Reflections on a dead terrorist

Dead in Damascus -Editorial

Before Osama bin Laden took the spotlight, Mughniyeh was probably the world's most wanted and elusive terrorist, a man with an FBI price tag of $5 million on his head. He masterminded some of Hizbullah's deadliest attacks...

Mughniyeh died in a car bombing, probably orchestrated by the Mossad, though Israel denies it. It'd be nice to think the CIA was up to this, but we have our doubts.
(Wall Street Journal)


Not Everyone Is Replaceable -Amir Oren

Mughniyeh's assassination will challenge the myth that "everyone can be replaced." This myth aims to keep Israel and other countries from targeting senior figures in terrorist organizations, under the theory that there is no point in taking such action if it further enrages the masses and stokes their determination to rally to the cause.

Mughniyeh belonged to the blacklist of arch-terrorists whose organizations will find it very difficult to replace them.
(Ha'aretz)


Saudis Let Mughniyeh Go in 1996 -Brian Ross

Former White House counterterrorism chief Richard Clarke says that in 1996 the CIA learned that Hizbullah terrorist Imad Mughniyeh had boarded a commercial flight in Khartoum that was scheduled to stop in Riyadh.

"We appealed to the Saudis to grab him when the plane landed, and they refused," Clarke said in an interview broadcast Wednesday."We raised the level of appeals all the way through Bill Clinton who was on the phone at three in the morning appealing to the highest level in Saudi Arabia to grab him," Clarke said.

"Instead, the Saudis refused to let the plane land and it continued on to Damascus."
(ABC News)