31 jan 2015

Secretary General of Hezbollah Hassan Nasrallah said, in a speech on Friday in honor of Quneitra’s martyrs, that Lebanese resistance “does not want war with Israel but it is not afraid of it.”
"We no longer have rules of engagement in the conflict with Israel", he stressed.
“We do not want a war but we are not afraid of it and we must distinguish between the two and the Israelis must also understand this very well,” he said.
“We hold the Zionist entity responsible for any future assassination of any Hezbollah leaders or fighters.”
“We have the right legally, in human terms, and morally to respond in any place and at any time and in the way we see fit,” Nasrallah warned in the speech.
The Hezbollah chief lambasted the Israeli leadership's "foolishness" for putting Israel at risk after attacking Hezbollah's members.
"We received many letters warning us of any response to the Quneitra assassination", he said, adding that Israel “anticipated Hezbollah’s retaliation to the Quneitra assassination.”
“We did not hesitate in taking the decision that Israel should be punished for its crime in Quneitra,” Nasrallah said, adding, “We prepared ourselves for the worst case scenario when we took that decision.”
“The resistance carried out its Shebaa operation in broad daylight in spite of the fact that Israel was at its highest level of preparation,” he pointed out.
“They killed us in broad daylight, we killed them in broad daylight. They killed us around 11:40 am, we killed them at 11:40 am. They targeted two of our vehicles, we targeted two of their vehicles. They had some of their soldiers killed and wounded, we too had martyrs.”
Nasrallah stressed that the resistance movement is brave enough to claim responsibility for its attacks against Israeli targets, saying that the Israeli regime lacks such courage.
Nasrallah's speech came few days after a number of Israeli soldiers were killed when Hezbollah fired five missiles at a convoy of Israeli military vehicles along the Lebanese borders. The attack was in retaliation for a January 18 Israeli air strike in southern Syria that killed several Hezbollah members.
"We no longer have rules of engagement in the conflict with Israel", he stressed.
“We do not want a war but we are not afraid of it and we must distinguish between the two and the Israelis must also understand this very well,” he said.
“We hold the Zionist entity responsible for any future assassination of any Hezbollah leaders or fighters.”
“We have the right legally, in human terms, and morally to respond in any place and at any time and in the way we see fit,” Nasrallah warned in the speech.
The Hezbollah chief lambasted the Israeli leadership's "foolishness" for putting Israel at risk after attacking Hezbollah's members.
"We received many letters warning us of any response to the Quneitra assassination", he said, adding that Israel “anticipated Hezbollah’s retaliation to the Quneitra assassination.”
“We did not hesitate in taking the decision that Israel should be punished for its crime in Quneitra,” Nasrallah said, adding, “We prepared ourselves for the worst case scenario when we took that decision.”
“The resistance carried out its Shebaa operation in broad daylight in spite of the fact that Israel was at its highest level of preparation,” he pointed out.
“They killed us in broad daylight, we killed them in broad daylight. They killed us around 11:40 am, we killed them at 11:40 am. They targeted two of our vehicles, we targeted two of their vehicles. They had some of their soldiers killed and wounded, we too had martyrs.”
Nasrallah stressed that the resistance movement is brave enough to claim responsibility for its attacks against Israeli targets, saying that the Israeli regime lacks such courage.
Nasrallah's speech came few days after a number of Israeli soldiers were killed when Hezbollah fired five missiles at a convoy of Israeli military vehicles along the Lebanese borders. The attack was in retaliation for a January 18 Israeli air strike in southern Syria that killed several Hezbollah members.
30 jan 2015

A Lebanese Hezbollah supporter holds a poster
of Imad Mughniyah during a rally in the southern suburb of Beirut on
Feb. 16, 2009, to commemorate the first anniversary of the slain
Hezbollah commander’s death
On Feb. 12, 2008, Imad Mughniyah, Hezbollah’s international operations chief, walked on a quiet nighttime street in Damascus after dinner at a nearby restaurant. Not far away, a team of CIA spotters in the Syrian capital was tracking his movements.
As Mughniyah approached a parked SUV, a bomb planted in a spare tire on the back of the vehicle exploded, sending a burst of shrapnel across a tight radius. He was killed instantly.
The device was triggered remotely from Tel Aviv by agents with Mossad, the Israeli foreign intelligence service, who were in communication with the operatives on the ground in Damascus. “The way it was set up, the U.S. could object and call it off, but it could not execute,” said a former U.S. intelligence official.
The United States helped build the bomb, the former official said, and tested it repeatedly at a CIA facility in North Carolina to ensure the potential blast area was contained and would not result in collateral damage.
[Read: Who was Imad Mughniyah?]
“We probably blew up 25 bombs to make sure we got it right,” the former official said.
The extraordinarily close cooperation between the U.S. and Israeli intelligence services suggested the importance of the target — a man who over the years had been implicated in some of Hezbollah’s most spectacular terrorist attacks, including those against the U.S. Embassy in Beirut and the Israeli Embassy in Argentina.
The United States has never acknowledged participation in the killing of Mughniyah, which Hezbollah blamed on Israel. Until now, there has been little detail about the joint operation by the CIA and Mossad to kill him, how the car bombing was planned or the exact U.S. role. With the exception of the 2011 killing of Osama bin Laden, the mission marked one of the most high-risk covert actions by the United States in recent years.
U.S. involvement in the killing, which was confirmed by five former U.S. intelligence officials, also pushed American legal boundaries.
Mughniyah was targeted in a country where the United States was not at war. Moreover, he was killed in a car bombing, a technique that some legal scholars see as a violation of international laws that proscribe “killing by perfidy” — using treacherous means to kill or wound an enemy.
“It is a killing method used by terrorists and gangsters,” said Mary Ellen O’Connell, a professor of international law at the University of Notre Dame. “It violates one of the oldest battlefield rules.”
Former U.S. officials, all of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the operation, asserted that Mughniyah, although based in Syria, was directly connected to the arming and training of Shiite militias in Iraq that were targeting U.S. forces. There was little debate inside the Bush administration over the use of a car bomb instead of other means.
“Remember, they were carrying out suicide bombings and IED attacks,” said one official, referring to Hezbollah operations in Iraq.
The authority to kill Mughniyah required a presidential finding by President George W. Bush. The attorney general, the director of national intelligence, the national security adviser and the Office of Legal Counsel at the Justice Department all signed off on the operation, one former intelligence official said.
The former official said getting the authority to kill Mughniyah was a “rigorous and tedious” process. “What we had to show was he was a continuing threat to Americans,” the official said, noting that Mughniyah had a long history of targeting Americans dating back to his role in planning the 1983 bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Beirut.
“The decision was we had to have absolute confirmation that it was self-defense,” the official said.
There has long been suspicion about U.S. involvement in the killing of Mughniyah. In “The Good Spy,” a book about longtime CIA officer Robert Ames, author Kai Bird cites one former intelligence official as saying the operation was “primarily controlled by Langley” and it was “a CIA ‘black-ops’ team that carried out the assassination.”
In a new book, “The Perfect Kill: 21 Laws for Assassins,” former CIA officer Robert B. Baer writes how he had considered assassinating Mughniyah but apparently never got the opportunity. He notes, however, that CIA “censors” — the agency’s Publications Review Board — screened his book and “I’ve unfortunately been unable to write about the true set-piece plot against” Mughniyah.
The CIA declined to comment.
“We have nothing to add at this time,” said Mark Regev, chief spokesman for the prime minister of Israel.
Seven years after the death of Hezbollah's Imad Mughniyah, The Post's Adam Goldman and the Washington Institute's Matthew Levitt look at the international cooperation that brought down the former military commander. ( Davin Coburn, Randolph Smith and Kyle Barss / The Washington Post) A theory of self-defense The operation in Damascus highlighted a philosophical evolution within the American intelligence services that followed the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Before then, the U.S. government often took a dim view of Israeli assassination operations, highlighted by the American condemnation of Israel’s botched attempt in 1997 to poison the leader of Hamas, Khaled Meshal, in Amman, Jordan. The episode ended with Mossad agents captured and the Clinton administration forcing Israel to provide the antidote that saved Meshal’s life.
The Mughniyah killing, carried out more than a decade later, suggested such American hesitation had faded as the CIA stretched its lethal reach well beyond defined war zones and the ungoverned spaces of Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia, where the agency or the military have deployed drones against al-Qaeda and its allies.
A former U.S. official said the Bush administration relied on a theory of national self-defense to kill Mughniyah, claiming he was a lawful target because he was actively plotting against the United States or its forces in Iraq, making him a continued and imminent threat who could not be captured. Such a legal rationale would have allowed the CIA to avoid violating the 1981 blanket ban on assassinations in Executive Order 12333. The order does not define assassination.
