunned at all costs.

Anyway, we were sitting, Shahram and I, at the Brasserie Lorraine, a rather overpriced restaurant known for its seafood that sits at the edge of the eighth arrondissement on the Place des Ternes, at the confluence of the Boulevard de Courcelles and the Rue du Faubourg St. Honore. Our conversation was mostly about Iran and the upcoming confrontation with the United States over its nuclear program and about Iran's support for terrorism.

“You know,” Shahram said to me late in the conversation, “Imad Mugniyah was in Damascus last month. He went as part of the official party when President Ahmadinejad visited Bashar al-Asad.”

I put my coffee cup down. That was news. Imad Mugniyah is, after Usama bin Laden, the world's most wanted terrorist. He's been at it much longer than bin Laden, and his prime targets over the past two-and-a-half decades have been largely American.

A little bit of history. Imad Mugniyah was responsible for coordinating the April, 1983, homicide bombing attack on the American Embassy in Beirut in which 63 people died.

In October of the same year, he staged simultaneous attacks on a U.S. Marine barracks near Beirut's airport (241 U.S. Sailors and Marines died), and a French Army barracks (58 KIA).

He was responsible for the kidnapping and torture/murders of CIA Beirut station chief William Buckley, and Marine Lt. Col. Rich Higgins.

He staged the high-profile hijacking of TWA 847, during which U.S. Navy diver Robert Stethem was brutally murdered.

We don't know much about Imad Mugniyah's childhood or background. Some intelligence sources say he was born in South Lebanon. Others think he is from Ayn al-Dilbah, a village long ago absorbed into the slums that have become Beirut's Shia dominated southern suburbs. What is certain is that as a teenager, Mugniyah was recruited into Force 17, the Praetorian Guard of Yasser Arafat's Fatah organization. Force 17's leader was the charismatic “Red Prince of Terror,” Ali Hassan Salameh, the operations boss of Black September, Arafat's version of Murder, Inc. Black September perpetrated the 1972 Munich Olympics massacre that ended with the deaths of 11 Israeli athletes.

Early in 1979, the Israelis finally caught up with Salameh. He was killed on January 29, when a covert Mossad team led by a woman using the alias Mary Erika Chambers detonated a Volkswagen packed with 100 kilograms of explosives as Salameh's motorcade turned out of Beirut's Rue Verdun onto Rue Madam Curie.

After Salameh's death and especially after the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon to dislodge the PLO's state-within-a-state, many of the Shia who'd been a part of Force 17 were actively recruited by Iranian agents who had been active in Lebanon since the mid-1970s. Long before the shah's Western-leaning government fell to Ayatollah Khomeini's Islamic Revolution, many of the individuals who would become the nucleus of Khomeini's Seppah-e Pasdaran -- his Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps -- were, with Yasser Arafat's blessing, allowed to train in Lebanon's Beka'a Valley.

After Arafat was exiled to Tunis, the Iranians scooped up scores of Shia fighters, provided them with financing, planning, weapons, and, by the early 1980s, a new target: the United States. Imad Mugniyah became chief of operations. The cover names used for these terror organizations included Islamic Amal, Da'wa, Islamic Jihad, and Hezbollah. But in reality, names didn't matter. What mattered was control. And real control of Hezbollah lay not with the Musawi clan or the organization's so-called “spiritual leader,” Muhammad Hussein Fadlallah, but with the mullahs, the Seppah, and Ali Akbar Mohtashamipour, Tehran's one-time ambassador in Damascus.

After Lebanon's civil war ended in 1990, Imad Mugniyah found a safe haven in Tehran, where he assisted the mullahs implementing their long-term program of expanding support for Islamist terror on a worldwide basis.

Not that he stopped traveling. In the mid-1990s he visited Usama bin Laden in Khartoum to discuss mutual interests. According to RUMINT, he and Bin Laden actually worked together on the Khobar Towers bombing in Saudi Arabia in which 19 Americans were killed. In July 1996, Western intelligence learned Mugniyah was a passenger aboard the Kuwaiti-flagged freighter Ibn Tafil. A joint U.S. Marine/SEAL snatch operation was put together. But at the last minute, the Clinton White House scrubbed the Navy's plan to board the ship and capture or kill him. Since then, there have been other rumored sightings: Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Gaza. It's alleged he's had multiple plastic surgeries to change his appearance. Intelligence agencies have only a few photographs of Imad Mugniyah, and most of those are more than 20 years old.

