Jihad Mughniyeh in 2008
Jihad Mughniyeh in 2008Reuters

New details emerged Wednesday on the activities of Jihad Mughniyeh, said to be Hezbollah's “commander of the Golan Heights area,” who was eliminated by IDF forces in February.

Along with Mughniyeh, IDF forces eliminated a crew of Hezbollah terrorists, and Iranian general Abu Ali Tabtabai. The group was touring the Golan border area, and Israeli officials believe they were in the process of setting up terror attacks to be launched at Israel from the area. Israeli security officials later dispatched a message to Hezbollah, warning the terror group to stay away from the Golan.

On Wednesday, a Kuwaiti newspaper said that Israel eliminated Mughniyeh and the others as they were actively planning terrorist attacks against Israel. During the weeks after the elimination of Mughniyeh and his associates, the IDF found extensive preparations for such attacks, which would have included ambushes of Israeli vehicles patrolling the border, infiltrations into Israeli population centers, and possibly rocket attacks, the paper said.

The recruitment of Mughniyeh represented a turning point in Iran's strategy of conducting terror attacks against Israel, IDF officials said Wednesday. Until recruiting Mughniyeh, Iran had attempted to carry out terror attacks against Israel using Palestinian terrorists in the Golan area. They succeed in carrying out several bombing attacks aganst IDF patrols, but Iran was seeking “higher profile” attacks, the officials said.

Jihad Mughniyeh was the son of Imad Mughniyeh, a senior Hezbollah officer who was also killed by Israel several years ago. Hezbollah reportedly called the death of Mughniyeh "an unbearable blow." He was said to be very close to Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah. Imad Mughniyeh’s death in a car bomb attack in Damascus in February of 2008 has been blamed on Israel, and Hezbollah has promised to avenge his death. Imad Mughniyeh was on the most wanted list of the US for attacks on Israeli and Western targets until his death