Syria Killed Imad Mughniyah!!
By: Elias Bejjani

February 16/08

"The world is a better place without this man in it. He was a cold-blooded killer, a mass murderer and a terrorist responsible for countless innocent lives lost," said State Department spokesman Sean McCormack. "One way or another, he was brought to justice.")

(News Agencies: Wednesday, February 13, 2008: "Imad Mughniyah, a senior but shadowy Hezbollah commander accused by the United States and Israel of masterminding suicide bombings, hijackings and hostage-takings that spanned 25 years, was killed by a car bomb in the Syrian capital of Damascus, the Shiite Muslim group and other officials said Wednesday. Hezbollah accused Israel of carrying out the attack on Mughniyah, a charge that Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's office denied. A USA State Department spokesman welcomed the news of Mughniyah's death, but said he did not know who was responsible for it.

 
Who is Imad Mughniyah and what kind of murders did he commit. Below are some of these notorious crimes:

*April 1983: suicide bomber rams van packed with explosives into the U.S. Embassy in Beirut, killing 63 people, including 17 Americans.

*October 1983: suicide attackers carry out near simultaneous truck bombings against barracks of French and U.S. peacekeeping forces in Beirut, killing 241 American Marines and 58 French paratroopers.

*March 1984: Lt. Col. William F. Buckley, CIA station chief in Beirut, kidnapped and eventually killed in the beginning of a spate of kidnappings linked to Hezbollah.

*March 1985: Associated Press chief Mideast correspondent Terry Anderson kidnapped and then held for more than six years.

*June 1985: Lebanese Shiite militants hijack TWA Flight 847 heading from Athens to Rome, flying it back and forth between Beirut and Algiers. At Beirut's airport, the hijackers shoot U.S. Navy diver Robert Stetham, a passenger on the plane, and dump his body on the runway. Most of the 150 passengers were freed during the three day hijacking; some were held for two weeks. The United States indicted Mughniyah for his role in the hijacking, and he was put on FBI's most wanted list with a $5 million bounty for information leading to his capture.

*March 1992: A pickup truck packed with explosives smashes into the Israeli Embassy in Buenos Aires, Argentina, killing 29 people.

*July 1994: A van packed with explosives levels a seven-story Jewish center in Buenos Aires, killing 85 people. Argentina issues an arrest warrant for Mughniyah in 1999.
 
When I learned about the assassination of Imad Mughniyah, the most prominent Hezbollah (Party of God) Military notorious terrorist, the name of one world-wide criminal perpetrator, and only one, hit my mind, and spontaneously and unconsciously, I said to myself, Syria is behind this well executed deadly car explosion. I am sure many Lebanese citizen who are unbiased, well informed and has been following thoroughly the unfolding events in their oppressed Lebanon since 1975, share with me this hunch and gut feeling.
 
Why is Syria behind this assassination? simply because its intelligence bureau's criminal tactics, patterns, and styles have become over the years a trade mark, and  always carried its patent when ever, and where ever, a crime of this category occurred either in Lebanon or Syria.  For the past thirty years the Syrian Baathist dictatorship has been exercising this style of ruthless execution and elimination against many individuals all over the Middle East, and specially in Lebanon, with very high professionalism, advanced technology and precision in hitting its designated preys and targets.
 
These Syrian tactics have been used with numerous well reputed fundamentalists and terrorists, political leaders and national symbols, especially in Lebanon. Meanwhile, Syria has been breeding in its incubators new brands terrorists, and harboring tens and tens of terrorists and fundamentalists, as well as Mafioso and criminal organizations of the same cut.

The Syrian intelligence bureau's personnel were trained in the communist USSR Russia by the KGB. Accordingly they adopted all of the bloody Stalinist, repressive and totalitarian mentality, styles, spirit, and criminality patterns.
 
The Syrian regime is well known in breeding and granting asylum to regional and world wide terrorists and fundamentalists. It uses and abuses them in its dirty and bloody atrocities of  murder, assassination, bombing, defamation and sedition, and always under false and fraudulent religious and nationalism tags. It exploits them in execution of these criminal missions in Syria itself, in neighboring Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq, Turkey, Israel, as well as in numerous Arab states, Europe, USA and other countries all over the world and as needed. Syria's criminal record in this domain is well known to the whole world. 

After they have been used and exposed, these terrorists and fundamentalists become a heavy burden on the Syrian dictator and on its intelligence bodies, so Syrian security leadership tends to either eliminate them so all secrets are buried with their coffins, or exhibits them for trade and sale in the world-wide secret intelligence bodies, mutual services and barter. This  manner of Syrian unethical, slavery and unlawful intelligence trade has been going on actively for the last thirty years with many countries including the USA, Canada, Europe, numerous Arab countries and many others.
 
