Hezbollah dealt major blow by death of a "legend"

BEIRUT (Reuters) - Lebanon's Hezbollah has suffered a serious blow with the killing of Imad Moughniyah but the guerrilla group is unlikely to retaliate immediately, analysts and political sources said on Wednesday.

Hezbollah, which is backed by Syria and Iran, accused Israel of the killing, but the Jewish state swiftly denied any role.

Seen as a legend by supporters and a terrorist mastermind by his foes, Moughniyah had been top of the U.S. most wanted list before Osama bin Laden emerged as an enemy of the United States.

He was killed by a bomb that ripped through his car in Damascus shortly before midnight on Tuesday. He had been implicated in attacks on Israeli and Western targets dating to the early 1980s.

"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.

Moughniyah had been underground for more than two decades, moving mainly between Beirut, Damascus and Tehran. His whereabouts and movements were kept secret even from senior Hezbollah officials.

Myths were written about him. Some held that he had undergone plastic surgery, others that he had not been photographed in 25 years. A picture released by Hezbollah on Wednesday showed the bearded 45-year-old with graying hair and wearing military fatigues.

"For many years, many different teams were looking for him, trying to exact the price for the catalogue of attacks he allegedly had carried out," said Magnus Ranstorp, terrorism expert at the Swedish National Defence College.

But while analysts were divided on how quickly Hezbollah might retaliate against Israel for the death of a man who played a key battle role during its 2006 war with Israel, a Lebanese political source ruled it out for the time being.

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

SPECIAL OPS CHIEF

Moughniyah was first the head of Hezbollah's security network but more recently became its special operation's chief.

He is believed to have led Islamic Jihad, a pro-Iranian group that emerged in the early 1980s during Lebanon's civil war and was thought linked to Hezbollah.

He was implicated in the 1983 bombings of the U.S. embassy and U.S. Marine and French peacekeeping barracks in Beirut, which killed over 350 people, as well as the 1992 bombing of the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires and the kidnapping of Westerners in Lebanon in the 1980s.

The United States indicted him for his role in planning and participating in the June 14, 1985, hijacking of a U.S. TWA airliner and the killing of an American passenger on board.

Damascus, a vital ally of Hezbollah, should have been a safe haven for Moughniyah. But the killing showed a major breach in security in a country which also hosts Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal and other enemies of Israel.

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

Goksel said a false sense of security in Damascus might have led Moughniyah to drop his guard.

"One gets the feeling that he might have felt more comfortable in the Syrian environment," he said, adding that Israel was the prime suspect. Analysts ruled out the idea that Moughniyah had been 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. Such assassinations were a specialty of Israeli and not U.S. intelligence, he added.

Whoever the assassins, they will not rush to 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.

(Editing by Samia Nakhoul)