On Feb. 12, Mughniyeh was killed by a car bomb after meeting in Damascus
with Syrian intelligence chief Assaf Chawkat. Palestinians as well as
non-Arab nationals have been arrested by Syrian authorities.
The most likely scenarios, military sources said, would involve a major
Hizbullah strike against Israeli or Jewish interests abroad. They said the
attack would be similar to the bombings of the Israel embassy and Jewish
community center in Buenos Aires in the early 1990s.
"It's safe to assume Hizbullah will try to retaliate for the
assassination of Imad Mughniyeh, possibly with Iranian and Syrian
assistance," Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak said.
[On Thursday, the London-based daily Al Hayat reported that Barak told
Turkish leaders last week that Israel would launch a massive military
invasion of the Gaza Strip. The newspaper said Barak asked Ankara to relay a
similar message to Syrian President Bashar Assad.]
Other Hizbullah options included rocket strikes from Lebanon as well as
an attack by an unmanned aerial vehicle. Hizbullah has fitted Iranian-origin
UAVs with a payload of at least 40 kilograms of explosives and sent them
into Israel during the war in mid-2006.
"If such an attack could be deniable, there is a possibility that
Hizbullah will carry it out and prepare for an Israeli response," a military
source said.
The sources said Hizbullah could be encouraged by the increasing
reluctance of the Lebanese military and the United Nations peace-keeping
forces to intervene in southern Lebanon. They said the UN Interim Force in
Lebanon could undergo a significant reduction in 2008 as several European
Union states, particularly Spain, were considering withdrawal. The Spanish
contingent has come under several attacks from unidentified insurgents in
southern Lebanon over the last year.
On Feb. 18, the Israeli military deployed a U.S.-origin PAC-2 missile
defense battery outside Haifa to prevent a Hizbullah rocket strike. The
PAC-2 deployment was the first since the 2006 war, in which Hizbullah fired
more than 4,500 rockets into Israel.
The sources said Iran has already appointed a successor to Mughniyeh.
They said the successor could be either Mughniyeh's deputy, Talal Mahiyah,
or senior commander Fuad Sukur or chief of Hizbullah forces in southern
Lebanon, Ibrahim Akel.
"The IDF and defense establishment are prepared on all fronts," Barak
said. "We have no interest in escalation, but we will conduct ongoing
situation assessments, including threats abroad, in order to be prepared."