Anyway, immediately after my meeting with Shahram I called an old contact in Tel Aviv and asked if he'd heard about Imad Mugniyah's trip to Damascus. He answered in the affirmative, and said it had come from a good source within Israel's intelligence community.

And the reason? Maybe, he speculated, Mugniyah's visit was cover for a high-level conference of terrorists.

I met again with Shahram. We sat at a corner table at Fouquet's on the Champs Elysees. He munched on a millefeuille; I took notes. I asked if he knew with whom Imad Mugniyah had met during his visit to Damascus.

Shahram deflected the question. “The Iranians met with Hamas,” he said. “They told Hamas, ‘It is time to move now. You have free rein to act.'”

“With Meshal?” Khalid Meshal has been, since 2004, the leader of Hamas. He lives in Damascus under the protection of president Asad.

Shahram waved his hand dismissively. “Something big is coming.” He looked at me, his expression grave. “I promise you, the Iranians before the eighth of March will deliver two loads of equipment -- special weapons, missiles, explosives--to Hezbollah. There will be a crisis. Big crisis.”

I forgot about that conversation for a couple of months. I shouldn't have, because Shahram was onto something significant. Not that he could have gone to CIA with it, of course. But that's the subject for another column.

Now, I'm not big into conspiracies. Still, let's look at what Shahram told me and then lay a few things out in chronological sequence.

• In February, Imad Mugniyah and Iranian representatives meet with the Hamas leadership in Damascus and tell them they have “free rein to act.”

• In March, according to Shahram, a huge shipment of armaments is scheduled for covert delivery to Hezbollah in Lebanon. Most likely the delivery is sent through Syria.

• Over the spring the urgency over Iran's nuclear weapons development program escalates.

• As the US-Iranian rhetoric gets more heated, Iranian president Ahmadinejad issues threats to wipe Israel off the map. At the same time, Hamas, which receives Iranian backing and money, starts lobbing more and more Qasems from Gaza.

• All the while, Hamas terrorists are digging a tunnel from Gaza toward a military post on the Israeli side of the border. This is not something you do overnight -- or in plain sight. The Israelis have UAVs, and they look for signs of tunneling.

• While Hamas is digging, those thousands upon thousands of rockets and short-range missiles supplied by Iran and shipped through Syria are being clandestinely pre-positioned throughout Southern Lebanon by Hezbollah. Seppah personnel are available to train the terrorists in using these new, sophisticated weapons.

• At about the same time the talks over Iran's nuclear weapons program are coming to a head and referral of the matter to the UN's Security Council is immanent, Hamas terrorists break through the Gaza tunnel, attack the Israeli outpost, and abduct a soldier.

• Literally within hours, Hezbollah mounts its own complicated, sophisticated cross border strike resulting in the deaths of several Israeli soldiers and the abduction of two others. Hezbollah leadership claims it acted in solidarity with the Gaza Palestinians.

• Tehran says that any Israeli attempt to attack Syria will evoke an unprecedented response. Undeterred, Israel mounts a vigorous ‘shock and awe' air, sea, and artillery campaign against Hezbollah, blockades the Lebanese coast, and begins a systematic destruction of Lebanese infrastructure.

• The resulting debacle, on the cusp of the G-8 conference in St. Petersburg Russia wipes just about all mention of Iran's nuclear program out of the news, and the consciousness of most politicians.

Now I know what you're going to say. You're going to argue that it's unlikely Tehran's mullahs mounted the sort of complex, coordinated, long-range covert action program I've described simply to divert attention from their nuclear program and delay Security Council censure.

And you'd be right. It goes far deeper than that. The Iranian regime is both patient and cunning, and it understands all too well about waging asymmetrical warfare. These are the same people who painstakingly took the contents of the CIA's Tehran Station shredders back in 1979 and reconstructed hundreds of pages of top secret documents that had been destroyed prior to the US Embassy takeover. These are the same mullahs who sent suicide bombers to destroy our embassy in Beirut and kill our Marines and Sailors and dispatched Imad Mugniyah's thugs to kidnap Bill Buckley and Rich Higgins.

