(AFP) – Feb 13, 2008

JERUSALEM (AFP) — Israeli army chief Lieutenant General Gaby Ashkenazi ordered forces on alert to protect the border with Lebanon after Hezbollah claimed the Jewish state murdered one of its leaders, army radio reported on Thursday.

An army spokesman declined to comment on the report, which said Ashkenazi had issued the order to ground, air and naval forces.

For his part, Internal Security Minister Avi Dichter told public radio: "We have begun evaluating the situation with representatives of the army and police, with everyone who is in charge of security in cases like this."

Earlier on Thursday, a security official said Hezbollah had "suffered a serious blow with the elimination" of Imad Mughnieh in a Damascus bombing on Tuesday night.

Hezbollah accused Israel of orchestrating the assassination, a charge rejected by the office of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.

"Hezbollah will try to find our weak point and attack us, but without triggering a war with Israel, to prove that Mughnieh has been avenged," the official, who was not identified, told army radio.

He said Hezbollah was unlikely to unleash rockets on northern Israel, as it did during the 2006 summer war with Israel, for fear of an "extreme" reaction by Israel, for which Lebanon would pay the price.

But another security official told AFP that communities in northern Israel were bracing for possible rocket attacks. He said police and rescue services were placed on high alert but that no special measures had been taken.

The official, who also spoke on condition of anonymity, added that the army was also on a heightened state of alert in the occupied West Bank, where it is thought Hezbollah cells might exist.

Israel meanwhile tightened security at its embassies, consulates and offices abroad of the Jewish Agency, which deals with immigration, "for fear of an attack by Hezbollah or its Iranian allies," an official said.

Army radio said the domestic security agency Shin Beth, which is also responsible for protection abroad, ordered the measures.

It also recommended stepped-up security measures for the Israeli airline El Al, for Israeli shipping and, generally, for synagogues and Jewish institutions around the world.

Israeli foreign ministry spokesman Arye Mekel declined to comment, saying: "We are not in the habit of making statements about security measures we take."

Mughnieh was a top Hezbollah commander linked to notorious attacks against Western and Israeli targets in the 1980s and 1990s.

While Israel has denied any involvement in Mughnieh's killing, senior officials have openly welcomed his death.

Environment Minister Gideon Ezra, a former director of Israel's domestic security agency Shin Beth, said: "I hope that every terrorist knows that he will eventually be caught, and I am glad that this has happened to Mughnieh. And I hope that whoever did this receives the congratulations he is due."

Mughnieh, who was head of Hezbollah's special operations unit, was wanted for his suspected role in a number of attacks. Those included the 1992 bombing of the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires, which killed 29 people, and the 1994 bombing of a Jewish community centre there that killed 85 and wounded 300.

The Israelis also suspect him of having been involved in the July 2006 capture of two Israeli soldiers in a cross-border raid that sparked that summer's devastating war between Israel and Hezbollah.

Writing in the Yediot Aharonot daily, commentator Alex Fishman labelled Mughnieh the "number one terrorist in the world, even before (Osama) bin Laden."

In Maariv, Ofer Shelah attributed operations of this kind to Israel's wish for "revenge, prestige and instilling fear in the enemy's heart.

"Such an operation, to which Israel denies any connection, renews the sense that we have daring and resourceful organisations that can go anyplace and reach anyone. It renews our faith that we are the pursuers and not the hunted."

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