Another One Bites the Dust
News reports indicate that one of the world's most evil men, Imad Moughniyah, is dead. Moughniyah apparently was killed in Damascus Tuesday night; it is not yet clear who deserves credit for the act.
Moughniyah was Hezbollah's top terrorist. He had a hand in attacks ranging from the bombing of the Marine barracks in Lebanon in 1983 to the 1994 bombing of a Jewish center in Buenos Aires. In addition, Tom Joscelyn points out, Moughniyah "played an instrumental role in al Qaeda’s rise."
The story of Hezbollah's relationship with al Qaeda is one that has not often been told. Yet Joscelyn notes that Moughniyah met with Osama bin Laden, trained al Qaeda members in techniques of mass murder, assisted al Qaeda in its 1998 bombings of American embassies in Africa, helped al Qaeda members travel internationally without being apprehended, and even, with others at Hezbollah, "facilitated the travel of many of the 9/11 hijackers."
Hezbollah is an Iranian/Syrian creation, and Moughniyah has sometimes been referred to as Iran's top terrorist. His death is a useful occasion to remember that the sharp distinctions that many observers draw between between al Qaeda and other terrorist groups, based in part on different sectarian origins, are largely illusory. Terrorists and their state sponsors have been willing to cooperate in just about any configuration if it will help them to attack America and its allies more effectively.
UPDATE: Wretchard has more:
Imad Muganiyeh, known to Americans as the man who killed Navy diver Robert Stethem; the man who tortured and killed CIA station chief William Francis Buckley, and possible mastermind of the 1983 Marine Barracks bombing in Beirut died in car bomb explosion in a posh suburb of Damascus.
Much more, follow the link.
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