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The livestock truck came to a jolting stop alongside a cemetery just south of Tehran, Iran. A handful of waiting soldiers had been expecting its arrival. At the rear of the vehicle, a canvas cover was flung aside and a man in his late 30s hopped out. He was late, so the soldiers -- security men from the Qods Force, an elite arm of Iran's Revolutionary Guards -- wasted no time. They escorted him through the cemetery and whisked him into a secret tunnel that led to an elaborate underground bunker.The meeting was underway. The official hosting the gathering was Ali Akbar Nateq-Nouri, a top advisor to Iran's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. With him were Iranian intelligence officials involved in planning overseas terrorist operations. The guest of honor was there, too, and would soon gain worldwide notoriety: Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri, the top deputy to Osama bin Laden. Zawahiri had come to discuss Al Qaeda's latest plans, and to relay his boss's keen desire to cooperate more with Iran. It was January 2001, eight months before the attacks of September 11.
The late arrival, who now entered the room, was critical to Al Qaeda's strategy. For 20 years, Zawahiri had been working with Iran's Revolutionary Guards, and his main partner had been this man whose youthful appearance belied his cruel nature. He was Imad Mugniyah, Iran's star operative, a terrorist with legendary skills and the mind of a psychopath. Lebanese by birth, he had risen over the years to become the top military official in the Iranian-backed terrorist organization Hezbollah.
Mugniyah had not been seen in public in years, yet his stamp was on terrorist attacks that dominated headlines: He was behind the bombing of the U.S. Marine barracks in Lebanon during Reagan's Presidency; he helped hijack a TWA 727 that ended with the brutal murder of a U.S. Navy diver; he reportedly took part in the kidnapping, torture and killing of a top CIA officer in Beirut. Somehow, despite being wanted by the FBI and Interpol, despite being the focus of a CIA manhunt, he had eluded capture. Soon he would make his enemies pay again for their failure to stop him.
Joining the seated group, Mugniyah listened as Zawahiri said that it was time for Al Qaeda and Iran to bury the hatchet. Iran's past support for the Taliban opposition in Afghanistan had angered bin Laden, but differences now had to be put behind them. Fighting the common enemy, the United States and Israel, is much more important than the things that divide us, Zawahiri told the Iranians. Nateq-Nouri agreed -- which meant the alliance had the political blessing of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
After the meeting, Mugniyah took Zawahiri and his men to meet the leaders of the Qods Force. Already Iran was facilitating the travel of Al Qaeda operatives to and from Afghanistan, as the 9/11 Commission later found. Zawahiri wanted to know if there were ways to expand this cooperation. In the weeks to come, Mugniyah would find those ways.
Mugniyah's assistance in the preparation for the September 11 attacks has long been kept quiet by intelligence officials. But one of the security men present at this meeting outside Tehran later fled Iran and agreed to tell his story. The picture that emerges from him, along with other Iranian, U.S. and European intelligence sources, is one of a master terrorist still waging his decades-long war against the West. He is a man few people outside intelligence circles know by name. Yet Mugniyah is believed to have killed more Americans before 9/11 than any other terrorist -- and he helped Al Qaeda pull off its biggest day of destruction. Some believe that Mugniyah has now joined forces with the terrorists doing battle with American soldiers in Iraq.
Osama bin laden "is a schoolboy in comparison with Mugniyah," an Israeli intelligence officer told Jane's Foreign Report. Certainly few terrorists can match Mugniyah's résumé.
Born in the Lebanese village of Tir Dibba on July 12, 1962, Mugniyah was the eldest of four children. As a teenager during Lebanon's civil wars, he joined Force 17, Yasser Arafat's personal security guard in Beirut. Living among Shiite refugees in a blighted Beirut suburb, Mugniyah spent his days and nights running with armed colleagues "sniping at Christians," according to former CIA officer Bob Baer, who helped track Mugniyah in Lebanon. During this period, he perfected one of his signature attacks: truck bombs boosted by bottles of butane gas.
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