In sanctioning a 2011 operation to kill Anwar al-Awlaki, a U.S. citizen and an influential propaganda leader for al-Qaeda’s affiliate in Yemen, the Justice Department made a similar argument. Noting that al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula had targeted U.S. commercial aircraft and asserting that Awlaki had an operational role in the group, government lawyers said he was a continued and imminent threat and could not feasibly be captured.
“It’s fairly clear that the government has at least some authority to use lethal force in self-defense even outside the context of ongoing armed conflict,” said Stephen I. Vladeck, a professor of law at American University’s Washington College of Law. “The million-dollar question is whether the facts actually support a determination that such force was necessary and appropriate in each case.”
The CIA and Mossad worked together to monitor Mughniyah in Damascus for months prior to the killing and to determine where the bomb should be planted, according to the former officials.
In the leadup to the operation, U.S. intelligence officials had assured lawmakers in a classified briefing that there would be no collateral damage, former officials said.
On Feb. 12, 2008, Imad Mughniyah, Hezbollah’s international operations chief, walked on a quiet nighttime street in Damascus after dinner at a nearby restaurant. Not far away, a team of CIA spotters in the Syrian capital was tracking his movements.
As Mughniyah approached a parked SUV, a bomb planted in a spare tire on the back of the vehicle exploded, sending a burst of shrapnel across a tight radius. He was killed instantly.
The device was triggered remotely from Tel Aviv by agents with Mossad, the Israeli foreign intelligence service, who were in communication with the operatives on the ground in Damascus. “The way it was set up, the U.S. could object and call it off, but it could not execute,” said a former U.S. intelligence official.
The United States helped build the bomb, the former official said, and tested it repeatedly at a CIA facility in North Carolina to ensure the potential blast area was contained and would not result in collateral damage.
[Read: Who was Imad Mughniyah?]
“We probably blew up 25 bombs to make sure we got it right,” the former official said.
The extraordinarily close cooperation between the U.S. and Israeli intelligence services suggested the importance of the target — a man who over the years had been implicated in some of Hezbollah’s most spectacular terrorist attacks, including those against the U.S. Embassy in Beirut and the Israeli Embassy in Argentina.
The United States has never acknowledged participation in the killing of Mughniyah, which Hezbollah blamed on Israel. Until now, there has been little detail about the joint operation by the CIA and Mossad to kill him, how the car bombing was planned or the exact U.S. role. With the exception of the 2011 killing of Osama bin Laden, the mission marked one of the most high-risk covert actions by the United States in recent years.
U.S. involvement in the killing, which was confirmed by five former U.S. intelligence officials, also pushed American legal boundaries.
Mughniyah was targeted in a country where the United States was not at war. Moreover, he was killed in a car bombing, a technique that some legal scholars see as a violation of international laws that proscribe “killing by perfidy” — using treacherous means to kill or wound an enemy.
“It is a killing method used by terrorists and gangsters,” said Mary Ellen O’Connell, a professor of international law at the University of Notre Dame. “It violates one of the oldest battlefield rules.”
Former U.S. officials, all of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the operation, asserted that Mughniyah, although based in Syria, was directly connected to the arming and training of Shiite militias in Iraq that were targeting U.S. forces. There was little debate inside the Bush administration over the use of a car bomb instead of other means.
“Remember, they were carrying out suicide bombings and IED attacks,” said one official, referring to Hezbollah operations in Iraq.
The authority to kill Mughniyah required a presidential finding by President George W. Bush. The attorney general, the director of national intelligence, the national security adviser and the Office of Legal Counsel at the Justice Department all signed off on the operation, one former intelligence official said.
The former official said getting the authority to kill Mughniyah was a “rigorous and tedious” process. “What we had to show was he was a continuing threat to Americans,” the official said, noting that Mughniyah had a long history of targeting Americans dating back to his role in planning the 1983 bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Beirut.
“The decision was we had to have absolute confirmation that it was self-defense,” the official said.
There has long been suspicion about U.S. involvement in the killing of Mughniyah. In “The Good Spy,” a book about longtime CIA officer Robert Ames, author Kai Bird cites one former intelligence official as saying the operation was “primarily controlled by Langley” and it was “a CIA ‘black-ops’ team that carried out the assassination.”
In a new book, “The Perfect Kill: 21 Laws for Assassins,” former CIA officer Robert B. Baer writes how he had considered assassinating Mughniyah but apparently never got the opportunity. He notes, however, that CIA “censors” — the agency’s Publications Review Board — screened his book and “I’ve unfortunately been unable to write about the true set-piece plot against” Mughniyah.
The CIA declined to comment.
“We have nothing to add at this time,” said Mark Regev, chief spokesman for the prime minister of Israel.
Seven years after the death of Hezbollah's Imad Mughniyah, The Post's Adam Goldman and the Washington Institute's Matthew Levitt look at the international cooperation that brought down the former military commander. ( Davin Coburn, Randolph Smith and Kyle Barss / The Washington Post) A theory of self-defense The operation in Damascus highlighted a philosophical evolution within the American intelligence services that followed the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Before then, the U.S. government often took a dim view of Israeli assassination operations, highlighted by the American condemnation of Israel’s botched attempt in 1997 to poison the leader of Hamas, Khaled Meshal, in Amman, Jordan. The episode ended with Mossad agents captured and the Clinton administration forcing Israel to provide the antidote that saved Meshal’s life.
The Mughniyah killing, carried out more than a decade later, suggested such American hesitation had faded as the CIA stretched its lethal reach well beyond defined war zones and the ungoverned spaces of Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia, where the agency or the military have deployed drones against al-Qaeda and its allies.
A former U.S. official said the Bush administration relied on a theory of national self-defense to kill Mughniyah, claiming he was a lawful target because he was actively plotting against the United States or its forces in Iraq, making him a continued and imminent threat who could not be captured. Such a legal rationale would have allowed the CIA to avoid violating the 1981 blanket ban on assassinations in Executive Order 12333. The order does not define assassination.
In sanctioning a 2011 operation to kill Anwar al-Awlaki, a U.S. citizen and an influential propaganda leader for al-Qaeda’s affiliate in Yemen, the Justice Department made a similar argument. Noting that al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula had targeted U.S. commercial aircraft and asserting that Awlaki had an operational role in the group, government lawyers said he was a continued and imminent threat and could not feasibly be captured.
“It’s fairly clear that the government has at least some authority to use lethal force in self-defense even outside the context of ongoing armed conflict,” said Stephen I. Vladeck, a professor of law at American University’s Washington College of Law. “The million-dollar question is whether the facts actually support a determination that such force was necessary and appropriate in each case.”
The CIA and Mossad worked together to monitor Mughniyah in Damascus for months prior to the killing and to determine where the bomb should be planted, according to the former officials.
In the leadup to the operation, U.S. intelligence officials had assured lawmakers in a classified briefing that there would be no collateral damage, former officials said.

Implicated in multiple cases At the time of his death, Mughniyah had been implicated in the killing of hundreds of Americans, stretching back to the embassy bombing in Beirut that killed 63 people, including eight CIA officers. Hezbollah, supported by Iran, was involved in a long-running shadow war with Israel and its principal backer, the United States.
The embassy bombing placed Hezbollah squarely in the sights of the CIA, a focus that, in some respects, foreshadowed the targeting of Mughniyah. In his 1987 book “Veil,” Washington Post journalist Bob Woodward reported that CIA Director William Casey encouraged the Saudis to sponsor an attempt to kill a Hezbollah leader. The 1985 attempt on the life of Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah with a car bomb failed, but killed 80 people, and he fled to Iran. Mughniyah’s brother was among those killed.
Former agency officials said Mughniyah was involved in the 1984 kidnapping and torture of the CIA’s station chief in Lebanon, William F. Buckley. The officials said Mughniyah arranged for videotapes of the brutal interrogation sessions of Buckley to be sent to the agency. Buckley was later killed.
Mughniyah was indicted in U.S. federal court in the 1985 hijacking of TWA Flight 847 shortly after it took off from Athens and the slaying of U.S. Navy diver Robert Stethem, a passenger on the plane. Mughniyah was placed on the FBI’s Most Wanted Terrorists list with a $5 million reward offered for information leading to his arrest and conviction.
He was also suspected of involvement by U.S. intelligence and law enforcement officials in the planning of the 1996 Khobar Towers bombing in Saudi Arabia that killed 19 U.S. servicemen.
