First we better make sure we know who we're after!
Who did it? Foreign
Report presents an
alternative view
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 surgery
and is unrecognisable. Zawahiri is
thought to be based in Egypt. He
could be Bin Laden’s chief
representative outside Afghanistan.
The Iraqis, who for several years
paid smaller groups to do their
dirty work, were quick to discover
the advantages of Al-Qaeda. The
Israeli sources claim that for the
past two years Iraqi intelligence
officers were shuttling between
Baghdad and Afghanistan, meeting
with Ayman Al Zawahiri. According
to the sources, one of the Iraqi
intelligence officers, Salah
Suleiman, was captured last October
by the Pakistanis near the border
with Afghanistan. The Iraqis are
also reported to have established
strong ties with Imad Mughniyeh.
"We’ve only got scraps of
information, not the full picture,"
admits one intelligence source,
"but it was good enough for us to
send a warning six weeks ago to our
allies that an unprecedented
massive terror attack was expected.
One of our indications suggested
that Imad Mughniyeh met with some
of his dormant agents on secret
trips to Germany. We believe that
the operational brains behind the
New-York attack were Mughniyeh and
Zawahiri, who were probably
financed and got some logistical
support from the Iraqi Intelligence
Service (SSO)."
Mughniyeh was the only one believed
to have tried it before. On April
12th 1997, he was reported to be
only two hours away from achieving
the highest goal of any terrorist
organisation (until last week):
blowing up an Israeli El-Al
airliner above Tel Aviv. A man
carrying a forged British passport
with the name Andrew Jonathan
Neumann was in a Jerusalem hotel
preparing a bomb he was supposed to
take on board an El-Al flight
leaving Israel, when it
accidentally went off. Andrew
Jonathan Neumann was very badly
injured but strong enough to reveal
later to the Israelis that he was
not British but Lebanese, and that
his operation was supposed to be a
special "gift" to Israel from Imad
Mughniyeh.
‘A psychopath’
"Bin Laden is a schoolboy in
comparison with Mughniyeh," says an
Israeli who knows Mughniyeh . "The
guy is a genius, someone who
refined the art of terrorism to its
utmost level. We studied him and
reached the conclusion that he is a
clinical psychopath motivated by
uncontrollable psychological
reasons, which we have given up
trying to understand. The killing
of his two brothers by the
Americans only inflamed his strong
motivation."
Experts on Iraq and Saddam Hussein
also believe that Iraq was the
state behind the two terror
masterminds. "In recent months,
there was a change, and Iraq
decided to get into the terror
business. On July 7th, they tried
for the first time to send a
suicide bomber, trained in Baghdad,
to blow up Tel Aviv airport
(Foreign Report No. 2651)."
Our sources believe that it will be
very difficult to get to the bottom
of this unprecedented terror
operation. However, they believe
the chief of the Iraqi SSO is Qusai
Hussein, the dictator’s son, and
his organisation is the most likely
to have been involved.
Mughniyeh, 48, is a "sick man",
says an intelligence officer who
was in charge of his file. He is
considered by Western intelligence
agencies as the most dangerous
active terrorist today. He is
wanted by several governments and
the Americans have put a $2m reward
on his head.
[Detailed list of Mughniyeh
operations removed for
Non-Subscriber Extract]
It was the assassination of one man
in March 1984 that is said to have
made Mughniyeh the CIA’s most
wanted terrorist. Mughniyeh
allegedly kidnapped the head of the
CIA station in Beirut, William
Buckley. The kidnapping triggered
what later became known as
‘Irangate’, when the Americans
tried to exchange Buckley (and
others) with arms for Iran.
However, the attempt ended in a
fiasco. By one unconfirmed account,
Mughniyeh tortured and killed
Buckley with his own hands.
A year later, in a combined
CIA/Mossad operation, a powerful
car bomb went off at the entrance
to the house of Hizbullah’s
spiritual leader, Sheikh Muhammad
Hussein Fadlallah. Seventy-five
people were killed. One of them was
his brother. Hunted by the CIA and
the Mossad, Mughniyeh hid in Iran.
In February 1992, Israeli
helicopter gunships attacked the
convoy of the then head of
Hizbullah, Sheikh Abas Musawi, in
South Lebanon. Musawi, his wife and
children were killed and the
revenge attack followed a month
later. According to press reports,
Mughniyeh was called back into
action and, in a well-planned and
devastating attack, his people blew
up the Israeli embassy in
Argentina. The building was
demolished and 92 were killed. Only
last year, after a long
investigation, did Argentina issue
a warrant for Mughniyeh’s arrest.
The reprisal for the attack in
Argentina came in December 1994,
when a car bomb went off in a
southern Shi’ite suburb of Beirut.
Four people were killed. One of
them was called Mughniyeh, but to
the deep disappointment of those
Israelis who planted the bomb it
was the wrong one. Mughniyeh’s life
was saved, but his other brother
Fuad was killed. Mughniyeh waited
for his opportunity for revenge.
Our Israeli sources claim to see
Mughniyeh’s signature on the
wreckage in New York and
Washington. How to counter this
kind of terrorism? "To fight these
bastards you don’t need a military
attack," said an experienced
Israeli commando officer. "You only
need to adopt Israel’s
assassination policy." |
