Steven Emerson, Executive Director December 21, 2015 Articles by IPT |  IPT in the News |  IPT Blog |  Profiles |  Multimedia |  Donate |  Contact Us Slain Hizballah Terrorist Reportedly Planning Major Iran-Ordered Attack on Israel by IPT News  •  Dec 21, 2015 at 11:35 am http://www.investigativeproject.org/5102/slain-hizballah-terrorist-reportedly-planning Print Send Comment RSS Share: Be the first of your friends to like this. Notorious Lebanese terrorist Samir Kuntar reportedly was killed Saturday night in Syria as he prepared a major attack against Israel, according to Western sources and reported by YNet News. Israeli officials are not commenting, but are suspected of being behind the long-range precision-guided missiles to neutralize Kuntar's terrorist plans – which were directly financed and supported by Iran. Kuntar was reportedly killed in the Damascus operations center that the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) helped set up for the terrorist to coordinate plots against the Jewish state, the Jerusalem Post reports. Kuntar was 16 years old in 1979 when he and three other members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) sneaked into Israel, killing a policeman and kidnapping a man and his 4-year-old daughter, Einat Haran. Kuntar killed the little girl by smashing her head with his rifle butt. Compounding the tragedy, Haran's other daughter, a 2-year-old, was accidentally suffocated by her mother as she tried to keep the girl from crying out as they hide from the terrorists in their apartment. Upon his release, Kuntar said he regretted nothing and received a hero's welcome in Lebanon. Kuntar reportedly became an influential figure in Hizballah after this release, but may have gone his own way after disagreements concerning attacking Israel. Acting on Iranian orders and working with pro-Assad militias in Syria, Kuntar helped create cells to plant bombs at Israel's border, fire missiles, and conduct cross-border infiltrations. The Hizballah rift allegedly began after Jihad Mughniyeh – son of assassinated terrorist leader Imad Mughniyeh – replaced Kuntar as commander of Iranian-Hizballah operations in the Golan Heights. In January, another airstrike attributed to Israel targeted a Hizballah convoy seeking to attack Israel from the Golan. It included a senior Iranian general and Jihad Mugniyeh. Even though Hizballah stopped working with Kuntar, he continued to plan attacks against Israel through his ethnic-kin Druze connections who supported the Assad regime. The Lebanese Shi'ite terrorist organization feared that a Kuntar-led attack against Israel would invite Israeli intervention that would hinder current Iranian-Hizballah objectives in Syria. These reports indicate that several actors may have had a reason to kill Kuntar. Three rockets were fired at Israel from Lebanon following Kuntar's death, falling into open northern territory. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) responded by striking terrorist targets in southern Lebanon with artillery fire on Sunday. Related Topics: IPT News, Samir Kuntar, Hizballah, PFLP, Syrian civil war, Druze, Einat Haran, Imad Mughniyeh, Jihad Mughniyeh The IPT accepts no funding from outside the United States, or from any governmental agency or political or religious institutions. Your support of The Investigative Project on Terrorism is critical in winning a battle we cannot afford to lose. All donations are tax-deductible. Click here to donate online. The Investigative Project on Terrorism Foundation is a recognized 501(c)3 organization.   To subscribe: http://www.investigativeproject.org/list_subscribe.php The Investigative Project on Terrorism 202-363-8602 - main 202-966-5191 - fax