For the Israelis, among numerous attacks, he was involved in the 1992 suicide bombing of the Israeli Embassy in Buenos Aires that killed four Israeli civilians and 25 Argentinians, and the 1994 attack on a Jewish community center in the city that killed 85 people.
“Mughniyah and his group were responsible for the deaths of many Americans,” said James Bernazzani, who was chief of the FBI’s Hezbollah unit in the late 1990s and later the deputy director for law enforcement at the CIA’s Counterterrorism Center.
The Bush administration regarded Hezbollah — Mughniyah, in particular — as a threat to the United States. In 2008, several months after he was killed, Michael Chertoff, then secretary of homeland security, said Hezbollah was a threat to national security. “To be honest, they make al-Qaeda look like a minor league team,” he said.
Beginning in 2003, Hezbollah, with the assistance of Iran, began to train and arm Shiite militant groups in Iraq, which later began attacking coalition forces, according to Matthew Levitt, who recently wrote a book about Hezbollah and is director of the Washington Institute’s Stein Program on Counterterrorism and Intelligence.
The Hezbollah-trained militias proved to be a deadly enemy, wounding or killing hundreds of American troops. As the situation in Iraq deteriorated and coalition casualties spiked in 2006, the United States decided it had to stanch the losses.
The Bush administration issued orders to kill or capture Iranian operatives targeting American troops and attempting to destabilize Iraq. It also approved a list of operations directed at Hezbollah, officials said. The mandate applied directly to the group’s notorious international operations chief.
“There was an open license to find, fix and finish Mughniyah and anybody affiliated with him,” said a former U.S. official who served in Baghdad.
In January 2007, Bush, in an address to the nation, singled out Iran and Syria, two countries with the closest ties to Hezbollah.
“These two regimes are allowing terrorists and insurgents to use their territory to move in and out of Iraq,” Bush said. “Iran is providing material support for attacks on American troops. We will disrupt the attacks on our forces. We will interrupt the flow of support from Iran and Syria. And we will seek out and destroy the networks providing advanced weaponry and training to our enemies in Iraq.”
Shortly after Bush’s speech, Hezbollah’s involvement in Iraq became clearer. On Jan. 20, 2007, five American soldiers were killed in Karbala. That March, Ali Mussa Daqduq, a senior Hezbollah operative with ties to Mughniyah, was captured by the British along with two others and turned over to U.S. forces.
While in U.S. custody, Daqduq confessed to playing a key role in the killing of the soldiers and provided the United States with a deeper understanding of Hezbollah’s networks, said Peter Mansoor, a retired Army colonel who served as executive officer to Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top American commander in Iraq.
“In interrogations with these folks, we finally discovered the full nature of Iranian and Hezbollah involvement in Iraq,” Mansoor said, noting that by then Iran had “outsourced the advisory effort to Hezbollah.” Mansoor said he had no knowledge of the operation that killed Mughniyah.
U.S. officials said Mughniyah played a pivotal role in linking Hezbollah to the Shiite militias that were working with Iran. It remains unclear if he ever entered Iraq. One former U.S. senior military official said there was information he traveled to Basra in southern Iraq in 2006, but it was not confirmed.
Ryan C. Crocker, the U.S. ambassador in Iraq when Mughniyah was killed, said: “All I can say is that as long as he drew breath, he was a threat, whether in Lebanon, Iraq or anywhere else. He was a very intelligent, dedicated, effective operator on the black side.”
Crocker said that he didn’t know anything about the operation to kill the Hezbollah operative and had doubts about Mughniyah traveling to Iraq. That said, he added: “When I heard about it, I was one damn happy man.”
The embassy bombing placed Hezbollah squarely in the sights of the CIA, a focus that, in some respects, foreshadowed the targeting of Mughniyah. In his 1987 book “Veil,” Washington Post journalist Bob Woodward reported that CIA Director William Casey encouraged the Saudis to sponsor an attempt to kill a Hezbollah leader. The 1985 attempt on the life of Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah with a car bomb failed, but killed 80 people, and he fled to Iran. Mughniyah’s brother was among those killed.
Former agency officials said Mughniyah was involved in the 1984 kidnapping and torture of the CIA’s station chief in Lebanon, William F. Buckley. The officials said Mughniyah arranged for videotapes of the brutal interrogation sessions of Buckley to be sent to the agency. Buckley was later killed.
Mughniyah was indicted in U.S. federal court in the 1985 hijacking of TWA Flight 847 shortly after it took off from Athens and the slaying of U.S. Navy diver Robert Stethem, a passenger on the plane. Mughniyah was placed on the FBI’s Most Wanted Terrorists list with a $5 million reward offered for information leading to his arrest and conviction.
He was also suspected of involvement by U.S. intelligence and law enforcement officials in the planning of the 1996 Khobar Towers bombing in Saudi Arabia that killed 19 U.S. servicemen.
For the Israelis, among numerous attacks, he was involved in the 1992 suicide bombing of the Israeli Embassy in Buenos Aires that killed four Israeli civilians and 25 Argentinians, and the 1994 attack on a Jewish community center in the city that killed 85 people.
“Mughniyah and his group were responsible for the deaths of many Americans,” said James Bernazzani, who was chief of the FBI’s Hezbollah unit in the late 1990s and later the deputy director for law enforcement at the CIA’s Counterterrorism Center.
The Bush administration regarded Hezbollah — Mughniyah, in particular — as a threat to the United States. In 2008, several months after he was killed, Michael Chertoff, then secretary of homeland security, said Hezbollah was a threat to national security. “To be honest, they make al-Qaeda look like a minor league team,” he said.
Beginning in 2003, Hezbollah, with the assistance of Iran, began to train and arm Shiite militant groups in Iraq, which later began attacking coalition forces, according to Matthew Levitt, who recently wrote a book about Hezbollah and is director of the Washington Institute’s Stein Program on Counterterrorism and Intelligence.
The Hezbollah-trained militias proved to be a deadly enemy, wounding or killing hundreds of American troops. As the situation in Iraq deteriorated and coalition casualties spiked in 2006, the United States decided it had to stanch the losses.
The Bush administration issued orders to kill or capture Iranian operatives targeting American troops and attempting to destabilize Iraq. It also approved a list of operations directed at Hezbollah, officials said. The mandate applied directly to the group’s notorious international operations chief.
“There was an open license to find, fix and finish Mughniyah and anybody affiliated with him,” said a former U.S. official who served in Baghdad.
In January 2007, Bush, in an address to the nation, singled out Iran and Syria, two countries with the closest ties to Hezbollah.
“These two regimes are allowing terrorists and insurgents to use their territory to move in and out of Iraq,” Bush said. “Iran is providing material support for attacks on American troops. We will disrupt the attacks on our forces. We will interrupt the flow of support from Iran and Syria. And we will seek out and destroy the networks providing advanced weaponry and training to our enemies in Iraq.”
Shortly after Bush’s speech, Hezbollah’s involvement in Iraq became clearer. On Jan. 20, 2007, five American soldiers were killed in Karbala. That March, Ali Mussa Daqduq, a senior Hezbollah operative with ties to Mughniyah, was captured by the British along with two others and turned over to U.S. forces.
While in U.S. custody, Daqduq confessed to playing a key role in the killing of the soldiers and provided the United States with a deeper understanding of Hezbollah’s networks, said Peter Mansoor, a retired Army colonel who served as executive officer to Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top American commander in Iraq.
“In interrogations with these folks, we finally discovered the full nature of Iranian and Hezbollah involvement in Iraq,” Mansoor said, noting that by then Iran had “outsourced the advisory effort to Hezbollah.” Mansoor said he had no knowledge of the operation that killed Mughniyah.
U.S. officials said Mughniyah played a pivotal role in linking Hezbollah to the Shiite militias that were working with Iran. It remains unclear if he ever entered Iraq. One former U.S. senior military official said there was information he traveled to Basra in southern Iraq in 2006, but it was not confirmed.
Ryan C. Crocker, the U.S. ambassador in Iraq when Mughniyah was killed, said: “All I can say is that as long as he drew breath, he was a threat, whether in Lebanon, Iraq or anywhere else. He was a very intelligent, dedicated, effective operator on the black side.”
Crocker said that he didn’t know anything about the operation to kill the Hezbollah operative and had doubts about Mughniyah traveling to Iraq. That said, he added: “When I heard about it, I was one damn happy man.”

Rescuers survey the damage sustained by the
U.S. Marine barracks a day after a suicide truck bomb exploded at the
site near the Beirut airport in October 1983
Terrorism discussion widens U.S. officials had explored ways to capture or kill Mughniyah for years. Those scenarios gained new urgency in the years after the Sept. 11 attacks when the Bush administration turned to the CIA and the U.S. military’s elite Joint Special Operations Command for stepped-up plans to stop major terrorist operatives — including those without ties to al-Qaeda or the 9/11 plot.
