In first, Olmert confirms Israel killed Hezbollah chief Mughniyeh in Syria in 2008
Former PM says bumper of car exploded in Damascus, killing arch-terrorist 16 years ago; lauds Nasrallah assassination as ‘important’ but unlikely to ‘change reality’
Former prime minister Ehud Olmert on Saturday confirmed for the first time that Israel was responsible for the death of Hezbollah global operations chief Imad Mughniyeh, who died in a bomb blast in Damascus in 2008.
“We haven’t talked about it until today,” Olmert said in an interview with Channel 13 news, “but it seems to me that by now we can admit it. After we eliminated the entire leadership of Hezbollah, we can admit that 16 years ago we eliminated the biggest, most abominable, most despicable mass murderer they ever had, who built the entire Hezbollah military wing.”
The former premier’s comments come after Israel on Friday assassinated Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah in an underground command HQ in Beirut.
His killing came barely a week after the deadly detonation of hundreds of booby-trapped pagers and radios widely attributed to Israel, the biggest of a rapid succession of strikes that eliminated half of Hezbollah’s leadership council and decimated its top military command.
In his Saturday night interview, Olmert lauded the “important” assassination of Nasrallah, who he said was “responsible for 20 years or more of endless wars, of endless injuries, of killing many Israelis.”
Asked about his approval of Mughniyeh’s assassination in 2008, during his term as prime minister, Olmert said, “In this case, it was an operation that took place in another country, not in the country where he lives, not in Lebanon, and there were all kinds of dramatic aspects about which I cannot speak.”
“What exploded was the bumper of the car we placed there so that when Mugniyeh passed, we could press the button and trap him,” he said without giving further details.
“There were endless ‘James Bond’ type operations, but I’ll tell you a secret, and I think it’s important to say, even amid the excitement of this evening,” Olmert said. “These operations are very important. They always have some dimension that stirs enthusiasm… but they usually do not change reality. They can create a resonance that can generate some kind of momentum, but let’s not overdo it.”
Mughniyeh was implicated in some of the Iran-backed terror group’s major attacks, including the 1992 bombing at the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires and the 1994 bombing of the AMIA building in the Argentinian capital, in which 85 people were killed.
The senior Hezbollah terrorist was also involved in the 1983 bombing at the US embassy in Beirut, the killing in 1985 of the CIA’s Lebanon chief William F. Buckley, and the 1996 bombing at the Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia. In the years after the 2003 US invasion if Iraq, Mughniyeh was responsible for the arming and training of Iranian-backed Shiite militias in Iraq who carried out deadly attacks on American troops — all of which put him at the top of the US’s wanted list.
International outlets have reported that Mughniyeh was assassinated in a joint Mossad-CIA operation that required special approval from then-US president George W. Bush, and a Showtime miniseries released last year included interviews with ex-Mossad and -CIA officials discussing the operation.
Israel has denied responsibility for killing Mughniyeh and the US has never admitted involvement in the operation. A US State Department spokesman said after the killing: “The world is a better place without this man in it. He was a coldblooded killer, a mass murderer, and a terrorist responsible for countless innocent lives lost.”
