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 The strike hit a convoy carrying Jihad Moughniyah and commander
Mohamad Issa, known as Abu Issa, in the province of Quneitra, near
the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, killing six Hezbollah members in
all, a statement from the group said.
It comes just days after Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah
said frequent Israeli strikes in Syria were a major aggression, that
the group was stronger than before and that Syria and its allies had
the right to respond.
Shi'ite Muslim Hezbollah, which is backed by Iran and fought a
34-day war with Israel in 2006, has been fighting alongside
President Bashar al-Assad's forces in Syria's four-year war.
Iran's semi-official Tabnak news site said several of its
Revolutionary Guards had also been killed in the attack, without
giving further details. State-run Iranian television said the
identity of the "martyrs" could not be confirmed.
The Hezbollah-run al-Manar news channel said the Israeli attack
suggested "the enemy has gone crazy because of Hezbollah's growing
capabilities and it could lead to a costly adventure that will put
the Middle East at stake".
 Israel's military declined to comment, but an Israeli security
source confirmed to Reuters that the Israeli military had carried
out the attack.
It was not immediately clear what role Jihad Moughniyah, in his 20s,
was playing in the fighting in Syria.
Hezbollah accused Israel in 2008 of assassinating his father, Imad
Moughniyah, who was implicated in high-profile attacks on Israeli
and Western targets and wanted by the United States. Israel denies
any involvement in that killing.
Nabil Boumonsef, a columnist at the Lebanon newspaper an-Nahar, said
he believed the strike was a direct response to Nasrallah's speech
and could lead to a backlash.
"Killing the son of Moughniyah is dangerous. I do not think that the
group can be quiet now, now that the father and the son are killed.
I expect that it will do something,” he said.
U.N. peacekeepers intensified their patrols on the border between
Lebanon and Israel on Sunday night, local sources said.
RETALIATION THREAT
Imad Moughniyah was implicated in the 1983 bombings of the U.S.
Embassy and U.S. Marine and French peacekeeping barracks in Beirut,
which killed over 350 people, as well as the 1992 bombing of the
Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires and the kidnapping of Westerners in
Lebanon in the 1980s.
The United States indicted him for his role in planning and
participating in the June 14, 1985, hijacking of a U.S. TWA airliner
and the killing of an American passenger.
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He was killed in a car bombing in Damascus in 2008.
Jihad Moughniyah appeared in public for the first time a week after
his father's death to pledge loyalty to Nasrallah.
"We are with you and we will go wherever you go. We will never leave
the battlefield and we will never drop our guns, we answer for you
Nasrallah," Jihad, then aged 16, said wearing the group's military
uniform in front of thousands of mourners.
Al-Manar television said earlier that a number of fighters were
killed when they were checking an area in Quneitra when their convoy
came under Israeli missile attack.
Quneitra has seen heavy fighting between forces loyal to Assad and
rebels including fighters linked to al Qaeda. Syrian state
television said six people were killed in the attack and a child was
wounded, without giving further details.
Israel has struck Syria several times since the start of the war,
mostly destroying weaponry such as missiles that Israeli officials
said were destined for Hezbollah, Israel's long-time foe in
neighboring Lebanon.
Syria said last month that Israeli jets had bombed areas near
Damascus international airport and in the town of Dimas, near the
border with Lebanon.
Nasrallah said on Thursday "the frequent attacks on different sites
in Syria is a major breach. We consider (those) hostilities (to be)
against all the resistance axis."
"(Retaliation) is an open issue," he added.
Iran, Syria, Hezbollah and some Palestinian factions consider
themselves an "axis of resistance" against Israel.
(Additional reporting by Dan Williams and Allyn Fisher-Ilan in
Jerusalem; Writing by Oliver Holmes and Mariam Karouny in Beirut;
Editing by Alison Williams)
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