So far as I'm concerned, Shahram was right. Something big was coming. And its genesis was Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Imad Mugniyah's January 2006 visit to Damascus. Iran I believe was attempting to set in play an audacious series of covert actions to bring about a tectonic shift in the Middle East geopolitical landscape. Its objectives: to ensure an unstable, Shia-controlled Lebanon; to divert the Israeli government from its unilateral disengagement with the Palestinians, and to use the Lebanon crisis as a distraction in order to consolidate its position vis a vis Iraq's Shia majority, who are ambivalent about Iran's long-term goals, and to give it more time to hide its nuclear weapons development program.

The one element Tehran seems not to have factored into its OPLAN was Israel's immediate, devastating, and overwhelming response to Hezbollah and Hamas. For the moment, anyway, the mullahs seem to have been rocked back on their heels. Indeed, Tehran is currently hinting that a negotiated settlement might be both possible and achievable.

The Administration should take note. For more than a quarter century, Tehran's Islamofascists have waged war against America. America has never answered them back in kind. Israel's response tells me that where Tehran is concerned, actions speak much louder than words.

http://www.military.com/opinion/0,15202,105948_1,00.html

Now, I have never heard this term Red Prince of Terror before. It does not google, it is in no notes I have. It makes me kinda hinky about this entry. Tsk.

[Petronas]

Interesting article. Several major elements of it are undoubtedly correct:
Hezbollah's attack was carefully timed by Teheran, which supplies and controls Hezbollah, to provide maximum distraction from the Iranian nuclear weapons issue, and Imad Mugniyeh plays a central role in the whole affair.

Ali Hassan Salameh was known as the "Red Prince". The "of Terror" must have been added by the author, given Salameh's obvious terrorist connections. See e.g.:

"...He had a very popular appeal for Palestinian young men; his nickname underlined his popularity — the "Red Prince"..."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ali_Hassan_Salameh

"The Red Prince - A.K.A - Ali Hassan Salameh"
http://www.everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=1485238

[The 801]

Here's some information about Mugniyeh's Intelligence setup within Hezbollah, an interesting read.

Mention's the people involved in the attempted assassination attempt on Mugniyeh that killed his brother. Never seen this information before.

As usual, a twisted tail of intelligence agencies behavior. Interesting Info on Isreali Hezbollah spys.

The prying game
By Yossi Melman

The cell phone found on the body of one of two Hezbollah terrorists killed near Kibbutz Matzuva in March 2002 was yet one more element of the intelligence campaign that the Lebanese organization and Israel are waging against each other. Although it is being fought behind the scenes, this campaign is one of the key components in the successes and failures of the battle now being fought in the north.

In that incident, an Israel Defense Forces (IDF) officer and five civilians were killed along with the terrorists. The cell phone made it possible for Israel's security agencies - the Shin Bet security service, the Mossad espionage agency, and IDF Military Intelligence and its departments (information security; Unit 8200, responsible for communication interception and deciphering; and Unit 504, which runs Arab agents) - to uncover a network of agents operated by Hezbollah among residents of the Bedouin village of Kfar Zarzir in the Jezreel Valley. The phone had been purchased for Hezbollah by villager Amar Rahal, who was recently sentenced to eight years in prison for espionage. Another network in the village was headed by a tracker, Lieutenant Colonel Omar el-Heib, who was sentenced a month ago by a military court to 15 years in prison for aggravated espionage. El-Heib's lawyers, Amnon Zichroni and Barry Rosenthal, said they would appeal the verdict. The courier that worked with both networks was Jamal Rahal, from Beit Zarzir, who served briefly as an IDF tracker and was recently sentenced to 18 years in prison for espionage.