A former U.S. official described a secret meeting in Israel in 2002 involving senior JSOC officers and the chief of the Israeli military intelligence service. Amid a broader discussion of counterterrorism issues, the JSOC visitors raised the prospect of killing Mughniyah in such an offhanded fashion that their Israeli hosts were stunned.
“When we said we would be willing to explore opportunities to target him, they practically fell out of their chairs,” the former U.S. official said. The former official said that JSOC had not developed any specific plan but was exploring scenarios against potential terrorism targets and wanted to gauge Israel’s willingness to serve as an evacuation point for U.S. commando teams.
The former official said that the JSOC approach envisioned a commando-style raid with U.S. Special Operations teams directly involved, not the sort of cloak-and-dagger operation that occurred years later.
“It never went anywhere,” said the former official, who was unaware of the CIA-Israeli operation to kill Mughniyah.
Still, the 2002 encounter suggests that Mughniyah continued to be a focus for U.S. counterterrorism officials even after their overwhelming attention had shifted to al-Qaeda.
“We never took our eye off Hezbollah, but our plate was full with al-Qaeda,” said Bernazzani, who retired from the FBI in 2008 and said he had no knowledge of the operation to kill Mughniyah.
A window of opportunity It is not clear when the CIA first realized Mughniyah was living in Damascus, but his whereabouts were known for at least a year before he was killed. One of the former U.S. intelligence officials said that the Israelis were first to approach the CIA about a joint operation to kill him in Damascus.
The agency had a well-established clandestine infrastructure in Damascus that the Israelis could utilize.
Officials said the Israelis wanted to pull the trigger as payback. “It was revenge,” another former official said. The Americans didn’t care as long as Mughniyah was dead, the official said, and there was little fear of blowback because Hezbollah would most probably blame the Israelis.
Amos Yadlin, the former head of Israeli military intelligence until 2010, said Mughniyah was positioned right under the group’s leader Hassan Nasrallah.
“He was the commander and chief of all military and terror operations,” Yadlin said, who declined to discuss Mughniyah’s demise. “He was the agent of the Iranians.”
The operation to target Mughniyah came at a time when the CIA and Mossad were working closely to thwart the nuclear ambitions of Syria and Iran. The CIA had helped the Mossad verify that the Syrians were building a nuclear reactor, leading to an Israeli airstrike on the facility in 2007. Israel and the United States were actively trying to sabotage the Iranian nuclear program.
Once Mughniyah was located in Damascus, the intelligence agencies began building a “pattern of life” profile, looking at his routine for vulnerabilities.
Mossad officials suggested occasional walks in the evening — when Mughniyah was unescorted — presented an opportunity. CIA officers with extensive undercover experience secured a safe house in a building near his apartment.
Terrorism discussion widens U.S. officials had explored ways to capture or kill Mughniyah for years. Those scenarios gained new urgency in the years after the Sept. 11 attacks when the Bush administration turned to the CIA and the U.S. military’s elite Joint Special Operations Command for stepped-up plans to stop major terrorist operatives — including those without ties to al-Qaeda or the 9/11 plot.
A former U.S. official described a secret meeting in Israel in 2002 involving senior JSOC officers and the chief of the Israeli military intelligence service. Amid a broader discussion of counterterrorism issues, the JSOC visitors raised the prospect of killing Mughniyah in such an offhanded fashion that their Israeli hosts were stunned.
“When we said we would be willing to explore opportunities to target him, they practically fell out of their chairs,” the former U.S. official said. The former official said that JSOC had not developed any specific plan but was exploring scenarios against potential terrorism targets and wanted to gauge Israel’s willingness to serve as an evacuation point for U.S. commando teams.
The former official said that the JSOC approach envisioned a commando-style raid with U.S. Special Operations teams directly involved, not the sort of cloak-and-dagger operation that occurred years later.
“It never went anywhere,” said the former official, who was unaware of the CIA-Israeli operation to kill Mughniyah.
Still, the 2002 encounter suggests that Mughniyah continued to be a focus for U.S. counterterrorism officials even after their overwhelming attention had shifted to al-Qaeda.
“We never took our eye off Hezbollah, but our plate was full with al-Qaeda,” said Bernazzani, who retired from the FBI in 2008 and said he had no knowledge of the operation to kill Mughniyah.
A window of opportunity It is not clear when the CIA first realized Mughniyah was living in Damascus, but his whereabouts were known for at least a year before he was killed. One of the former U.S. intelligence officials said that the Israelis were first to approach the CIA about a joint operation to kill him in Damascus.
The agency had a well-established clandestine infrastructure in Damascus that the Israelis could utilize.
Officials said the Israelis wanted to pull the trigger as payback. “It was revenge,” another former official said. The Americans didn’t care as long as Mughniyah was dead, the official said, and there was little fear of blowback because Hezbollah would most probably blame the Israelis.
Amos Yadlin, the former head of Israeli military intelligence until 2010, said Mughniyah was positioned right under the group’s leader Hassan Nasrallah.
“He was the commander and chief of all military and terror operations,” Yadlin said, who declined to discuss Mughniyah’s demise. “He was the agent of the Iranians.”
The operation to target Mughniyah came at a time when the CIA and Mossad were working closely to thwart the nuclear ambitions of Syria and Iran. The CIA had helped the Mossad verify that the Syrians were building a nuclear reactor, leading to an Israeli airstrike on the facility in 2007. Israel and the United States were actively trying to sabotage the Iranian nuclear program.
Once Mughniyah was located in Damascus, the intelligence agencies began building a “pattern of life” profile, looking at his routine for vulnerabilities.
Mossad officials suggested occasional walks in the evening — when Mughniyah was unescorted — presented an opportunity. CIA officers with extensive undercover experience secured a safe house in a building near his apartment.

Planning for the operation was exhaustive. An Israeli proposal to place a bomb in the saddlebags of a bicycle or motorcycle was rejected because of concerns that the explosive charge might not project outward properly. The bomb had to be repeatedly tested and reconfigured to minimize the blast area. The location where Mughniyah was killed was close to a girls’ school.
One official said the bomb was tested many times at Harvey Point, a facility in North Carolina where the CIA would later construct a replica of Osama bin Laden’s compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan. Officials eventually concluded they had a bomb that could be used with no risk of others being killed or injured.
Mughniyah wasn’t alone in his confidence to operate freely in Damascus. During the operation, the CIA and Mossad had a chance to kill Qassem Soleimani, commander of Iran’s Quds Force, as he and Mughniyah walked together. Soleimani was an archenemy of Israel and had also orchestrated the training of Shiite militias in Iraq.
“At one point, the two men were standing there, same place, same street. All they had to do was push the button,” said one former official.
But the operatives didn’t have the legal authority to kill Soleimani, the officials said. There had been no presidential finding to do so.
When the bomb used to target Mughniyah was detonated, officials estimated the “kill zone” extended approximately 20 feet. The bomb was “very shaped and very charged,” an intelligence official recalled.
There was no collateral damage. “None. Not any,” the official said.
Facial recognition technology, another former official said, was used to confirm Mughniyah’s identity after he walked out of a restaurant in his neighborhood and moments before the bomb was detonated.
After the attack, Hezbollah leader Nasrallah blamed Israel for the killing and swore revenge: “Zionists, if you want an open war, let it be an open war anywhere.”
In fact, the damage to Hezbollah may have been compounded by the fact that the man charged with exacting revenge on Israel was a suspected Israeli asset. He was recently reported to be on trial in a Hezbollah court in Lebanon, but the group’s leader has downplayed the spy’s importance.
In a statement in 2008 after Mughniyah’s death, the office of then Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s office said: “Israel rejects the attempt by terror groups to attribute to it any involvement in this incident. We have nothing further to add.”
State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said at the time: “The world is a better place without this man in it. He was a coldblooded killer, a mass murderer and a terrorist responsible for countless innocent lives lost.”
Inside the intelligence community, a former official recalled, “It wasn’t jubilation.”
“We did what we had to,” the official said, “and let’s move on.”
William Booth in Jerusalem and Greg Miller, Karen DeYoung, Anne Gearan and Julie Tate in Washington contributed to this report.
Ellen Nakashima is a national security reporter for The Washington Post. She focuses on issues relating to intelligence, technology and civil liberties.
One official said the bomb was tested many times at Harvey Point, a facility in North Carolina where the CIA would later construct a replica of Osama bin Laden’s compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan. Officials eventually concluded they had a bomb that could be used with no risk of others being killed or injured.
