CORRECTED - Bomb kills top Hezbollah commander

By Laila Bassam and Nadim Ladki

BEIRUT (Reuters) - Hezbollah leader Imad Moughniyah, on theUnited States' most wanted list for attacks on Israeli andWestern targets, has been killed by a bomb attack in Damascus,the Lebanese group said on Wednesday.

Hezbollah accused Israel of assassinating Moughniyah, whowas head of the Hezbollah security network during Lebanon's1975-90 civil war, by planting a bomb in his car. In Gaza,Hamas Islamists called for the Arab world to unite againstIsrael.

Israel denied any involvement in the killing, seen as amajor setback to Syrian and Iranian-backed Hezbollah thatfought a 34-day war with Israel in 2006.

Moughniyah, 45, was killed late on Tuesday. He had longbeen on a list of foreigners Israel wanted to kill or apprehendand the United States had offered a $5 million reward for hiscapture.

"His killing is a huge blow to Hezbollah. It is veryindicative," Magnus Ranstorp, terrorism expert at the SwedishNational Defence College, told Reuters.

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

The United States indicted him for his role in planning andparticipating in the June 14, 1985, hijacking of a U.S. TWAairliner and the killing of an American passenger.

"For the U.S. administration Imad was the most wantedterrorist before Osama Bin Laden appeared. For many years, manydifferent teams were looking for him, trying to exact the pricefor the catalogue of attacks he allegedly carried out,"Ranstorp said.

"None of the (suspected) parties -- Israel and the UnitedStates -- will admit to it. The U.S. administration willcelebrate. The Israelis will never claim responsibility. Theymake things happen."

Hezbollah, a strong political and military force inLebanon, announced the assassination and called followers tohis funeral on Thursday.

"After a life full of jihad, sacrifices and accomplishments... Haj Imad Moughniyah ... died a martyr at the hands of theIsraeli Zionists," said Hezbollah.

The 2006 war with Israel was triggered by a Hezbollahcross-border raid in which two Israeli soldiers were captured.According to Israeli intelligence assessments, Moughniyah wasinvolved in masterminding the operation.

PRIME TARGET

Israel also accuses Moughniyah of planning the 1994 bombingof a Jewish centre in Buenos Aires that killed 87 people and ofinvolvement in a 1992 bombing of the Israeli embassy in theArgentine capital that killed 28.

"He was not only being targeted by Israel, but also by theAmericans and many other parties," said former Mossad headDanny Yatom on Israel Radio. "He was one of the terrorists withthe most amount of intelligence agencies and states chasinghim."

Moughniyah had been a very tough target to track, he said,describing his death as a severe blow to Hezbollah.

"He behaved with extreme caution for many years. It wasimpossible even to obtain his picture. He never appeared orspoke before the media.

"His identity was hidden. His steps were hidden. He behavedwith extreme caution, and that was the reason it was difficultto get to him for so many years."

The United States tried to detain Moughniyah several times,including a 1995 attempt to arrest him when the plane he wastravelling was due to stop in Saudi Arabia. Diplomats saidSaudi officials refused to allow the plane to land.

Syrian authorities had no comment on Tuesday's attack whichtook place in an upmarket district that houses an Iranianschool, a police station and a Syrian intelligence office.

Witnesses at the scene told Reuters they saw securityofficers hauling the body away. Scores of police andintelligence officers rushed to the site. A police truck towedaway the destroyed car, a new model Mitsubishi Pajero.

Senior Hamas officials, including leader Khaled Meshaal,live in exile in Damascus. At least one mid-level Hamasofficial has been killed in Damascus by a bomb attack in recentyears.

Hamas blamed that attack on Israel.

"Israel rejects the attempts of terror elements toattribute to Israel any involvement in this incident," PrimeMinister Ehud Olmert's office said in a statement.

Ranstorp said Moughniyah's killing was a signal to otherleaders who live in Syria that they are not safe there.

Moughniyah was thought to be the commander of IslamicJihad, a shadowy pro-Iranian group which emerged in Lebanon inthe early 1980s and was believed linked to Hezbollah.

Islamic Jihad kidnapped several Western hostages, includingAmericans, in Beirut in the mid 1980s.

The group, which was founded in 1982, killed some of itscaptives and exchanged others for U.S. weapons to Iran in whatwas later known as the Iran-Contra scandal. Among those killedwas the CIA's station chief.

Moughniyah's brother was killed in a car bomb in Beirut in1994. Reports at the time suggested Imad had been the target.Moughniyah had spent much of the 1990s in Iran.

(Additional reporting by Adam Entous and Ari Rabinovitch inJerusalem; Writing by Tom Perry; Editing by Samia Nakhoul)