Hezbollah Says Car Bomb Death will Lead to Open War with Israel

Killed last week, Imad Mughnieh had accused by the US of planning attacks on Western targets during the Lebanese civil war.

Imad Mughnieh Photo of courtesy: Al Manar television station

(SALEM, Ore.) - Tensions in the world spurred by the war in Iraq and the Western support of sixty years of Israeli policies have driven tensions to the boiling point in the Mid-East.

The new millennium has seen the United States transform from the role of world savior, to a nation headed by an administration that condones violent acts against perceived enemies just as quickly as it condemns them for the exact same actions.

The secretary-general of Hezbollah has said that the group is ready for open warfare with Israel. He made the comments in a speech to supporters mourning the death of a senior commander, Imad Mughnieh, who died in a car bomb blast in the Syrian capital Damascus late on Tuesday.

Mughnieh had accused by the US of planning attacks on Western targets during the Lebanese civil war.

Hassan Nasrallah said on Thursday that Israel is responsible for the terrorist act and it has "crossed the borders", while Syria, a supporter of Hezbollah, branded the attack a "cowardly and terrorist act".

In blaming Israel for the death, Nasrallah said that the July 2006 war with Israel was continuing, although not on a military level.

"With this murder, its timing, location and method - Zionists [Israel] if you want this kind of open war, let the whole world listen: Let this war be open," he told Al Jazeera.

Mughnieh is accused of involvement in the bombing of the US embassy in 1983 that resulted in the deaths of several Marines. The US welcomed Mughnieh's killing, saying that he had been responsible for many deaths.

"The world is a better place without this man in it. He was a cold-blooded killer, a mass murderer and a terrorist responsible for countless innocent lives lost," Sean McCormack, the US state department spokesman, said on Wednesday. Mughnieh was widely suspected of being behind a wave of Western hostage-taking in Lebanon in the 1980s, claims denied by Hezbollah.

Speaking in a videotaped message to supporters at the funeral service for Mughnieh in southern Beirut, Nasrallah said: "Like all human beings we have a sacred right to defend ourselves."

"We will do all that it takes to defend our country and people."

"Mughnieh's blood will lead to the elimination of Israel. These words are not an emotional reaction," he told supporters in a televised speech. But the Israeli prime minister's office denied allegations that it had played any role in Mughnieh's killing.

"Israel rejects the attempts of terror elements to attribute to Israel any involvement in this incident," Ehud Olmert's office said in a statement on Wednesday.

The commotion has caused Israel to order its military, embassies and Jewish institutions around the world to increase security measures in case of revenge attacks, Israeli officials said Thursday, on condition of anonymity.

Iran also accused Israel of carrying out the attack.

------------------------------------------------------------

Tim King is a former U.S. Marine with almost twenty years experience on the west coast as a television news producer, photojournalist and reporter. Today, in addition to his role as a war correspondent in Afghanistan where he spent the winter of 2006/07, this Los Angeles native serves as Salem-News.com's Executive News Editor. Salem-News.com is the nation's only truly independent high traffic news Website, affiliated only with Google News. You can send Tim an email at this address: newsroom@salem-news.com