Mughniyah wasn’t alone in his confidence to operate freely in Damascus. During the operation, the CIA and Mossad had a chance to kill Qassem Soleimani, commander of Iran’s Quds Force, as he and Mughniyah walked together. Soleimani was an archenemy of Israel and had also orchestrated the training of Shiite militias in Iraq.
“At one point, the two men were standing there, same place, same street. All they had to do was push the button,” said one former official.
But the operatives didn’t have the legal authority to kill Soleimani, the officials said. There had been no presidential finding to do so.
When the bomb used to target Mughniyah was detonated, officials estimated the “kill zone” extended approximately 20 feet. The bomb was “very shaped and very charged,” an intelligence official recalled.
There was no collateral damage. “None. Not any,” the official said.
Facial recognition technology, another former official said, was used to confirm Mughniyah’s identity after he walked out of a restaurant in his neighborhood and moments before the bomb was detonated.
After the attack, Hezbollah leader Nasrallah blamed Israel for the killing and swore revenge: “Zionists, if you want an open war, let it be an open war anywhere.”
In fact, the damage to Hezbollah may have been compounded by the fact that the man charged with exacting revenge on Israel was a suspected Israeli asset. He was recently reported to be on trial in a Hezbollah court in Lebanon, but the group’s leader has downplayed the spy’s importance.
In a statement in 2008 after Mughniyah’s death, the office of then Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s office said: “Israel rejects the attempt by terror groups to attribute to it any involvement in this incident. We have nothing further to add.”
State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said at the time: “The world is a better place without this man in it. He was a coldblooded killer, a mass murderer and a terrorist responsible for countless innocent lives lost.”
Inside the intelligence community, a former official recalled, “It wasn’t jubilation.”
“We did what we had to,” the official said, “and let’s move on.”
William Booth in Jerusalem and Greg Miller, Karen DeYoung, Anne Gearan and Julie Tate in Washington contributed to this report.
Ellen Nakashima is a national security reporter for The Washington Post. She focuses on issues relating to intelligence, technology and civil liberties.

Head of Lebanon’s Hezbollah resistance movement has lashed out at Tel Aviv regime for the recent killing of a number of its members, saying the Middle East region is suffering from “a cancerous growth called Israel.”
Hezbollah Secretary General Seyyed Hassan Nasrallah made the remarks on Friday during a speech about the Israeli attack on the Syrian Golan town of Quneitra on January 18.
He described the Israeli regime as a “trauma” and a “bacterium of corruption” which has been plaguing the whole region since 1948.
He recapped crimes against humanity committed by the Israeli regime in the region, referring to the Tel Aviv’s brutalities against Palestinians and Syrians.
“Israel has in recent years resorted to the same arrogant practices it had adopted decades ago. It has carried out a bloody campaign against Gaza and violated the most basic of Palestinian rights,” Hezbollah leader added.
Nasrallah further referred to the role of Israel in Syria and the regime’s support for the Takfiri militants operating against the Syrian government, saying, “In Syria, Israel has been backing the extremist groups and shelling government’s positions under various excuses. In Lebanon, it does not recognize resolution 1701 and has committed thousands of violations against its sovereignty.”
The resolution, which brokered a ceasefire in the war of aggression Israel launched on Lebanon in 2006, calls on Tel Aviv to respect Lebanon’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.
He emphasized that “Israel believes that it can threaten all armies and governments in the region whenever it pleases and without being deterred.”
Nasrallah also referred to the Arab countries’ inaction toward the crimes committed by the Tel Aviv regime, saying, “Israel is taking advantage of the divisions in the region and the complete absence of the stances by the Arab countries, especially the so-called Arab League.”
“There is no such thing as an Arab League or an independent Arab stance when it comes to Israel. Arab positions and arms are available when it comes to Yemen, Iraq, and Syria,” he said.
Referring to the killing of the members of the resistance movement in Quneitra, on the Syrian section of Golan Heights, Nasrallah said, “Our brothers in Quneitra were killed in a clear assassination, in a decision taken by Israel.”
“Israel has not yet claimed responsibility for the airstrike believing that Hezbollah is weak and would disregard the attack,” he added.
Nasrallah also took Israel to task for supporting Takfiri militants in Syria, including the al-Qaeda linked al-Nusra Front, saying, “Thousands of members of al-Nusra Front are present along the border with Israel in the occupied Golan Heights.”
The Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “is not at all concerned about the presence of al-Nusra on Israel's border,” the Hezbollah leader said, adding, “Israel, however, felt threatened by six Hezbollah members and an Iranian general passing through Quneitra.”
Six Hezbollah members as well as Brigadier General Mohammad Ali Allahdadi, an Iranian commander, lost their lives in an Israeli aerial assault on the Syrian section of Golan Heights on January 18. Hezbollah said 25-year-old Jihad Mughniyeh, the son of slain Hezbollah top commander, Imad Mughniyeh, was among those killed in the attack.
They were reportedly on a field reconnaissance mission in Quneitra when an Israeli military helicopter targeted their vehicle. Following the attack, Israel claimed that it was unaware of the presence of an Iranian commander in the area where the attack happened. Iranian officials, however, have rejected the claim, describing it as a routine tactic used by Israelis to hide their evil intentions.
The Hezbollah leader went on to note that Israel will not be allowed to escape the assault against the Lebanese resistance movement unscathed.
“We took no hesitation in making the decision that Israel should be punished for its crime in Quneitra,” Nasrallah said, adding, “We prepared ourselves for the worst case scenario when we took that decision.”
He also noted that Tel Aviv has been in a state of distress and intimidation for fear of reprisal by Hezbollah, saying, “Israel immediately anticipated Hezbollah’s retaliation to the Quneitra assassination and therefore took all precautions.”
Referring to an attack, which Hezbollah claimed it has carried out against Israel in the occupied Shebaa farms in south Lebanon, Nasrallah pointed out that the resistance movement is brave enough to claim responsibility for its attacks against Tel Aviv, implying that the Israeli regime lacks such a mentality and essence.
“The resistance carried out its Shebaa operation in broad daylight in spite of the fact that Israel was at its highest level of preparation,” he said, adding, “Israel did not claim responsibility for the Quneitra attack, but Hezbollah claimed responsibility for the Shebaa operation soon after it took place.”
The Hezbollah leader also warned Israel against any act of aggression against Hezbollah, saying, “Israel must understand that the resistance cannot be deterred.”
He also declared that the Lebanese resistance movement is not afraid of confronting Israel, saying Hezbollah is not fearful of standing against Israel.
“If Israel is thinking that we fear war, then I tell it that we do not fear war and we will not hesitate to take it if it is imposed on us,” Nasrallah said.
He, however, emphasized that Hezbollah does not “want a war, but we do not fear it... We have the right to confront the enemy at any time, place, or manner.”
The Hezbollah leader finally warned Israel that "from now on, if any member of Hezbollah is assassinated, we will blame it on Israel and reserve the right to respond to it whenever and however we choose."
Hezbollah Secretary General Seyyed Hassan Nasrallah made the remarks on Friday during a speech about the Israeli attack on the Syrian Golan town of Quneitra on January 18.
He described the Israeli regime as a “trauma” and a “bacterium of corruption” which has been plaguing the whole region since 1948.
He recapped crimes against humanity committed by the Israeli regime in the region, referring to the Tel Aviv’s brutalities against Palestinians and Syrians.
“Israel has in recent years resorted to the same arrogant practices it had adopted decades ago. It has carried out a bloody campaign against Gaza and violated the most basic of Palestinian rights,” Hezbollah leader added.
Nasrallah further referred to the role of Israel in Syria and the regime’s support for the Takfiri militants operating against the Syrian government, saying, “In Syria, Israel has been backing the extremist groups and shelling government’s positions under various excuses. In Lebanon, it does not recognize resolution 1701 and has committed thousands of violations against its sovereignty.”
The resolution, which brokered a ceasefire in the war of aggression Israel launched on Lebanon in 2006, calls on Tel Aviv to respect Lebanon’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.
He emphasized that “Israel believes that it can threaten all armies and governments in the region whenever it pleases and without being deterred.”
Nasrallah also referred to the Arab countries’ inaction toward the crimes committed by the Tel Aviv regime, saying, “Israel is taking advantage of the divisions in the region and the complete absence of the stances by the Arab countries, especially the so-called Arab League.”
“There is no such thing as an Arab League or an independent Arab stance when it comes to Israel. Arab positions and arms are available when it comes to Yemen, Iraq, and Syria,” he said.
