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Last update - 15:35 03/09/2008
Hezbollah celebrates life of slain commander Mughniyah
By DPA
Tags: Lebanon, Hezbollah, Israel 

For most in Lebanon and the western world, Imad Mughniyah was a mystery until he was assassinated in Damascus in February.

But Hezbollah, for whom Mughniyah was a high-ranking military leader, has now decided in a new exhibition to reveal more about the life and personality of the man whom they credit as being the mastermind behind the defeat of Israel in the summer war of 2006.

Mughniyah featured high on the U.S. most wanted terrorist list nearly a decade before the emergence of Al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden. He was even a shadowy character in his native country Lebanon, and his group's members knew him only as Hajj Radwan - never by his real name.
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Hajj Radwan became known in the 1980s when his name was associated with the kidnapping of western nationals in Lebanon and also for his role in the 1985 hijacking of the a TWA airliner en route to Beirut, during which a U.S. marine was killed on board.

Following Mughniyah's assassination in February 2008, many Lebanese began asking again about Mughniyah's identity, and the role that he played in the country's turbulent recent history.

In the exhibition, which Hezbollah has set up in a parking lot in the market town of Nabatiyeh, 55 kilometers south of Beirut, the goal has been to publicize his presumed role in Hezbollah, a staunch enemy of Israel.

Imad Awada, the exhibition's director, told the German news agency Deutsche Presse-Agentur that when the military leader was assassinated "we decided to introduce our victory hero to the world."

"For 25 years he was unknown to the people. It is time for the world to know him," Awada added.

To enter the exhibition one has to walk beneath a giant green hat, representing the military cap Mughniyah used to wear.

Visitors have to cross what Hezbollah has described as the "Bridge of Victory" into a "Square of Humiliation" which shows tattered Israeli army boots, helmets and food cans which were allegedly collected from the battlefield during the July 2006 war between Hezbollah and Israel.

The July war was described by Hezbollah as the "greatest defeat of the Zionist army."

The exhibition, which makes no mention of Mughniyah's exploits in the 1980s, presents him as the mastermind of Hezbollah's fight against the Israeli army during their 22-year occupation of southern Lebanon which ended in May 2000.

"He was the mastermind of our two victories against Israel, the July war and the recent swap," Awada said, referring to the return of Hezbollah prisoners in July 2008 by Israel in return for the bodies of captured Israeli soldiers.

As people enter the exhibition they can clearly hear sounds of thunderous explosions echoing from loudspeakers, as orange lights glow from the wreckage of a captured Israeli tank, supposedly recreating the battles fought in 2006.

But what catches the eye are the glass display cases which show the clothes Mughniyah wore when he was assassinated. The slaying was widely blamed by Hezbollah and its Syrian allies on Israel, a claim Israel denies.

The glass display contains a tattered black suit with some stains and a pair of scuffed leather shoes, belt, his brush, his flashlight, as well as a black and white dotted scarf.

The exhibition also displays Mughniyah's desk where he used to make his military decisions, his rifle, his praying carpet alongside his Italian-designed "Iceberg" eyeglasses.

Despite the fragile ceasefire that currently prevails in southern Lebanon, tension is visible in the area after Hezbollah and Israel started exchanging threats last week.

"We know that Israel is making daily threats and our group is ready for any confrontation to show them a harsher defeat this time," Awada said, pointing at posters of Israeli soldiers crying during the July 2006 war after they lost their comrades in the battlefronts in southern Lebanon.

In the last section of the Hezbollah exhibition, the movement sends a message to their Shiite followers - dying for fighting Israel and liberating occupied land is "sacred."

A tent has been erected with a carpet full of imitation flowers covering the ground. This represents, according to Hezbollah organizers, "the path to paradise that Hezbollah martyrs who die in the battlefront fighting the Zionist enemy take after death."

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