Jihad Mughniyah planned attacks against Israel in the Golan Heights
Yoav Zitun, Roi Kais/Ynetnews/ 01.18.15/ Israel News
Western intelligence sources say son of master terrorist Imad Mughniyah was planning attacks meant to ‘kill soldiers, hit Israeli communities in the Golan Heights and kill Israeli civilians’.
Master terrorist Imad Mughniyah’s son, Jihad Mughniyah, was himself planning deadly terrorist attacks against Israel, Western intelligence sources said Sunday.
He was a man who stood at the head of a wide-scale terrorist infrastructure with direct sponsorship from Iran and direct connection to Hezbollah, which has already been acting against Israel in the Golan Heights,” the sources said.
“Jihad Mughniyah was already planning, and had prepared, more major murderous attacks against Israel in the Golan Heights. These attacks include rocket fire, infiltrations, explosive devices, anti-tank missile fire, ect., with the goal of killing soldiers, hitting Israeli communities in the Golan Heights and killing Israeli civilians.”
The sources went on to describe Mughniyah junior as “an uninhibited terrorist, who built a murderous terror organization aided by Iran and Hezbollah, a terror organization with capabilities, and was busy preparing significant attacks.”
Close ties to Nasrallah and Iran
Jihad Mughniyeh, the son of Imad Mughniyah – Hezbollah’s head of operations until his assassination in February 2008 – was appointed as the group’s commander in the Syrian Golan sector last October. He was killed Sunday in an attack, attributed to Israel, in the Syrian Golan, along with a number of other Hezbollah fighters.
He is one of the most prominent Hezbollah officials to die in Syria since the group entered the fray in 2012, fighting alongside President Bashar Assad’s forces against the Sunni-led rebellion.
Officials close to Hezbollah said Jihad Mughniyeh, who was estimated to be around 25, was active in the group from a young age. He was a Hezbollah student activist at the Lebanese American University, and took on a more prominent role after the death of his father.
He was close to Hezbollah Secretary General Hassan Nassrallah, his father’s replacement Mustafa Badr Al Din, and Iran’s Revolutionary Guards. He once said: “We swore never to put down our guns until victory is achieved.”
Since his father’s death, Mughniyeh appeared at memorial events held by Hezbollah. In 2013, he was seen together with the commander of the Revolutionary Guards’ Quds Force, Qasem Soleimani, in a visit to Iran he made to express his condolences for the death of Soleimani’s mother.
Jihad Mughniyeh’s uncle, who shares the same name, died at a young age and is considered a martyr by the family. Imad Mughniyeh’s brother died in unknown circumstances. The three brothers’ mother said prior to her son Imad’s burial: “I wish I had more sons, so they could continue the way.”
Jihad was killed at the age of 18, unmarried and with no children, while Fuad left three children,” she said. “Imad is also the father of three children – two boys and a girl.”
Until his assassination, Imad was considered by some intelligence circles to be the second most-wanted individual in the world, after Osama bin-Laden. Time and again, he popped up in different locations around the world, only to disappear again.
The United States placed a $25 million bounty on the head of the arch-terrorist, who was believed to be responsible for the deaths of hundreds. He stood behind terror attacks against Israel in various periods, as well as the 1983 US Embassy bombin in Beirut, the Beirut barracks bombing that year that killed more than 300, and the hijacking of TWA Flight 847.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Several Hizbullah Fighters Killed in Israeli Raid in Syria, Including Mughniyeh’s Son
Naharnet/18/01/15
Several Hizbullah fighters were killed Sunday in an Israeli airstrike on the Quneitra region in the Syrian sector of the Golan Heights.
“The Israeli enemy’s helicopters fired missiles at a group of Hizbullah fighters who were inspecting the town of Mazraat al-Amal in the Syrian Quneitra region,” Hizbullah’s media department announced in a statement.
The strike “resulted in the martyrdom of a number of jihadist brothers, whose names will be announced later, after informing their honorable families,” the party added.
A source close to Hizbullah told Agence France-Presse that the strike killed a military commander of the Lebanese group and five fighters.
The dead included Mohammed Issa, a Hizbullah commander responsible for its Syrian and Iraqi operations, as well as Jihad Mughniyeh, the son of Imad Mughniyeh, a top Hizbullah operative killed in a 2008 car bombing in Syria which was blamed on Israel, the source told AFP.
Lebanese and Arab media outlets identified the other four Hizbullah members killed in the raid as Mahdi al-Moussawi, Ali Fouad, Hussein Hassan and Abbas Hijazi.
Al-Arabiya TV meanwhile said that “a prominent Hizbullah leader and 6 Iranians were killed in the Israeli airstrike on Golan.”
Al-Jadeed television for its part said “Iranian commander Abu Ali al-Tabtabani was among the martyrs of the Israeli raid on Golan.”
Earlier on Sunday, an Israeli security source said an Israeli helicopter carried out a strike against “terrorists” in the Syrian sector of the Golan Heights.
The source told AFP that the militants were preparing an attack on Israel and that the airstrike took place near Quneitra, close to the ceasefire line separating the Syrian part of the Golan Heights from the Israeli-occupied sector, confirming a report by Hizbullah’s al-Manar television.
The source could not provide details about the identities of the targets or the nature of the attack they were allegedly preparing.
The Israeli army has declined to comment on the incident.
“Hizbullah’s members went on high alert on Lebanon’s southern border with Israel only minutes after the party announced that Israel had bombed Syria’s Quneitra,” Turkey’s Anatolia news agency reported.
In the wake of the raid, Israel’s warplanes and reconnaissance aircraft “intensified their overflights above the occupied Shebaa Farms and the Golan Heights,” Lebanon’s National News Agency reported.
Unusual movements by the Israeli forces were also reported along the border with Lebanon and in the occupied Shebaa Farms, said NNA.
According to the Israeli source, Israeli drones were present in the area during the attack. Last month, the Syrian army said it shot down an Israeli reconnaissance drone flying over Quneitra province.
The attack comes a few days after Hizbullah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah threatened in an interview with the Beirut-based al-Mayadeen news channel that his group would retaliate against Israel for repeated strikes on Syria.
Nasrallah also told al-Mayadeen that Hizbullah has had Iranian Fateh-110 missiles that can hit the whole of Israel since 2006, adding that it is always ready to fight Israel.
Hizbullah fought a bloody war with Israel in the summer of 2006 that killed some 1,200 Lebanese, mostly civilians, and 160 Israelis, most of them soldiers.
In August, five rockets fired from Syria hit the Israeli-occupied sector of the Golan Heights and in July Israel shelled Syrian army positions after a Syrian rocket hit Israel.
Syria and Israel are officially in a state of war, and Israel has occupied the Golan Heights since 1967. The occupation is not recognized by the international community.
