Word: syria
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Apart from his ties to Hizballah, Mughniyah was also believed to have worked closely with Iran. A U.S. official confirmed reports that in 2006, Mughniyah accompanied Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on a trip to Syria and met with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad...
Hizballah immediately blamed Israel for Mughniyah's assassination in Damascus, Syria, Tuesday night. Israel's Mossad spy agency is a reasonable suspect, given Israel's determination to bring him to justice for his alleged involvement in the 1990s bombings in Argentina of the Israeli embassy and a Jewish cultural center. Israeli intelligence has a good history of eliminating terrorist masterminds, even when they are located in unfriendly Arab capitals...
...John Le Carre world of Middle East terrorism and politics, however, it's impossible to rule out the wildest of conspiracy theories, including that Mughniyah's friends in Syria or Iran may have found his continued existence to be an inconvenience. Or, they may have believed it was politically useful to demonstrate that they can be relied on to control terrorism in the Middle East - as long as the U.S. doesn't try to go after the regimes in Damascus or Tehran. With reporting by Aaron J. Klein/Jerusalem
...long in itself is a bad sign. The group with the most to gain are the anti-Syrian factions in Lebanon - the Sunnis, Druze, and anti-Syrian Christians. By assassinating Mughniyah in Damascus, they grievously embarrassed Bashar al-Asad, underscoring what many Lebanese do not want us to forget: Syria harbors terrorists. The fact that Mughniyah was killed on the eve of the anniversary of the assassination of former prime minister Rafiq Hariri is probably not a coincidence...
...unclear exactly what could set off violence in Syria. But it should be kept in mind that Hizballah Secretary General Hasan Nasrallah was extremely close to Mughniyah. As Lebanon boils, Nasrallah will be sorely tempted to take revenge, whether it's against anti-Syrian Lebanese leaders, Israel, or even the United States...