By Nadim Ladki
BEIRUT (Reuters) - Lebanon's Hezbollah holds a mass funeralfor its assassinated commander Imad Moughniyah, one of theUnited States' most wanted men, in Beirut on Thursday to callsof revenge against its sworn enemy Israel.
Big crowds are expected in Beirut's Shi'ite Muslim southernsuburb to bid farewell to Moughniyah, a guerrilla seen as alegend by Hezbollah but on the U.S. most wanted list accused ofkilling hundreds in attacks on Israeli and Western targets.
Hezbollah, backed by Syria and Iran, accused Israel ofkilling Moughniyah on Tuesday by planting a bomb in his car inDamascus. Israel denied any links to the attack. Washingtonwelcomed his death.
Reflecting deep divisions in Lebanon, Moughniyah's funeralwill take place shortly after a rally by the anti-Syrian rulingcoalition to mark the third anniversary of the killing offormer Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri.
Thousands, many waving red, white and green Lebanese flags,began gathering in pouring rain at Martyrs' Square in thecentre of Beirut to listen to speeches by anti-Syrian leaders,including Hariri's son and political heir, Saad.
The anti-Syrian coalition is locked in a 15-month powerstruggle with the Hezbollah-led opposition that has leftLebanon without a president since November.
Hariri's assassination on February 14, 2005, plungedLebanon into its worst crisis since the 1975-90 civil war andled to the withdrawal of Syrian forces from the country.
Anti-Syrian politicians blame Damascus for Hariri's death.Syria denies any links.
The standoff between the ruling coalition and oppositionhas spilled over into several clashes over the last year.
Moughniyah's killing is a major blow to Hezbollah, a groupwhose last confrontation with the Jewish state was the 34-daywar in 2006.
Moughniyah, 45, had long been on a list of foreignersIsrael wanted to kill or capture and had been top ofWashington's wanted list before al Qaeda's Osama bin Ladenemerged as an enemy of the United States.
A LIST OF ATTACKS
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 kidnappingof Westerners in Lebanon in the 1980s.
Israel accuses Moughniyah of planning the 1994 bombing of aJewish centre in Buenos Aires that killed 85 people and ofinvolvement in a 1992 bombing of the Israeli embassy in theArgentine capital that killed 28.
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.
"The world is a better place without this man in it. He wasa cold-blooded killer, a mass-murderer and a terroristresponsible for countless innocent lives lost," StateDepartment spokesman Sean McCormack said.
"One way or another he was brought to justice," he said.
Iran blamed Israel for his assassination. Syria describedit as a "terrorist attack".
Several Palestinian and Lebanese allies of Hezbollah calledon the group to avenge Moughniyah's death. Hezbollah has onlysaid its conflict with Israel was "a very long one".
Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of the group that has astrong political and military force in Lebanon, will addressthe crowd at the funeral via a video link.
On Wednesday, Moughniyah's coffin, draped in a Hezbollahflag and flanked by four men in military uniform, was laid in ahall where his family and the group's leaders receivedcondolences.
Moughniyah is thought to have been commander of IslamicJihad, a shadowy pro-Iranian group which emerged in Lebanon inthe early 1980s and was believed to be linked to Hezbollah.
Islamic Jihad kidnapped several Western hostages, includingAmericans, in Beirut in the mid 1980s. The group killed some ofits captives and exchanged others for U.S. weapons to Iran inwhat was later known as the Iran-Contra scandal. Among thosekilled was 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.
