Senior Hezbollah commander Imad Moughniyah, on the United States' most wanted list for attacks on Israeli and Western targets, has been killed by a bomb attack in Damascus, the Lebanese group said today.
Imad Mughniyah
Hezbollah accused Israel of assassinating Moughniyah, who was head of the Hezbollah security network during Lebanon's 1975-90 civil war, by planting a bomb in his car.
Iran also blamed Israel and condemned the attack as an act of "state terrorism".
In Gaza, Hamas called for the Arab world to unite against Israel and Iran condemned it.
Israel denied any involvement in the killing, seen as a major blow to Syrian- and Iranian-backed Hezbollah that fought a 34-day war with Israel in 2006.
Moughniyah, 45, was killed late yesterday. He had long been on a list of foreigners Israel wanted to kill or capture and the United States had offered a $5 million reward for his capture.
Moughniyah was implicated in the 1983 bombings of the US embassy and US Marine and French peacekeeping barracks in Beirut, which killed over 350 people, as well as the 1992 bombing of the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires and the kidnapping of Westerners in Lebanon in the 1980s.
The United States indicted him for his role in planning and participating in the June 14, 1985, hijacking of a US TWA airliner and the killing of an American passenger.
Hezbollah announced the assassination and called followers to his funeral tomorrow.
"After a life full of jihad, sacrifices and accomplishments ... Haj Imad Moughniyah ... died a martyr at the hands of the Israeli Zionists," said Hezbollah.
Meanwhile, the US applauded the killing of Moughniyah calling him a cold-blooded murderer responsible for many deaths.
"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."