These trials opened a window on Hezbollah's intelligence activity. To identify, recruit and run agents from Beit Zarzir and those in other networks in Israel, the Shi'ite movement is assisted by Lebanese accomplices, including the drug-trafficking brothers Kamil ("Abu Said") and Ramzi Nahara. In 2002 Hezbollah, via Abu Said, supplied El-Heib and his aides with dozens of kilograms of hashish and heroin, to be sold on the open market. In return, he was given intelligence-related assignments such as gathering information on the movements and security arrangements of the then GOC Northern Command, Gabi Ashkenazi, on the movement of tanks in the north, on IDF actions in the border area and on air force activities. Hezbollah asked Rahal to obtain military maps. He tried to break into his base in Biranit, on the northern border, but failed.

Drawing on drug dealers for assistance is not a Hezbollah invention. Before Ramzi Nahara, a resident of southern Lebanon, started to work with the movement, he was an agent of the Israel Police, the Shin Bet and Unit 504. The Biros are another southern Lebanon family that engages in drug trafficking and is also the servant of two masters. The father of the family, Mohammed, and his son, Kaid, supplied information to Israeli intelligence, and in return the Israeli authorities turned a blind eye to their drug dealings. In the 1980s Mohammed Biro hosted then defense minister Moshe Arens and IDF officers in his village. He was later arrested by Israel for involvement in a huge and not previously coordinated drug deal, and sentenced to a lengthy prison term. He died in jail and his body was returned to Lebanon in January 2004, as part of the prisoner exchange with Hezbollah.

Since the IDF withdrawal from Lebanon in May 2000, the Shin Bet has identified an increase in recruitment efforts by Hezbollah (and by Iran, through Hezbollah) among Arab citizens of Israel. About 20 networks of such agents have been uncovered since then. In December 2003, the then head of the Shin Bet, Avi Dichter, stated that "Hezbollah and Iran view Israel's Arabs as a fifth column."

At the same time, Iran and Hezbollah have not confined their recruitment efforts solely to Israeli Arabs. Ahmed al-Ashwah, a Danish tourist of Lebanese extraction, was arrested about 18 months ago and sentenced to three years in prison after being convicted of being recruited by Hezbollah to collect information about targets in Israel. In addition, in at least one case, in 2001, Hezbollah tried to obtain from Israeli policemen maps and information about movements of the security forces on the northern border. The two policemen were then-chief inspector Shimon Malka and sergeant major Eitan Rodko. They were ready to help and so were arrested. Hezbollah has also tried to recruit, in Israel and abroad, journalists (Arabs and Jews) and Israeli businessmen, sometimes without their knowledge.

The handler of the two policemen was Ramzi Nahara, who like Biro had previously been imprisoned in Israel. Nahara was killed when an explosive device was detonated in southern Lebanon in December 2002. In Lebanon his death was attributed to Israeli intelligence, whose motive was revenge for his betrayal. In 1994 he helped Hezbollah apprehend the Mossad agents Ahmed Halek and his wife, as well as other agents, who had taken part in an assassination attempt against Imad Mughniyah, a senior Hezbollah figure. Since 2002 there have been several more assassinations and attempted assassinations of movement activists, which have been attributed to Israeli intelligence units.

Mughniyah is now deputy secretary general of Hezbollah and thus the organization's No. 2 man, and he is responsible for the military campaign against Israel - a kind of chief of staff. A Shi'ite, Mughniyah nevertheless served with Fatah in the late 1970s and afterward joined Hezbollah. He is wanted by Israel and by the U.S. for his part in the bombings of the Israeli embassy and of Armia, the Jewish community center in Buenos Aires in 1992 and 1994. Mughniyah, his deputy Talal Hamiya and, of course, Nasrallah top the wanted list of people whom Israel seeks to eliminate.

Hezbollah, which views itself as an alternative to the Lebanese government, operates apparatuses parallel to those of a state, including the military one that Mughniyah heads, aided by and coordinated with Iran. Iran maintains its ties with Hezbollah through two bodies. One is the Ministry of Intelligence, which focuses on collecting information from outside Iran and has a large mission in Beirut. The other, and more important body, is the Revolutionary Guards, whose advisors train Hezbollah in firing rockets and assist Mughniyah's intelligence efforts and terrorist operations.

