Hezbollah dealt major blow by death of a "legend"

By Nadim Ladki - Analysis

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.