A Visit from Mugniyeh II

From a few months ago (seven and a half, to be precise):

Almost 2 years ago, I had written the first sentence of a blog with the above title. While I always thought of completing it, I never actually did so. Imad Mugniyeh, about whom this blog was to be, has recently been assassinated. However, I will still write the blog the way I had planned to do: A write-up about the deadliest man alive (in front of whom Osama Bin Laden appears to be just a novice).

Edited on 16th Oct., 2008:

Prologue:
A colleague of mine recently wrote to me, asking to let her know if I would ever start writing my blog again! Since she was the sole reader of my blog, I think, I should respect her wish!

Hence, I am going to blabber some more.

___________________________________________________________________

In 2005 (or was it 2006?), I started reading a book entitled "Is New York Burning". I read it, because I have great respect for its authors, whose book "O Jerusalem" let me, for the first time, understand the basics of the Middle-East Israeli-Palestine problem. I love their analytical balanced way of writing; it is the perfect way that a chronicler should write.

(Now, to be fair to the readers, "IS New York Burning" is apparently a recycled version of their older book, "The Fifth Horseman" (that has Colonel Muammar Gaddaffi is the central character). I have not read it, so cannot comment on it.)

In the very first chapter of "Is New York Burning?", a meeting takes place between Saddam Hussein and Imad Mugniyeh, a character which is matter of much fascination and worry to a large part of the World. In it, Mugniyeh comes with a proposal for procuring nuclear weapons and seeks Saddma's coopearation for it, which the dictator declines for various reasons.

The book presents it as fiction, though the autors mention that they put a lof of research work into the background. Of course, the book mentions that, due to the nature of the information their research obtained, they could not reveal sources or document references in support of their statements in the book. However, going by the meticulous way in which they gave references in "O Jerusalem" I knew that it must be true, or at least, something very near the truth.

It may be interesting to know that Mugniyeh had met with Bin Laden in Sudan way back in the mid 1990's (a time after which Al-Qaeda became more poweful and tactical in its terror acts), and the book mentions that Mugniyeh talks about bringing Bin Laden and Saddam Hussein togehter, during that meeting.

I first came across the name of Imad Mugniyeh in 2001, when in the aftermath of 9/11, I was reading about terrorists and terror acts around the globe.. (The Jackel had probably been sentenced just a year or so ago. Abu Nidal was still alive; Gaddafi was still standoffish). I was still not a Wikipedia-Junkie, but I remember reading about Mugniyeh in Wikipedia, after I accidentally stumbled upon it. According to it, a CIA officer,who interrogated Mugniyeh long ago, concluded that he was a pasychopath incapable of remorse; the officer also later concluded that compared to Mugniyeh, Bin Laden was just a kid!

Imad Mugniyeh, a ruthless man and perfect mastermind, was the Chief of Special Operations, as well as, a founder of Hezbollah. If someone perfected the art of large-scale death and destruction through terror acts, it was he. It was he, who perfected the art of suicide bombing, later utilized abundantly by the LTTE.

Imad Mugniyeh was a shadowy man! Like Mullah Mohammed Omar's, the CEO of Taliban, very few photographs existed of Mugniyeh; nobody was sure where he lived. So much so that the US called off a Commando operation abroad a ship at the last moment, because they were not sure that Mugniyeh was there! To quote Time magazine:

Imad Mughniyeh was a man of the Middle East's shadows. He was a terrorist mastermind behind political causes. For him, though, it was as much about the fight as the cause. He shunned the light. He never gave public speeches or lectures. He is not known to have given any press interviews, not even to sympathetic or politically aligned journalists. Western reporters like me who sought the Lebanese Shi'ite group Hizballah's help to arrange a rendezvous were politely but sternly advised not to go there.

A ruthless man, Mugniyed died in a car bombing in the heart of the Defense area in Damascus, in February, 2008. Like his life, his death too remained shrouded in mystery. There is no final and conclusive answer as to who killed him: Iossible candidates include Mossad of Israel, Iran (his surrogate country), Syrians or the Hezbollah itself.

(Interestingly, the same Hezbollah, who had gone so far as to claim that Mugniyeh was a figment of imagination of the West and/or Israel, gave him a full military funeral claiming him to be a Hezbollah hero.)

And thus, end came to a violent man, who had, in an Israeli officer's words, few vices that could compromise his position:

“We accumulated intelligence on him, but the closer we got, the less information we gleaned – no weak points, no women, money, drugs – nothing.”
____________________________________________________________________
References:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imad_Mughniyah
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1203847481137&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
http://www.arabamericannews.com/news/index.php?mod=article&cat=Lebanon&article=662
http://www.amazon.com/New-York-Burning-Larry-Collins/dp/1597775207/ref=pd_bbs_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1224270279&sr=8-1
http://www.heritage.org/Research/MiddleEast/wm1815.cfm
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=1&categ_id=2&article_id=96550
http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/world/archives/2008/02/20/2003402081
http://time-blog.com/middle_east/2008/02/who_killed_imad_mughniyeh.html
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article3382343.ece
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1203847479660&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1203343709715&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1203019395821&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1203847481137&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9E0DEFDB1138F934A25752C0A9649C8B63&