Free Republic

Damascus is preparing for a large-scale Israeli attack on Syria and Hizbullah, London-based Al-Quds Al-Arabi reported Wednesday. According to the report, the Syrian army has been maneuvering its forces and drafting some of its reserve forces in preparation for such a contingency. Damascus has also raised the alert level along its borders, and has placed three armored divisions, nine infantry brigades and special forces near its border with Lebanon's Bekaa valley, fearing an Israeli infiltration there. The report claimed that this would be a strategic spot for Israeli ground forces to strike, as it is both a Hizbullah stronghold and...

It is quite possible that terror master Imad Mughniyeh was not killed Tuesday night in Damascus for his past crimes, but to prevent him from carrying out additional attacks in the future. On January 30, French security services raided a Paris apartment and arrested six Arab men. Three of the men - two Lebanese and one Syrian - were travelling on diplomatic passports. According to the Italian Libero newspaper, the six were members of a Hizbullah cell. Documents seized included tourist maps of Paris, London, Madrid, Berlin and Rome marked up with red highlighter to indicate routes, addresses, parking lots...

Bin Laden says: “And you can read this, if you wish, in my interview with Scott in Time Magazine in 1996, or with Peter Arnett on CNN in 1997, or my meeting with John Weiner in 1998. You can observe it practically, if you wish, in Kenya and Tanzania and in Aden. And you can read it in my interview with Abdul Bari Atwan [of BBC radio], as well as my interviews with Robert Fisk. The latter is one of your compatriots and co-religionists and I consider him to be neutral.”- Osama Bin Ladin Monday November 1, 2004, 16:01 Mecca...

Scratch one terrorist from the FBI's Most Wanted list. An explosion killed Hezbollah leader Imad Mughniyeh, one of the planners of the 1983 bombings in Beirut that killed 241 Marines and another 63 people at our embassy in Lebanon. He also took part in the 1985 TWA hijacking that resulted in the beating death of Navy diver Robert Stethem: A senior Hezbollah commander implicated in some of the most high-profile international terrorist attacks of the last 25 years has died in an explosion in Syria, Hezbollah TV said Wednesday. Imad Mughniyeh was suspected by Western intelligence agencies in the 1983...

New Fears: The Return of a Superterrorist Feb. 5, 2007 issue - Before Osama bin Laden, there was Imad Mughniyeh. The Lebanese terrorist from Hizbullah was considered the most dangerous in the world. Now the White House worries that he's back, after years of lying low. Four serving U.S. intel and counterterrorism officials, anonymous when discussing sensitive material, said Mughniyeh is prominent in recent reporting from the field about Hizbullah activity. Bruce Riedel, a veteran Mideast expert recently retired from the CIA, told NEWSWEEK there is "no question he is heavily involved in [formulating] terrorist contingency plans in case of...

London, Asharq Al-Awsat - The name of Imad Mughniyeh is once again in the headlines, as rumors circulate about his role in directing Hezbollah's operations in southern Lebanon, an area whose geography he knows only too well, as a native of Tyre. He is also thought to have masterminded the kidnappings of the two Israeli soldiers, following a recommendation by the Iranian revolutionary guards. Given that few pictures of Mughniyeh exist, little benefit can be gained by the FBI posting them on its website. Mughniyeh has undergone several plastic surgery operations, which have modified his facial features, most recently in...

Israel’s military intelligence service, Aman, suspects that Iraq is the state that sponsored the suicide attacks on the New York Trade Center and the Pentagon in Washington. Directing the mission, Aman officers believe, were two of the world’s foremost terrorist masterminds: the Lebanese Imad Mughniyeh, head of the special overseas operations for Hizbullah, and the Egyptian Dr Ayman Al Zawahiri, senior member of Al-Qaeda and possible successor of the ailing Osama Bin Laden. The two men have not been seen for some time. Mughniyeh is probably the world’s most wanted outlaw. Unconfirmed reports in Beirut say he has undergone plastic...

Swiss have agreed to help probe cover-up charges Investigators freeze bank accounts in search for possible Iranian role in attack on Buenos Aires Jewish center In a move that could finally shed some light on the unsolved 1994 car bombing of a Jewish center in Buenos Aires blamed on Lebanese fugitive Imad Mughniyeh, Swiss authorities have agreed to help Argentina investigate allegations that then-President Carlos Menem was paid $10 million to cover up an alleged Iranian role in the attack, which killed 85 people. In a case that has become more bizarre and convoluted at every turn over the last...