Hezbollah appoints successor to slain commander

By Nadim Ladki

BEIRUT (Reuters) - Lebanon's Hezbollah has appointed a successor to its senior guerrilla commander Imad Moughniyah who was assassinated in Syria this week, a Lebanese security source said on Friday.

The source said the appointment was made hours after the announcement of Moughniyah's death in a car bomb in Damascus on Tuesday. He did not identify the successor who would now command Hezbollah's formidable and well-armed guerrilla army.

A joint investigation into the bombing by Syrians, Iranians and Hezbollah was well under way and suspects had been arrested in the Syrian capital, the source said.

Hezbollah and its main backer Iran have accused Israel of killing Moughniyah, who was among the United States' most wanted men. The Israeli government has denied any links, though its Mossad spy service had been hunting him for two decades.

"A successor to Imad Moughniyah has been appointed, which is natural," said the source, who requested anonymity. "That's how Hezbollah works, they move quickly to choose successors of fallen leaders."

The source said the successor was not one of the two names being circulated in the Israeli media. Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah has threatened Israel with "open war" in retaliation for the killing.

Moughniyah had been in charge of Hezbollah's security organ. He gained legendary status in Hezbollah for a string of attacks on Israeli and Western targets in Lebanon in the 1980s.

An Iranian Arabic television station released mobile phone footage of the scene minutes after the blast that killed Moughniyah, chief of the forces of a group that fought a 34-day war against Israel in 2006.