The International Union for Muslim Scholars (IUMS), headed by global Muslim Brotherhood leader Youssef Qaradawi, has sent condolences to Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah on the death of Hezbollah terrorist Imad Mughniyah, recently killed by a car bomb in Damascus. The communique opens by declaring Mughniyah a martyr:
I ask the Almighty ‘“ Exalted and Glorified be He ‘“ to accept the struggling hero, Hajj Imad Mughniyah, as a martyr and to shower him with a great share of His Satisfaction on the Day of Judgment.
The statement then moves on to express condolence to almost the entire world on the death of Mughniyah who it calls a “peerless leader”:
I hereby offer condolences to all fellow members of the valorous resistance and to myself on behalf of the International Union for Muslim Scholars, of the Muslims of the entire world, of all conscientious men, regardless of their religion, and of the people who are resisting tyranny and injustice in the four corners of the world, over the death of the venerable fellow and martyr, Hajj Imad Mughniyah; the peerless leader who is worthy of satisfaction.
Mughniyah has been associated with the 1983 bombings of the U.S. Embassy, and U.S. Marine and French peacekeeping barracks, which killed over 350, as well as the kidnapping of dozens of foreigners in Lebanon in the 1980s. He was indicted in Argentina for his role in the 1992 bombings of the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires. Faisal Mawlawi, closely associated with Youssef Qaradawi and an IUMS trustee, is the Secretary-General of the Islamic Group in Lebanon, essentially the Lebanese Muslim Brotherhood. In August 2005, Mideast news sources reported that “combatants” from the Islamic Group were fighting alongside Hezbollah in Southern Lebanon and that the group’s support of Hezbollah dated back to the 1980’s. This is the only known instance of armed Muslim Brotherhood units operating openly since the 1940’s.