Hezbollah selects successor to slain commander and vows retaliation

Published on Saturday 16 February 2008 18:58

THE militant Hezbollah group has appointed a successor to its top commander, Imad Mughniyeh, who was killed in a car-bomb blast last week in Syria.

A Lebanese security official refused to identify Mughniyeh's successor, but said the heir was selected shortly after the shadowy fugitive's death.

"The Hezbollah command appointed a successor to Mughniyeh shortly after news of his assassination broke," the official in southern Lebanon said.

The successor is expected to take charge of Hezbollah's well-trained and armed guerrillas, the official said.

Hezbollah and its Iranian backers have accused Israel of killing Mughniyeh, who was among the United States' most wanted men.

The group's leader, Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, vowed in a eulogy to the slain militant that his Shi'ite guerrilla group would retaliate against Israeli interests anywhere in the world.

Israel has denied any role in the killing, and Syria has not said who it believes was behind the blast.

Mughniyeh was known as Hezbollah's security officer. He is believed to have been the brains behind Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah's strike arm.

He was one of the most elusive and notorious Hezbollah commanders. He is believed to have masterminded suicide bombings in Lebanon during the 1974-1990 civil war that killed hundreds of Americans and French, as well as hostage-takings of Westerners and the 1985 hijacking of a TWA airliner, in which a US Navy diver was killed.

In the 1990s he went into hiding, and Western and Israeli intelligence accused him of planning suicide bombings against the Israeli Embassy and a Jewish cultural centre in Argentina, which killed over 100 people.

Over the past 15 years, he is believed to have moved in secret between Lebanon, Iran and Syria.

Israel has put its embassies on high alert and the FBI installed US anti-terror squads to protect Jewish institutions, after Nasrallah vowed to retaliate anywhere in the world for Mughniyeh's slaying in Damascus.

In the eulogy, Nasrallah claimed Mughniyeh played a major role in the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah war and that he used to train the guerrillas.