Syria hosted, financed and supported the Kurdish Abdullah Ojlan, leader of the Kurdistani Workers' Party, and even erected a military camp for his men in the Lebanese Bekaa valley (Syria at that time was occupying Lebanon), Then it traded him with Turkey and was handed over in a very mean and tricky manner to the Turkish intelligence.
 
The same pattern was followed with the well known terrorist, Ilich Ramirez Sanchez, commonly known as "Carlos the Jackal,", who after using him was handed over to France through Sudan and again in a conspiracy style.
 
Some Japanese Red Army members (The terrorists who committed the deadliest attack on May 30, 1972 at Israel's international airport at Lod when three Japanese Red Army members carried out a machine gun and grenade attack in the arrivals terminal that killed 25 people--most of them Christian pilgrims--and injured another 1980.) were given by Syria secretive asylum in Lebanon for a while and then Syria handed over to Japan, and the list goes on and on.
 
 In Lebanon the Syrian record in this kind of  venomous conduct is full of leaders, politicians and intelligence names, among which is its Christian ally, Elie Hbaika, who was assassinated in car explosion that was typical to Imad Mughniyah's killing style.

Since it was forced to withdraw its occupational army from Lebanon in 2005, the Syrian regime has assassinated many Lebanese politicians, MP's, Army and security high rank officers and intellectuals in the same Mughniyah's pattern. With cold blood Syria, blatantly has committed almost all the organized crimes of assassination that targeted Lebanese opposition figures since 1965  (who opposed the Syrian tutelage over Lebanon from all walks of live and religious denominations).
 
The Irony lies in the fact that Mughniyah was assassinated in the Syrian capital, Damascus, in a highly rated Syrian Security suburb that hosts intelligence headquarters, an iranian school and other governmental official offices. A reality that leaves many unanswered suspicious questions all revolving around the Syrian asseted role in the assassination scheme. One wonder, who can execute such a sophisticated military mission in such a suburb except the Syrian regime itself? The majority of unbiased observers strongly emphasize that the Syrian intelligence is behind the assassination.
 
Why Syria killed Mughniyah in Damascus and not in Lebanon? Is it because President Assad did not want to take any risks and wanted him dead no matter what due to the fact that he knew too much that made him a real threat to the Syrian regime, or did Syria eliminate him in accordance to secret deal with one of the many countries that have been chasing the man for years to put him on trial for terrorism acts? Some suggest that Syria killed him to help solidify the power of a pro Syrian Hezbollah leadership wing against an Iranian on!!
 
Some have even suggested that Syria through this assassination intended to tell the Hezbollah leadership that they are reachable targets in case they refrain from continuing to be fully subservient and submissive to the Syrian decision making Intelligence process.!!
 
Those who know the Syrian regime and are well knowledgeable with its criminal record as well as with its fascist tactics cannot exclude any of the above scenarios and assert that No one can move that freely in Damascus to commit such a magnitude military mission except the Syrian secret intelligence itself.
 
We strongly believe strongly that the whole free world has an ethical, strategic, peace and safety obligation to topple the Syrian axis of evil regime and by military means and dismantle the terrorist Hezbollah as soon as possible. The more the free world postpones this costly mission, the more the Syrian regime and Hezbollah will continue to spread terrorism and fundamentalism not only in Lebanon, Iraq, Jordan and Gaza, but all over the world.
 

Before he sold himself to the Syrian-Iranian-Hezbollah axis of evil and betrayed his own people, Lebanese MP, General Michael Aoun advised the USA on means of dealing with the Syrian regime. I can not but reiterate what he said. Below is a verbatim excerpt from Aoun's TESTIMONY  in front of the USA HOUSE SUBCOMMITTEE ON INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS on September 18/2003

"Terrorist organizations do not stand on their own in terms of identity; instead, they are proxies to regimes that provide them with financial means and an operational framework for their terrorist activities. The suggestion heard in some circles that these regimes can be charged with the task of dismantling terrorist organizations is the height of naiveté and folly. Furthermore, let's not forget that the clandestine nature of these regimes and organizations would allow them to quickly and easily restructure and reemerge under completely new aliases, ready to resume operations in full capacity. Any perceived cooperation in the war on terrorism does not represent a strategic choice on the part of the Syrian regime to combat terrorism; it is only a tactical and temporary ploy to dodge responsibility for the central role that Syria has had in sponsoring terrorism during the last three decades. Let us not forget that Syria's proxies in Lebanon were responsible for attacks against the American embassy and the Marine compound costing hundreds of Lebanese and American lives. Second, Syria's occupation has turned Lebanon -- a nation that once enjoyed democracy and freedom -- into a puppet-regime subservient to a dictatorship"
 

Elias Bejjani
Chairman for the Canadian Lebanese Coordinating Council (LCCC)
Human Rights activist, journalist & political commentator.
Spokesman for the Canadian Lebanese Human Rights Federation (CLHRF)
E.Mail phoenicia@hotmail.com
LCCC Web Site http://www.10452lccc.com
CLHRF Website http://www.clhrf.com