Hezbollah's military deployment includes a brigade that fires surface-to-surface rockets of tactical (short) range, and a brigade that specializes in strategic (long-range) missiles. In addition, it has three units that deal in intelligence and security:

Unit 1800: Responsible for recruiting, funding and operating Palestinian terrorist squads. According to the Shin Bet, 130 such squads are currently operating in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank - an increase of 300 percent as compared with six month ago. Unit 1800, which provides financial aid, instructions, explosives and weapons to its networks in the occupied West Bank and Gaza, is headed by Hajj Khalil Harb. One of the unit's operators is Kais Obeid, an Israeli Arab from Taibeh, who was involved in the kidnapping of Col. Elhanan Tennenbaum and defected to Hezbollah. Despite his important role in the kidnapping, Hezbollah doesn't give Obeid any preferable treatment, possibly because he is a Sunni or because as an Israeli, he will always be suspect.

Preventive Intelligence: This apparatus runs interrogation facilities, prisons and security-guard units. Its role: to prevent the leakage of information from the organization and the penetration of foreign agents into its ranks, and to uncover them. This apparatus had several successes recently, including the discovery of agents who worked for Israel and were involved in attempts to assassinate senior figures in Hezbollah. Preventive Intelligence is also responsible for communications security. Its personnel know that IDF Military Intelligence Unit 8200 listens in on its networks, and therefore makes certain Hezbollah fighters refrain from talking about operational matters in phone conversations.

Additional intelligence:Another unit, which has become increasingly more central in recent years, collects information by means of espionage. Some of its efforts are carried out by means of eavesdropping ("via sigint", or signals intelligence) directed at IDF communications networks in the border area. However, because of a dearth of resources, these efforts are limited. The main information-collection effort is organized through agents, who are assigned to obtain maps, cellular phones, gather information and photograph facilities in Israel. On the basis of the information that has been collected, and under the guidance of Iranian advisers, detailed field files have been drawn up for those who launch Katyusha rockets and missiles. The files consist of maps and accurate information about the location of the facilities and the range and the angles to target them. In some cases it has emerged that the agents were instructed to purchase GPS instruments to ensure precision targeting. Some of the facilities about which the agents collected information are now targets for Hezbollah bombing.

In the final analysis, this is a sophisticated intelligence game of activating agents, attempts to uncover them and then to double them and feed them false information. Success or failure in this game is measured in terms of life and death, depending on the accuracy of the ranging of missiles and rockets fired into Israel.

The agents have been directed to collect information about Israel's military bases and airfields, strategic targets such as the nuclear reactor in Dimona, power stations, oil refineries and defense plants. Security sources in Israel believe that part of the effort that was focused in the center and south of the country was undertaken by Iranian intelligence for its own particular purposes. The sources say Hezbollah, and more especially Iran, want to understand the mood and atmosphere in Israel in order to get an idea of the home front's staying power. It seems they miscalculated and failed.


http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/741443.html

[The 801]

Failure to Kill Mugniyeh admitted. His brothers death discussed. Interesting information on Isreali intelligence.

Opening a window on intelligence
By Yossi Melman

There was a personal reason for the excitement that grabbed the chief of Military Intelligence, General Amos Yadlin, last Wednesday, too. He was attending a family celebration in the center the country. But far away, in souther Beirut, another event was going on, in which Yadlin had a particular reason to take an interest. At exactly the same time, Israeli Air Force fighter jets were dropping 23 tons of explosives on the Hezbollah's so-called alternative bunker. Hidden under an innocent-looking mosque, the bunker had been built by Iranian engineers who specialized in the construction of protected subterranean building for their country's nuclear facilities.

Five days have passed since the bombing and its results are not yet known. Hezbollah, as part of the psychological warfare it is waging against Israel, has not made its losses public. Members of the movement's field security unit are carefully guarding the area around the damaged bunker, along with other important sites belonging to the organization, and preventing strangers from approaching.

Israel, which decided very late in the game to respond with psychological warfare, has also refrained from releasing any information on the incident - although the chief of staff did hint at a press conference on Friday night that Israel knows the identities of some of those killed in the bombing, but prefers that Hezbollah will publicize their names. In this way, Israel is letting Hezbollah grope in the dark with respect to what Israel actually knows and its intelligence capabilities.

