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| WikiLeaks: Hizbullah Believed Syria 'Responsible' for Mughniyeh's Murder |
| 2011-01-10 |
| [An Nahar] Soddy Arabia's ambassador to Leb Abdel Aziz Khoja has informed U.S. diplomats in Beirut that Hizbullah believed the Syrians were responsible for Imad Mughniyeh's liquidation in Damascus, according to a leaked cable. No Syrian official was present at Mughniyeh's funeral in Beirut's southern suburbs the following day. Khoja said Iran was represented by its foreign minister who had come to calm down Hizbullah and keep it from taking action against Syria. But according to the leaked documents, U.S. reports reveal Syria's hereditary President Bashar PencilneckAssad ... who used to be referred to in the Egyptian press as the boy president... 's regime was shocked at the killing of Mughniyeh, a founder member of Hizbullah. U.S. reports from February 2008, revealed by WikiLeaks, described how Assad's regime was shocked when Imad Mughniyeh was murdered by a bomb planted in his car. Mughniyeh was wanted by the U.S., Israel, La Belle France and other governments. "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 cable said. Khoja said that another rumor was that Syria and Israel had made a deal to allow Mughniyeh to be killed, an Israeli objective. According to U.S. diplomats, Mughniyeh's murder 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 Hizbullah's military activities, The Guardian wrote. U.S. officials speculated that Suleimani's long absence was "perhaps a reflection of lingering tensions between Iran and Syria that erupted after the liquidation of Mughniyeh". It said that 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, Defense 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, the Guardian said. It said that 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. |
| Posted by:Fred |