MEtransparent exclusive
Notwithstanding Hizbullah’s claims that “the blast that happened in an apartment in Dahieh’s Rouwais neighborhood, last friday, was caused by a gas canister”, MEtransparent sources revealed that the 11th floor apartment in which a bomb explosion took place is the office of non other than Mustafa Mugnieh, the son of the late Imad Mugnieh. Imad Mughniyah was killed on February 12, 2008 by a car bomb, planted inside the driver’s headrest in the Kfar Suseh neighborhood of Damascus,
What is not clear, however, is whether the explosion was an assassination attempt against Mugnieh Junior, or whether Mugnieh, or one of his associates, was preparing a bomb which exploded accidentally.
Immediately after the explosion, Hizbullah militia surrounded the area, forbade neighbours from going out to their balconies to watch, and would not allow internal security forces into the building until 16 hours later. Meanwhile, the “office” was totally cleansed, and even repainted, to hide all traces of the explosion.
MEtransparent sources said Hizbullah leadership wes “terribly shocked” by the explosion, but felt better when informed that Mustafa Mugnieh had left the office a few minutes earlier. The identity of the man killed in the explosion is still unknown.
Was Samir Kantar, a Lebanese freed from an Israeli prison in 2006, targeted by the explosion, as claimed by part of the Lebanese press? Our sources believe the origin of this disinformation is Hizbullah itself. The fact is that Kantar’s apartment is rather far from the building where the explosion took place.
Did the Mossad try to eliminate Mugnieh’s son?
The rumour mill in Beirut’s southern dahiye was, rather, speculating on the possibility of Hizbullah itself getting rid of an embarrassing “witness”, in the Hariri or other assassination operations.