Imad Mughniyah (1962–2008) was a prominent leader of [[Hezbollah]]'s terrorist operations. He was believed to have carefully orchestrated the abduction of Marine Lieutenant Colonel [[William Richard Higgins]] in [[Lebanon]] in 1988[^1]. Mughniyah had a history of involvement in significant terrorist attacks against U.S. interests. He oversaw the 1983 suicide bombing of the [[U.S. Embassy in Beirut]], which killed sixty-three people, mostly [[CIA]] and embassy staff. Six months later, he also oversaw the Beirut Marine barracks suicide bombing, a terrorist attack that resulted in the deaths of 241 U.S. service personnel, including 220 Marines[^1]. In the 1980s, Mughniyah was considered one of the leading terrorist masterminds in the world. The [[Defense Intelligence Agency|DIA]] feared he was holding Higgins captive and that he would torture Higgins to extract classified information[^1]. ### Footnotes [^1]: Jacobsen, Annie. *Phenomena: The Secret History of the U.S. Government's Investigations into Extrasensory Perception and Psychokinesis*. Little, Brown and Company, 2017.