Hezbollah: Blast killed top leader

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 13, 2008
12:17 MECCA TIME, 9:17 GMT

Hezbollah has announced the death of one of its top military commanders in a car bomb in the Syrian capital, Damascus on Tuesday.
The Lebanese Shia group in a statement on Wednesday accused Israel of killing Imad Moughniyah.
Moughniyah is widely suspected to have been behind a wave of Western hostage taking in Lebanon in the 1980s.
Al Jazeera's Rula Amin said that Moughniyah, also known as Hajj Radhwan,was considered as the man in charge of Hezbollah, almost on par with Hassan Nasrallah.
She said that the fact that he was killed in Damascus was a major security breach for the Syrian regime and that his presence in Syria was significant since he had been underground for years.
There have been many attempts on Moughaniyah's life in the last 20 years, she said

'Wanted man'
According to the US and the West, he was a "top terrorist" and was involved in the French and US embassy bombings in Beirut.
The US also claims he was involved in the killing of 200 US Marines in the late 1980s in Lebanon.
Witnesses had seen the body of a man being taken from the scene of the blast in the Syrian capital.
The cause of the blast late on Tuesday in the Kafar Soussa residential neighbourhood was not immediately known.
Damascus has seen a number of attacks in recent years, including one on the US Embassy in 2006 that left three gunmen and a Syrian guard dead.
Hezbollah is backed by both Syria and Iran.