FACTBOX: Who was Imad Moughniyah?

(Reuters) - A car bomb in Damascus on Tuesday killed Hezbollah commander Imad Moughniyah, the group said.

Here are some key facts:

* Moughniyah was the head of the security apparatus for Hezbollah and was on the FBI list of "most wanted terrorists". Washington had placed a reward of $5 million for his capture or conviction.

* Islamic Jihad, a shadowy pro-Iranian group widely believed linked to Hezbollah, kidnapped dozens of Western hostages, including Americans, in Beirut in the mid 1980s at a time when Moughniyah was thought to be the group's commander.

The group killed some of its captives and exchanged others for U.S. weapons to Iran in what was later known as the Iran-Contra scandal. Among the victims of Islamic Jihad was the CIA's Middle East station chief.

* Islamic Jihad militants linked to Hezbollah were blamed for a 1983 attack on a U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut that killed 241 people, the bombing of its embassy the same year, in which 63 people were killed and an attack on a French base which killed 58 French paratroopers.

* Moughniyah was also indicted for his role in planning and participating in the June 14, 1985, hijacking of a U.S. plane.

Four Hezbollah operatives hijacked a TWA flight, traveling between Athens and Rome, to Beirut, beginning a 17-day ordeal in which the plane made two trips to Algeria. The hijackers killed U.S. Navy diver Robert Dean Stethem in Beirut.

* Moughniyah was also indicted for the 1994 bombing of a Jewish community centre in Buenos Aires, which killed 85 people, and was the subject of an arrest warrant for the 1992 bombing of the Israeli embassy there, in which 29 people died.

* In October 2001, the FBI put Moughniyah and two fellow Lebanese Shi'ites, Hassan Izz al-Dine and Ali Atwi on a list of 22 people wanted for "terrorist" acts.

Moughniyah's inclusion marked his re-emergence as a prominent U.S. "public enemy". Though he was overshadowed by al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, Washington had incessantly pursued Moughniyah.

Sources: Reuters/www.globalsecurity.org/

www.fbi.gov/wanted/terrorists

(Writing by David Cutler, London Editorial Reference Unit)