U.S. reports from February 2008, revealed by WikiLeaks, described how the regime of President Bashar al-Assad was shocked when Imad Mughniyeh was murdered by a sophisticated bomb planted in his car. Mughniyeh, a founder member of the militant Lebanese Shia movement, was wanted by the US, Israel, France and other governments. Hezbollah is backed by Iran and Syria.
“Syrian military intelligence and general intelligence directorate officials are currently engaged in an internecine struggle to blame each other for the breach of security that resulted in Mughniyeh’s death,” the U.S. embassy reported.
Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to Lebanon, the well-connected Abdel Aziz Khoja, told U.S. diplomats in Beirut that Hezbollah believed the Syrians were responsible for the Damascus killing. No Syrian official was present at Mughniyeh’s funeral in Beirut’s southern suburbs the following day. Iran was represented by its foreign minister, who, the Saudi envoy said, had come to calm down Hezbollah and keep it from taking action against Syria.
Another rumour, Khoja said, was that Syria and Israel had made a deal to allow Mughniyeh to be killed, an Israeli objective. No one has ever claimed responsibility for the assassination, though Israel has been widely blamed for it.
U.S. diplomats reported that the killing led to tensions between Syria and Iran, perhaps because Tehran shared Khoja’s suspicion of Syrian complicity in the affair.
It took more than a year for Syrian-Iranian relations to improve, with a low-profile visit to Damascus in late 2009 by the commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard’s (IRGC) elite al-Quds force, Qassem Suleimani, described by a Lebanese source as being at “the business end” of Hezbollah’s military activities. U.S. officials speculated that Soleimani’s long absence was “perhaps a reflection of lingering tensions between Iran and Syria that erupted after the assassination of Mughniyeh”.
Both the U.S. and Israel say explicitly that they want to weaken the links between Iran and its main Arab ally, Syria.
Mughniyeh, linked to the kidnappings of western hostages in the 1980s, was a controversial and shadowy figure whose influence reaches beyond the grave.
In 2006 the Lebanese defence minister, Elias Murr, told U.S. diplomats that Mughniyeh was “very active in Beirut”, hinting that he was involved in a spate of murders of Lebanese politicians who were hostile to Syria.
According to Murr, Mughniyeh was working with the IRGC on the one hand and the Syrian intelligence supremo (and President Assad’s brother-in-law) Asef Shawkat on the other.
In recent weeks tensions have again mounted in Lebanon over expectations that the special UN tribunal investigating the 2005 assassination of the former prime minister Rafiq al-Hariri will indict Hezbollah officials. The group has warned all Lebanese people to boycott the tribunal. Syria was widely blamed for the killing but has always denied involvement.
In January this year, state department cables show, Israeli officials expressed concern to the UN co-ordinator for Lebanon that Hezbollah would “act on its standing threat to retaliate for the death of Imad Mughniyeh”. Israel had previously warned that “the next round of fighting with Hezbollah would likely involve rockets falling on Tel Aviv, and if this happens Israel will respond harshly throughout Lebanon.”
Copyright: Guardian News & Media 2010
