CNN Breaking: Senior Hezbollah Official Killed in Beirut Explosion

[VolcanoJen]

Breaking on CNN International now...

Reports of a car explosion near Beirut, with a senior member of Hezbollah reported killed. No names or details yet.

ON EDIT: The only link that has emerged so far is this one, from Channel NewsAsia, via AFP:

http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/afp_world/view/96373/1/.html

BEIRUT - A member of the Muslim Shiite radical group Hezbollah was killed in a car bomb explosion in the southern suburbs of Beirut on Monday, an official from the group told AFP.

[Aidoneus]

1. according to al-Manar, the victim is named as Ghalib Awali

The event was a car rigged with a bomb in South Beirut. He was identified as a leader in the Islamic Resistance wing of the party, and not to my knowledge one of the senior political figures. I don't see any links on the web yet.

[countmyvote4real]

2. It doesn't matter. Not going to change a thing.

If anything, it just makes it worse.

If they think they are cutting off the head of a snake, they don't understand that they are creating even more new ones with every provocation.

Hello, Bush*. Are you getting this?

[LiviaOlivia]

3. NYT link

http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-lebanon-blast.html

July 19, 2004
Bomb Kills Senior Hizbollah Figure in Beirut
By REUTERS

Filed at 2:51 a.m. ET

BEIRUT (Reuters) - A bomb blast ripped through Lebanese guerrilla group Hizbollah's stronghold in the southern suburbs of Beirut on Monday, killing a senior member of the group, witnesses and Hizbollah said.

Witnesses said the blast rocked a car, killing at least one.

Hizbollah's al Manar television said the bomb killed Ghalib Awali as he got into his car. It described him as ``part of the leadership of the Islamic Resistance'' -- a reference to Hizbollah.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the blast.
<snip>

Israel assassinated the group's leader Abbas al-Mussawi in 1992 in an air strike on his car. Lebanon has tried and convicted several people in recent years of spying on and plotting against the group.

[Aidoneus]

4. details from Naharnet

Hizbullah Commander Assassinated in Booby-Trapped Car in S. Beirut

A senior commander of Hizbullah's military arm, the Islamic Resistance, was assassinated in a booby-trap car blast in south Beirut's Mouawad residential neighborhood on Monday and an obscure group calling itself Jund El Sham reportedly claimed responsibility.
Ghaleb Awali, 40, left his home and climbed into his old Mercedes-Benz at 9 a.m., said Hizbullah's Al Manar TV station. "When he turned on the ignition, a powerful explosive charge went off."

Awali, a Shiite, was extracted from his charred car and rushed to a south Beirut hospital, but doctors who examined the dismembered corpse said death was instantaneous.

The responsibility claim by Jund El Sham, Arabic for Soldiers of Damascus, was made in a faxed statement to the Agence France Presse Beirut offices minutes after Awali's death. The group announced its debut at south Lebanon's Ein El Hilweh Palestinian refugee camp two weeks ago.

"We have executed one of the symbols of treachery, the Shiite Ghaleb Awali," Jund El- Sham's statement said, according to AFP.

Hizbullah withheld immediate comment on the responsibility claim. The words making the rounds in Beirut is that Hizbullah views Jund El Sham's claim as a hoax and holds Israel's Mossad secret service directly responsible for the target killing, a stance which could set the Lebanon-Israel border aflame anew.(Naharnet-AP-AFP)

http://www.naharnet.com/domino/tn/NewsDesk.nsf/getstory?openform&4A3FBF9DE986926DC2256ED600291672