Referring to the killing of the members of the resistance movement in Quneitra, on the Syrian section of Golan Heights, Nasrallah said, “Our brothers in Quneitra were killed in a clear assassination, in a decision taken by Israel.”
“Israel has not yet claimed responsibility for the airstrike believing that Hezbollah is weak and would disregard the attack,” he added.
Nasrallah also took Israel to task for supporting Takfiri militants in Syria, including the al-Qaeda linked al-Nusra Front, saying, “Thousands of members of al-Nusra Front are present along the border with Israel in the occupied Golan Heights.”
The Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “is not at all concerned about the presence of al-Nusra on Israel's border,” the Hezbollah leader said, adding, “Israel, however, felt threatened by six Hezbollah members and an Iranian general passing through Quneitra.”
Six Hezbollah members as well as Brigadier General Mohammad Ali Allahdadi, an Iranian commander, lost their lives in an Israeli aerial assault on the Syrian section of Golan Heights on January 18. Hezbollah said 25-year-old Jihad Mughniyeh, the son of slain Hezbollah top commander, Imad Mughniyeh, was among those killed in the attack.
They were reportedly on a field reconnaissance mission in Quneitra when an Israeli military helicopter targeted their vehicle. Following the attack, Israel claimed that it was unaware of the presence of an Iranian commander in the area where the attack happened. Iranian officials, however, have rejected the claim, describing it as a routine tactic used by Israelis to hide their evil intentions.
The Hezbollah leader went on to note that Israel will not be allowed to escape the assault against the Lebanese resistance movement unscathed.
“We took no hesitation in making the decision that Israel should be punished for its crime in Quneitra,” Nasrallah said, adding, “We prepared ourselves for the worst case scenario when we took that decision.”
He also noted that Tel Aviv has been in a state of distress and intimidation for fear of reprisal by Hezbollah, saying, “Israel immediately anticipated Hezbollah’s retaliation to the Quneitra assassination and therefore took all precautions.”
Referring to an attack, which Hezbollah claimed it has carried out against Israel in the occupied Shebaa farms in south Lebanon, Nasrallah pointed out that the resistance movement is brave enough to claim responsibility for its attacks against Tel Aviv, implying that the Israeli regime lacks such a mentality and essence.
“The resistance carried out its Shebaa operation in broad daylight in spite of the fact that Israel was at its highest level of preparation,” he said, adding, “Israel did not claim responsibility for the Quneitra attack, but Hezbollah claimed responsibility for the Shebaa operation soon after it took place.”
The Hezbollah leader also warned Israel against any act of aggression against Hezbollah, saying, “Israel must understand that the resistance cannot be deterred.”
He also declared that the Lebanese resistance movement is not afraid of confronting Israel, saying Hezbollah is not fearful of standing against Israel.
“If Israel is thinking that we fear war, then I tell it that we do not fear war and we will not hesitate to take it if it is imposed on us,” Nasrallah said.
He, however, emphasized that Hezbollah does not “want a war, but we do not fear it... We have the right to confront the enemy at any time, place, or manner.”
The Hezbollah leader finally warned Israel that "from now on, if any member of Hezbollah is assassinated, we will blame it on Israel and reserve the right to respond to it whenever and however we choose."

Israeli foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman Thursday criticized premier Benjamin Netanyahu over citing the last military offensive on Gaza as an example of Israel’s power of deterrence.
"Operation Protective Edge in Gaza was the exact opposite example of how to achieve and maintain deterrence against terror organizations," Lieberman said. "This is not deterrence; it is turning a blind eye."
Lieberman also slammed Netanyahu’s decision to contain the Hezbollah attack, saying, "Those who want to contain this situation agree to allow terror organizations to hold onto the on-off switch for the daily lives of the citizens of Israel."
Earlier on Wednesday the Israeli premier threatened to strongly respond to Hezbollah's deadly attack on the Shebaa Farms in the northern borders with Palestine.
Netanyahu further called on Hezbollah to draw lessons from Israel's last devastating war on Gaza.
Later, Netanyahu declared his decision to contain the tension and not to further response to Hezbollah's attack.
"Operation Protective Edge in Gaza was the exact opposite example of how to achieve and maintain deterrence against terror organizations," Lieberman said. "This is not deterrence; it is turning a blind eye."
Lieberman also slammed Netanyahu’s decision to contain the Hezbollah attack, saying, "Those who want to contain this situation agree to allow terror organizations to hold onto the on-off switch for the daily lives of the citizens of Israel."
Earlier on Wednesday the Israeli premier threatened to strongly respond to Hezbollah's deadly attack on the Shebaa Farms in the northern borders with Palestine.
Netanyahu further called on Hezbollah to draw lessons from Israel's last devastating war on Gaza.
Later, Netanyahu declared his decision to contain the tension and not to further response to Hezbollah's attack.
28 jan 2015

Following the Wednesday attack on Israeli soldiers on the Lebanese border, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu convened in Tel Aviv with senior Israeli military and security commander to discuss the “Israeli Response."
Netanyahu said Israel will respond to the death of two of its soldiers, who were killed in a Hezbollah attack while patrolling the Israeli-occupied Lebanese Shebaa Farms.
“Whoever is behind this attack will pay the price,” Netanyahu said, “Iran, through Hezbollah Party in Lebanon, has been trying to set up a terrorist front against Israel in the Golan Heights…”
He also said that Tel Aviv holds the Lebanese Government and Syria’s President Bashar Assad responsible for the attack, and for its consequences.
His statements came at the beginning of the meeting with Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon, Israeli Army Chief of Staff Benny Gantz, Shin Bet heads Yoram Cohen, and various security leaders.
The Israeli Prime Minister vowed retaliation, and said Israel will “defend itself by all means.”
Prior to the meeting, the Israeli army bombarded several targets in southern Lebanon with at least 25 artillery shells, killing a UNIFIL soldier. (United Nations Interim Force In Lebanon.)
Hezbollah party also said it retaliated by firing shells into Israeli areas close to the border, while Israel said that a house in the Ghajar village was burnt when shells struck it.
Israel said more shells were fired into the Hermon region in the afternoon hours, Wednesday, and that Hezbollah fighters targeted an Israeli army vehicle with an anti-tank missile, near the Lebanese border.
The latest escalation came after Israel bombarded, on Tuesday, a number of Syrian army posts; allegedly after rockets were fired into the occupied Golan Heights.
Hezbollah and Iranian official said the attack on the Israeli army vehicles was in response to the death of Iranian Revolutionary Guard Gen. Mohammad Allahdadi, and six senior Hezbollah fighters, killed in an Israeli Air Strike on January 18.
One of the slain fighters was the Jihad Moghaniya, the son of late Hezbollah leader Imad Mughaniya, who was assassinated by the Israeli army in February of 2008.
Hezbollah officials held a meeting Wednesday and confirmed that one of the party’s groups targeted the Israeli military vehicles, approximately at 11:25 before noon, while operating in the occupied Shebaa farms.
Netanyahu said Israel will respond to the death of two of its soldiers, who were killed in a Hezbollah attack while patrolling the Israeli-occupied Lebanese Shebaa Farms.
“Whoever is behind this attack will pay the price,” Netanyahu said, “Iran, through Hezbollah Party in Lebanon, has been trying to set up a terrorist front against Israel in the Golan Heights…”
He also said that Tel Aviv holds the Lebanese Government and Syria’s President Bashar Assad responsible for the attack, and for its consequences.
His statements came at the beginning of the meeting with Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon, Israeli Army Chief of Staff Benny Gantz, Shin Bet heads Yoram Cohen, and various security leaders.
The Israeli Prime Minister vowed retaliation, and said Israel will “defend itself by all means.”
Prior to the meeting, the Israeli army bombarded several targets in southern Lebanon with at least 25 artillery shells, killing a UNIFIL soldier. (United Nations Interim Force In Lebanon.)
Hezbollah party also said it retaliated by firing shells into Israeli areas close to the border, while Israel said that a house in the Ghajar village was burnt when shells struck it.
Israel said more shells were fired into the Hermon region in the afternoon hours, Wednesday, and that Hezbollah fighters targeted an Israeli army vehicle with an anti-tank missile, near the Lebanese border.
The latest escalation came after Israel bombarded, on Tuesday, a number of Syrian army posts; allegedly after rockets were fired into the occupied Golan Heights.
Hezbollah and Iranian official said the attack on the Israeli army vehicles was in response to the death of Iranian Revolutionary Guard Gen. Mohammad Allahdadi, and six senior Hezbollah fighters, killed in an Israeli Air Strike on January 18.
