Senior Hezbollah operative Imad Fayez Mughniyeh has for decades managed to escape attempts by the Americans and the Israelis to kill or capture him.

But on Tuesday night, Mughniyeh was killed by a bomb that ripped through his car in the Syrian capital, Damascus, in an attack widely blamed on Israel.

Seen as a “hero” by supporters and a “terrorist” by his enemies, Mughniyeh had been on top of the U.S. most wanted list before al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden emerged.

Several myths were written about him, and not much is known about his early years. According to the BBC, he was born in 1962 to a prominent Shia family in southern Lebanon, which later moved to the southern suburbs of Beirut.

Mughniyeh is believed to have led Islamic Jihad, a group closely linked to Hezbollah that was founded in the 1980s during Lebanon’s civil war. He was first the head of Hezbollah's security network but more recently became its special operation's chief, Reuters reported.

In 1983, Mughniyeh was implicated in the bombings of the U.S. embassy and U.S. Marine and French peacekeeping barracks in Beirut, which killed over 350 people. He was also the prime suspect in the 1992 bombing of the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires and the kidnapping of Westerners in Lebanon in the 1980s. The U.S. also accuses him of planning the 1985 hijacking of a U.S. TWA airliner and the killing of an American passenger on board.

According to Reuters, Mughniyeh had been underground for more than two decades, moving between Beirut, Damascus and Tehran. His whereabouts and movements were kept secret even from top Hezbollah officials.

Some U.S. officials dubbed him as the “faceless terrorist”, because few knew exactly how he looks like. The FBI's picture of him is 20-years-old and he is believed to have undergone plastic surgery to dramatically change his appearance since then.

Robert Baer, who hunted Mughniyeh for years as a CIA officer, once said that Mughniyeh rarely showed himself outside his inner circle.

"Mughniyeh is probably the most intelligent, most capable operative we've ever run across," Mr Baer told a CBS's 60 Minutes program a few years ago.

"He enters by one door, exits by another, changes his cars daily, never makes appointments on a telephone, never is predictable... He only uses people that are related to him that he can trust."

“Blow to Hezbollah?”

According to an article on Reuters, Mughniyeh’s assassination dealt a serious blow to Hezbollah.

"It is a very major blow because he is a very big name, he is a legend in Hezbollah and more than that, it is a prestige blow," Timur Goksel, a lecturer on security affairs at the American University of Beirut, told Reuters.

But many analysts ruled out that Hezbollah would immediately retaliate against Israel for Mughniyeh’s death.

"Retaliation will mean a change in the ground rules in confrontation with Israel," a Lebanese political source told Reuters. "Such a decision needs to be taken with a cold head so there would be no rush to respond."

“Security breach”

Although Damascus should have been a safe haven for Mughniyeh, the killing indicated a major breach in security in a country which also hosts Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal, who is wanted by Israel.

"It is no secret that a breach of security took place," Syrian journalist Thabet Salem said. "Mughniyeh was a target. Big efforts were being exerted to scrutinize and monitor his movements."

Although Israel swiftly denied any connection with killing, several analysts suggested that Israeli intelligence agents were behind it.

Such assassinations are a specialty of Israeli and not U.S. intelligence, Timur Goskel said, ruling out that Mughniyeh was killed by any of his allies.

"This is a major operation to penetrate the Syrian security environment, to penetrate this guy's movements and to plan this and carry it out in Damascus is not an amateur operation," Goksel said.

However, many analysts agree that the assassins would never claim responsibility for the killing.

"None of the (suspected) parties -- Israel and the United States -- will admit to it. The U.S. administration will celebrate. The Israelis will never claim responsibility. They make things happen," Ranstorp said.

Source: Aljazeera