The Importance of Imad Mughniyeh
By Douglas Farah
The assassination of top Shite militant Imad Mughniyeh is important for many reasons, not the least of which was his long-standing ties to Osama bin Laden and the al Qaeda network and his crucial role as a link between the Iranian special forces and Hezbollah.
It is also interesting to note that Hezbollah, where Mughniyeh was a top strategist for many years, claimed him as their own immediately upon his death, despite denying responsibility in several of the actions for which he is most famous.
As Rohan Gunaratna wrote in his seminal book Inside al Qaeda, it was Mughniyeh's pioneering use of suicide truck bombs used in Lebanon in 1983 to bomb the Marine barracks and inflict mass casualties, was the model Osama bin Laden most wanted to emulate.
"It was Mughniyeh who inspired Osama to develop coordinated, simultaneous attacks as a regular modus operandi, and this has been the hallmark of most subsequent al Qaeda operations, including 9/11 and the East Africa bombings...," Gunaratna wrote. "Mughniyeh, who was especially close to the Iranians, helped al Qaeda develop its agent-handling system, having specialized in conducting long range operations." My full blog is here.
TrackBack
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://counterterrorismblog.org/mt/pings.cgi/4883