One of the slain fighters was the Jihad Moghaniya, the son of late Hezbollah leader Imad Mughaniya, who was assassinated by the Israeli army in February of 2008.
Hezbollah officials held a meeting Wednesday and confirmed that one of the party’s groups targeted the Israeli military vehicles, approximately at 11:25 before noon, while operating in the occupied Shebaa farms.

Palestinian factions hailed on Wednesday the Lebanese resistance operation which hit an Israeli military patrol in Shaba Farms on the southern borders of Lebanon.
Islamic Resistance Movement, Hamas, confirmed the right of the Lebanese party, Hezbollah, to respond to the Israeli aggression.
Meanwhile, other factions including the Islamic Jihad Movement and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) hailed the operation and described it as heroic.
The PFLP said, in a statement, this operation comes in response to the Israeli aggression that killed six of Hezbollah leaders.
The PFLP also renewed its call for forming a united resistance front of all resistance powers in Palestine and the Arab region.
Four Israeli soldiers were killed at noon Wednesday as their armored vehicle was hit in a missile attack on the borders with Lebanon. Hezbollah claimed responsibility over the attack on the Israeli military patrol in Shaba Farms.
Islamic Resistance Movement, Hamas, confirmed the right of the Lebanese party, Hezbollah, to respond to the Israeli aggression.
Meanwhile, other factions including the Islamic Jihad Movement and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) hailed the operation and described it as heroic.
The PFLP said, in a statement, this operation comes in response to the Israeli aggression that killed six of Hezbollah leaders.
The PFLP also renewed its call for forming a united resistance front of all resistance powers in Palestine and the Arab region.
Four Israeli soldiers were killed at noon Wednesday as their armored vehicle was hit in a missile attack on the borders with Lebanon. Hezbollah claimed responsibility over the attack on the Israeli military patrol in Shaba Farms.

The Israeli Government informed the United Nations Security Council, Wednesday, it will conduct all needed measures “to defend itself," following the death of two of its soldiers in clashes with Hezbollah fighters in southern Lebanon.
Israeli Ambassador to the United Nations Ron Prosor informed the Security Council that Israel will not stand still “while Hezbollah fighters are attacking Israelis,” and that “Tel Aviv will conduct all needed measures to defend itself.”
“Israel will not tolerate any attack on its soil,” the Israeli official said, “We will defend ourselves, and will conduct all needed measures to do so.”
The Wednesday deadly attack by Hezbollah fighters took place in the Lebanese Shebaa farms, occupied by Israel.
Israeli daily, Haaretz, said Member of Knesset Tzipi Livni toured the border area with senior army commanders and said, “Israel will respond harshly to the Hezbollah attack that led to the death of two Israeli soldiers.”
Livni, the leader of Hatnuah Party in Israel, also said during her tour that the Israeli-occupied Syrian Golan Heights "are not open for negotiations, and will always be part of Israel."
She added that all parties involved in the attack, whether it is Iran acting in proxy through Hezbollah party in Lebanon, the Syrians, or any other party, “must understand that any attack on Israeli soldiers or civilians will be met with a harsh and decisive retaliation.
Head of the Meretz Part Zahava Gal-On said should Israel be impulsive in its reactions, similar to previous experiences; it could drag the area into a renewed and escalated confrontation.
She urged the government of Benjamin Netanyahu to act on calming the situation through diplomacy, adding that Tel Aviv has bitter past bitter experiences with Israeli military escalation prior to elections in the country.
Gal-On strongly criticized Netanyahu’s statement in reaction to the Hezbollah attack in which he said that “those who challenge Israel on the northern border should learn from what happened in Gaza.”
Gal-On stated that trying to drag Israel into an unnecessary new war with Lebanon is “the last thing Tel Aviv needs,” and that it is not in anybody’s interest to engage in a third Lebanon war, Haaretz said.
It is worth mentioning that the Israeli army fired several shells into southern Lebanon, while Lebanese sources confirmed the military fired more than 25 shells into the country, killing a UNIFIL soldier.
Israeli Ambassador to the United Nations Ron Prosor informed the Security Council that Israel will not stand still “while Hezbollah fighters are attacking Israelis,” and that “Tel Aviv will conduct all needed measures to defend itself.”
“Israel will not tolerate any attack on its soil,” the Israeli official said, “We will defend ourselves, and will conduct all needed measures to do so.”
The Wednesday deadly attack by Hezbollah fighters took place in the Lebanese Shebaa farms, occupied by Israel.
Israeli daily, Haaretz, said Member of Knesset Tzipi Livni toured the border area with senior army commanders and said, “Israel will respond harshly to the Hezbollah attack that led to the death of two Israeli soldiers.”
Livni, the leader of Hatnuah Party in Israel, also said during her tour that the Israeli-occupied Syrian Golan Heights "are not open for negotiations, and will always be part of Israel."
She added that all parties involved in the attack, whether it is Iran acting in proxy through Hezbollah party in Lebanon, the Syrians, or any other party, “must understand that any attack on Israeli soldiers or civilians will be met with a harsh and decisive retaliation.
Head of the Meretz Part Zahava Gal-On said should Israel be impulsive in its reactions, similar to previous experiences; it could drag the area into a renewed and escalated confrontation.
She urged the government of Benjamin Netanyahu to act on calming the situation through diplomacy, adding that Tel Aviv has bitter past bitter experiences with Israeli military escalation prior to elections in the country.
Gal-On strongly criticized Netanyahu’s statement in reaction to the Hezbollah attack in which he said that “those who challenge Israel on the northern border should learn from what happened in Gaza.”
Gal-On stated that trying to drag Israel into an unnecessary new war with Lebanon is “the last thing Tel Aviv needs,” and that it is not in anybody’s interest to engage in a third Lebanon war, Haaretz said.
It is worth mentioning that the Israeli army fired several shells into southern Lebanon, while Lebanese sources confirmed the military fired more than 25 shells into the country, killing a UNIFIL soldier.

Israeli sources have reported, Wednesday, that two soldiers have been killed and seven injured in an attack carried out by fighters of the Lebanon-based Hezbollah party in the Shebaa farms, in southern Lebanon.
A Spanish member of the UNIFIL was killed in the Israeli strike.
The sources said that one of the slain soldier is a senior commander who was touring with the soldiers in the occupied territory.
The United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) said Israeli soldiers shelled borders areas in southern Lebanon killing one of its peacekeepers from Spain.
The Hezbollah-run al-Manar TV said its fighters targeted an Israeli military convoy, composed of several armored vehicles and senior military officers, in the occupied farms, by firing rockets at them causing various deaths and injuries.
It said that on Wednesday, approximately at 11:25 before noon, fighters of its al-Quneitra Martyr’s group firing specialized rockets targeted the Israeli convoy in the Shebaa farms.
In its statement, Hezbollah said its fighters ambushed nine Israeli military vehicles operating in the Shebaa farms. The latest Hezbollah operation is likely motivated by the recent Israeli air strike, on January 18 that targeted Hezbollah fighters killing six of them in addition to an Iranian general.
Commenting on the shelling, the Lebanese army said it has nothing to do with the attack, as it was not carried out from a Lebanese territory, adding that the Israeli retaliation was random, targeting different area along the border.
The Israeli army said “it was not interested in retaliation,” yet the army bombarded Kfarchouba village, in southern Lebanon, with more than 25 shells, while the Israeli Air Force also bombarded several Hezbollah targets.
Israeli Army spokesperson Moti Almoz said the Israeli bombarded is not the last Israeli retaliation to the attack. Israeli army Chief of Staff Benjamin "Benny" Gantz arrived in the Northern Command of the Israeli Army to hold a session to evaluate the situation with senior military commanders.
On Sunday evening, January 18, six Hezbollah fighters were killed in an Israeli air strike in Syria’s al-Qneitra; one of the slain fighters is the son of late Hezbollah leader Imad Mughaniya who was assassinated by Israel in February of 2008. Six Hezbollah Fighters Killed by Israeli Airstrike in Syria
Two Israeli Soldiers have been killed, following an exchange of fire between the Shuhada Al-Qneitra Hezbollah group, in Syria, and Israeli forces in Shebaa village, on the southern Lebanon borders (occupied Golan Heights), Israeli Channel 10 announced.
Netanyahu responded by recalling the aggression on Gaza last summer: "Who wants to challenge us in the north [of Israeli-occupied Palestine] must look at what we've done to Gaza."
A Spanish United Nations Interim Force In Lebanon (UNIFIL) soldier was killed in South Lebanon during an Israeli attack in the same region, earlier today, PNN further reports.
Israeli forces are importing tanks from the South to the North, in addition to warships currently entering Lebanese territorial water.
