Israel denies any involvment, maybe it was a work accident? 
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Hezbollah terror chief Imad Mughniyah killed in Damascus blast
Syria’s Interior Minister Brig. Gen. Bassam Abdul-Majid confirmed Wednesday that a Damascus explosion Tuesday night had killed a senior member of the Lebanese-based guerilla group Hezbollah, Imad Mughniyah, the state-run news agency SANA reported.
It was the first official comment from Syria since Tuesday night’s explosion in the Damascus neighborhood of Kfar Sousse. “Syria condemns this cowardly terrorist act,” SANA quoted Abdul-Majid as saying.
The agency also reported that Abdul-Majid said an investigation into the blast was under way. “The ongoing investigation over the car bomb in the residential Kfar Sousse neighborhood last night has proven that it targeted Lebanese combatant Imad Mughniyah,” SANA said, quoting Abdul-Majid.
Earlier Wednesday, Hezbollah announced that Mughniyah, the group’s Deputy Secretary General, had been killed Tuesday in a bomb blast, and accused Israel of responsibility for the explosion.
“With all pride we declare a great jihadist leader of the Islamic resistance in Lebanon joining the martyrs … The brother commander hajj Imad Mughniyah became a martyr at the hands of the Zionist Israelis,” said a statement carried on Hezbollah’s television station.
The Prime Minister’s Office in Jerusalem initially declined comment, but later issued a statement denying Israeli involvement.
Mughniyah headed Hezbollah’s operations branch serving in a role similar to chief of staff, and had been wanted by Israel and the United States for years due to his role in numerous bombings, hijackings and abductions in which hundreds of people were killed.
He was wanted for the bombings of the Israeli embassy and the Jewish community center in Buenos Aires in 1992 and 1996, as well as a wave of abductions of Westerns in Lebanon in the 1980s.
Mughniyah’s death came one day before the three-year anniversary of the assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri, who’s killing has become a symbol for divisions between the heirs to his legacy and their opponents, who are waging a political conflict that has
paralyzed the Lebanese government.
Mughniyah lived a highly secretive life, constantly moving between states like Lebanon, Iran, and Syria. In the 1990s, foreign reports claim, Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency tried unsuccessfully to assassinate him in a complex operation in southern Beirut.
However, the operation killed his brother, a car shop owner in Beirut. Mughniyah was expected to be present at the funeral, giving an additional chance to assassinate him, but he never showed.
The cause of the Damascus explosion, which occurred about 10:45 P.M. Tuesday evening, was not immediately known.
Syrian security forces quickly sealed off the area and removed the destroyed car, which had its driver’s seat and the rear seat blown away by the force of the blast. Syria later Wednesday also accused Israel of being behind the blast.
Damascus residents, some in their pajamas, gathered to inspect the damage, careful around shards of glass and debris. Three other cars parked nearby were also damaged, their windows shattered and doors blown out.
“I was awakened by the explosion, rushed to the window and saw the glow,” one witness said. He lost the windows on his 5th floor apartment, which overlooks the bombed-out SUV.
Another witness in a 7th floor apartment rushed to the windows after the blast and said he “saw one [body] covered with a white sheet on the ground.”
Both spoke on condition of anonymity.
The witnesses and Palestinian sources in Syria and Lebanon said the blast was caused by a bomb planted inside the vehicle.