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Defense Minister Amir Peretz authorized the attack, based on intelligence assessments that Hezbollah leaders including Hassan Nasrallah and his deputy Imad Mughniyah - a well-known terrorist wanted by the Mossad, the CIA and in fact just about every Western intelligence agency, who is considered to be Hezbollah's "chief of staff" were supposed to be in the bunker. The aim of the attack was also to hit Mughniyah's deputy, Talal Hamia, and other commanders.

Nasrallah was not harmed in the attack because he wasn't in the bunker at the time, but it is possible that other members of the organization's leadership were wounded.

Connecting to the target

The bombing and lack of clarity surrounding the results of this incident open a window, albeit a very narrow one, on a hidden element of the war: the part played in it by Israel's intelligence. And it is not an inconsiderable element. This intelligence is what makes it possible to connect the bomber jet with its target.

The Mossad can take credit for a number of operational units involved in locating, recruiting and running agents. In Israel Defense Forces' Military Intelligence, the credit goes to the terrorism experts in its Research Division, to Unit 504 - which is involved in running agents and also in offensive intelligence operations in southern Lebanon - and, to a certain extent, to SIGINT (signals intelligence) Unit 8200.

What are Israel's intelligence achievements? Some information about this was intimated by the previous chief of staff, Moshe Ya'alon, who is currently in the United States. At a lecture he gave in Washington, he said: "Hezbollah has built special rooms inside ordinary residential buildings used to launch rockets, but they didn't know that we know that, and were surprised."

For years, and while carefully maintaining strict compartmentalization, Hezbollah built up a dense system of "secret houses," in which rockets and missiles aimed at numerous Israeli targets were hidden. About a year ago, Nasrallah boasted that he would "set northern Palestine ablaze." Israel's north is indeed being hit very hard by Katyusha rockets and missiles, so far more than 2,000 have been fired, but it is not burning. As of yesterday, only 5 percent of the rockets and missiles fired hit precise targets, causing the deaths of around 20 people and damage to dozens of buildings.

The hidden missiles, especially the long-range Zelzal ones, were the Hezbollah's strategic weapons. This capability has been severely undermined. The IAF - equipped with precise information that has been gathered, examined and meticulously prepared by intelligence experts - knows exactly where many of these concealed storerooms are and has destroyed them. Contributing to this is AIF intelligence, which knows very well how to translate the material gathered by the Mossad and Unit 504, and processed by terrorism experts in the MI Research Division, in order to turn the resulting data into targets for attack.

According to various estimates, about 40 percent of the missiles and rockets belonging to the Hezbollah have already been hit. The firepower remaining in its hands should not be taken lightly: It can still launch rockets and missiles and in large numbers. Nor is there any doubt that Nasrallah will try to make wise use of his residual capability; he may be saving up part of it for a dramatic finale. However, the accomplishments of Israeli intelligence in undermining his missile and rocket capability are indeed noteworthy. They are mainly thanks to the work of HUMINT - human intelligence - based on locating, recruiting and running agents. This is also the specialty of the Mossad and of Unit 504, whose most important contribution has been on the tactical level near the border.

Unit 8200 has also contributed its part to attaining an intelligence picture of Hezbollah, but its members, who were aware that they were being listened to, carefully maintained communications security by means of their field security and espionage services. These members, especially the military command, spoke on the telephone as little as possible. They preferred to send their orders and instructions by means of couriers and held their meetings in rooms impenetrable to listening devices that were especially built in Hezbollah's "security square" in Dahiya. This command post also featured communications centers, as well as Hezbollah's command and control.

Disruption of function

The destruction of that compound contributed a great deal to the disruption of the organization's ability to function, but Hezbollah prepared for this eventuality as well. The field commanders received instructions to act according to their own discretion in the absence of clear command orders or an attack on their communications and computer systems.

Intelligence coverage made it possible for the Mossad to preclude the implementation of Hezbollah's future plans; the agency even prevented the movement's international apparatus from repeating the success of the bombing of the Israeli embassy in Argentina in 1992, and two years later, of the Jewish community center in Buenos Aires.

Guided by Iranian intelligence, Hezbollah set up over a number of years a system of sleeper cells in Europe, South America and Southeast Asia, with the intention of - waking them up - when the time came. This just may be that time, and preparations should be made for the possibility that the organization