According to an article in the Washington Post, Imad Mughniyah was reportedly assassinated in a joint Mossad-CIA operation that required special approval from former US president George W. Bush.
The new report cites five unidentified US officials who claimed the CIA helped orchestrate that blast and that the bomb been built by the US, had been planted in a spare tire in Syria. Mossad agents triggered the explosion remotely from Tel Aviv, which sent shrapnel in a tight radius that was designed to eliminate collateral damage, according to the report, World Bulletin wrote.
According to the newspaper, the authority to kill required a presidential finding by George W. Bush, while several senior officials, including the attorney general, the director of national intelligence and the national security advisor, would have had to sign off on the order as well.
US intelligence officials had assured lawmakers that there would be no collateral damage. The bomb was tested 25 times to ensure that no one else was hurt in the blast - men on the ground had followed his routine, and saw that his solitary evening walks presented the best time to kill Mughniyah without injuring others, the report said.
The US had ostensibly explored ways to kill Mughniyah for years. A senior Hezbollah commander, Mughniyah was suspected by the US of masterminding the abduction of Western hostages in Lebanon in the 1980s and of the 1992 bombing of the Israeli embassy in Argentina that killed 29 people.