The UN units on the Israeli-Lebanese borders have been deployed to "calm the situation", and implement the ceasfire taken in 2006.
On the other hand, authorities asked Israelis in Galilee not to leave their houses, but to evacuate public places.
The Israeli air force announced strikes on Syrian army artillery targets, late Tuesday night, in response to an earlier rocket attack on Golan Heights and Mount Hermon which, in turn, came as a response to killing 6 Hezbollah members in Syria, on January 18th.
A Spanish member of the UNIFIL was killed in the Israeli strike.
The sources said that one of the slain soldier is a senior commander who was touring with the soldiers in the occupied territory.
The United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) said Israeli soldiers shelled borders areas in southern Lebanon killing one of its peacekeepers from Spain.
The Hezbollah-run al-Manar TV said its fighters targeted an Israeli military convoy, composed of several armored vehicles and senior military officers, in the occupied farms, by firing rockets at them causing various deaths and injuries.
It said that on Wednesday, approximately at 11:25 before noon, fighters of its al-Quneitra Martyr’s group firing specialized rockets targeted the Israeli convoy in the Shebaa farms.
In its statement, Hezbollah said its fighters ambushed nine Israeli military vehicles operating in the Shebaa farms. The latest Hezbollah operation is likely motivated by the recent Israeli air strike, on January 18 that targeted Hezbollah fighters killing six of them in addition to an Iranian general.
Commenting on the shelling, the Lebanese army said it has nothing to do with the attack, as it was not carried out from a Lebanese territory, adding that the Israeli retaliation was random, targeting different area along the border.
The Israeli army said “it was not interested in retaliation,” yet the army bombarded Kfarchouba village, in southern Lebanon, with more than 25 shells, while the Israeli Air Force also bombarded several Hezbollah targets.
Israeli Army spokesperson Moti Almoz said the Israeli bombarded is not the last Israeli retaliation to the attack. Israeli army Chief of Staff Benjamin "Benny" Gantz arrived in the Northern Command of the Israeli Army to hold a session to evaluate the situation with senior military commanders.
On Sunday evening, January 18, six Hezbollah fighters were killed in an Israeli air strike in Syria’s al-Qneitra; one of the slain fighters is the son of late Hezbollah leader Imad Mughaniya who was assassinated by Israel in February of 2008. Six Hezbollah Fighters Killed by Israeli Airstrike in Syria
Two Israeli Soldiers have been killed, following an exchange of fire between the Shuhada Al-Qneitra Hezbollah group, in Syria, and Israeli forces in Shebaa village, on the southern Lebanon borders (occupied Golan Heights), Israeli Channel 10 announced.
Netanyahu responded by recalling the aggression on Gaza last summer: "Who wants to challenge us in the north [of Israeli-occupied Palestine] must look at what we've done to Gaza."
A Spanish United Nations Interim Force In Lebanon (UNIFIL) soldier was killed in South Lebanon during an Israeli attack in the same region, earlier today, PNN further reports.
Israeli forces are importing tanks from the South to the North, in addition to warships currently entering Lebanese territorial water.
The UN units on the Israeli-Lebanese borders have been deployed to "calm the situation", and implement the ceasfire taken in 2006.
On the other hand, authorities asked Israelis in Galilee not to leave their houses, but to evacuate public places.
The Israeli air force announced strikes on Syrian army artillery targets, late Tuesday night, in response to an earlier rocket attack on Golan Heights and Mount Hermon which, in turn, came as a response to killing 6 Hezbollah members in Syria, on January 18th.
27 jan 2015

Occupied Golan hill the moment struck by rocket
Two rockets fired from Syria hit the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights on Tuesday, just nine days after an Israeli air strike in Syria killed several Lebanese Hezbollah guerrillas and an Iranian general, Reuters reported.
According to the PNN, an Israeli military spokesman said that, after the rockets struck, the army ordered the evacuation of Israel's Mt. Hermon ski resort in the Golan Heights.
It was not immediately known who launched the projectiles. Israel's Channel 2 TV said there were no casualties and that Israeli forces returned fire.
At least 20 artillery shells were reportedly fired into Syria, by Israel, in response.
In an Israeli air strike on a Hezbollah convoy near the Golan Heights, on January 18th, an Iranian Revolutionary Guard general, Mohammed Allahdadi, was killed along with a Hezbollah commander and the son of the group's late military leader, Imad Mughaniya.
Israel captured Golan from Syria in the 1967 Middle East war. Numerous mortar shells and rockets have been reported to hit the region during Syria's nearly four-year-old civil war.
Israeli officials have said that some of these incidents deliberately targeted its soldiers, while others were overspill from fighting between rebels and forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
Two rockets fired from Syria hit the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights on Tuesday, just nine days after an Israeli air strike in Syria killed several Lebanese Hezbollah guerrillas and an Iranian general, Reuters reported.
According to the PNN, an Israeli military spokesman said that, after the rockets struck, the army ordered the evacuation of Israel's Mt. Hermon ski resort in the Golan Heights.
It was not immediately known who launched the projectiles. Israel's Channel 2 TV said there were no casualties and that Israeli forces returned fire.
At least 20 artillery shells were reportedly fired into Syria, by Israel, in response.
In an Israeli air strike on a Hezbollah convoy near the Golan Heights, on January 18th, an Iranian Revolutionary Guard general, Mohammed Allahdadi, was killed along with a Hezbollah commander and the son of the group's late military leader, Imad Mughaniya.
Israel captured Golan from Syria in the 1967 Middle East war. Numerous mortar shells and rockets have been reported to hit the region during Syria's nearly four-year-old civil war.
Israeli officials have said that some of these incidents deliberately targeted its soldiers, while others were overspill from fighting between rebels and forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
23 jan 2015

An Israeli soldier scans the area from his tank positioned in the Israeli-occupied Golan Height
Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon said Friday that Israel was prepared for any retaliation by Hezbollah, after it carried out a deadly airstrike in Syria against the Lebanese Shiite militant group.
Yaalon toured Israel's northern frontiers with Syria and Lebanon alongside army chief of staff Benny Gantz, as the military beefed up its presence in the area.
"We need to be operational and ready to face any challenge," Yaalon said in a statement.
"Israel will hold responsible governments, regimes, and organizations on the other side of our northern borders over any violation of Israel's sovereignty, or an attack on soldiers or civilians," he said.
Israel's airstrike inside the Syrian-controlled sector of the Golan Heights on Jan. 18 killed six members of Hezbollah, which is backed by Iran and allied with Syrian President Bashar Assad.
Israel neither confirmed nor denied responsibility, but it has carried out several such strikes over the past two years, stressing its policy of preventing arms transfers to militant groups.
Hezbollah has responded in the past with explosive devices placed along the frontier.
Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah is to give a speech next Friday reacting to the Israeli raid, in which a general of Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards was also killed.
Gantz said: "Forces are on alert and prepared to respond if needed" in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, where Israel shares a ceasefire line with Syria.
"The IDF (military) is prepared for any scenario, and will, on the one hand, exercise proper discretion, and on the other, operate with determination and the required intensity," he said.
Israel has deployed its Iron Dome missile defense system in the north, where local media say it is amassing tanks and infantry reinforcements.
Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon said Friday that Israel was prepared for any retaliation by Hezbollah, after it carried out a deadly airstrike in Syria against the Lebanese Shiite militant group.
Yaalon toured Israel's northern frontiers with Syria and Lebanon alongside army chief of staff Benny Gantz, as the military beefed up its presence in the area.
"We need to be operational and ready to face any challenge," Yaalon said in a statement.
"Israel will hold responsible governments, regimes, and organizations on the other side of our northern borders over any violation of Israel's sovereignty, or an attack on soldiers or civilians," he said.
Israel's airstrike inside the Syrian-controlled sector of the Golan Heights on Jan. 18 killed six members of Hezbollah, which is backed by Iran and allied with Syrian President Bashar Assad.
Israel neither confirmed nor denied responsibility, but it has carried out several such strikes over the past two years, stressing its policy of preventing arms transfers to militant groups.
Hezbollah has responded in the past with explosive devices placed along the frontier.
Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah is to give a speech next Friday reacting to the Israeli raid, in which a general of Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards was also killed.
Gantz said: "Forces are on alert and prepared to respond if needed" in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, where Israel shares a ceasefire line with Syria.
"The IDF (military) is prepared for any scenario, and will, on the one hand, exercise proper discretion, and on the other, operate with determination and the required intensity," he said.
Israel has deployed its Iron Dome missile defense system in the north, where local media say it is amassing tanks and infantry reinforcements.