Defense officials: Businessmen abroad warned of kidnapping plan in retaliation for Mughniyeh killing.
By YAAKOV KATZImad Mughniyeh good 248(photo credit: AP)
Dozens of Israeli businessmen in countries around the world have been warned of possible Hizbullah plans to kidnap them in retaliation to the assassination earlier this year of arch-terrorist Imad Mughniyeh, defense officials said Tuesday.
The Kuwaiti newspaper Al Jarida reported Tuesday that Israeli security services had issued warnings to former IDF officers and defense officials working overseas to return to Israel immediately. The report claimed that the businessmen warned were working in countries, some Muslim, with which Israel does not maintain diplomatic relations.
In addition, senior defense officials said Tuesday that Israel was concerned that current as well as former military officers or security officials would be prime targets for a Hizbullah retaliatory attack.
"There are many former officials working overseas, selling weaponry and training militaries," one official said. "These people are prime targets for Hizbullah."
Meanwhile, Israeli defense officials traveling abroad are now being accompanied with larger entourages of security guards, who coordinate the visits with domestic security services. On a recent trip to the US, IDF Chief of General Chief Lt.-Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi was provided an unprecedented level of security - including street closures for his convoy.
On the local front, recent Arab media reports have quoted Hizbullah officials as saying that the terror group plans to attack Israel in the next few weeks, and according to sources in the Counter-Terror Bureau of the Prime Minister's Office, Hizbullah's plans to retaliate for Mughniyeh's assassination are at a peak.
Besides kidnapping Israeli officials, Israel also fears that Hizbullah may strike at Israeli consulates, embassies and institutions abroad, as it did in the early 1990s in two bombings in Buenos Aries.
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