Imad Mughniyeh's father, left, and grandfather mourn during condolences for Mughniyeh's death Wednesday in the Shiite suburb of Beirut, Lebanon. Fugitive militant Mughniyeh, a top U.S. target suspected in the killings of hundreds of Americans, was killed in a car bomb blast in the Syrian capital of Damascus. Hezbollah accused Israel of the assassination.

Damascus, Syria ? One of the world’s most wanted and elusive terrorists, Imad Mughniyeh, was killed in a car bombing in Syria nearly 15 years after dropping from sight. The one-time Hezbollah security chief was the suspected mastermind of attacks that killed hundreds of Americans in Lebanon and of the brutal kidnappings of Westerners.

The Lebanese Shiite militant group Hezbollah and its top ally, Iran, blamed Israel on Wednesday for the assassination. Israel denied any involvement, but officials made no effort to conceal their approval of his death.

Mughniyeh was also on the FBI’s list of most wanted terrorists, and the U.S. State Department had offered a $5 million reward for information leading to his arrest or conviction. He was indicted in the U.S. for his role in planning the 1985 hijacking of a TWA airliner in which a U.S. Navy diver was killed.

The United States welcomed Mughniyeh’s death.

“The world is a better place without this man in it,” State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said. “One way or the other, he was brought to justice.”

“From Beirut to Dhahran, he orchestrated bombings, kidnappings and hijackings in which hundreds of American service members were killed,” Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell said in a statement. “Hopefully, his demise will bring some measure of comfort to the families of all those military men he murdered.”

The hijacking was the only attack on Americans for which Mughniyeh was charged, but he carried out or directed a series of terrorist attacks aimed at the U.S. and Jewish targets.

Mughniyeh’s death was the latest in a series of blows to major terror figures in recent weeks. Abu Laith al-Libi, a senior al-Qaida leader, was killed in Pakistan in late January by a missile fired from a U.S. drone. This week, Pakistani security forces critically wounded and captured Mansour Dadullah, a top Taliban figure, in a firefight near the Afghan border.

But Mughniyeh, a Shiite Muslim not known to be connected to the Sunni al-Qaida or Taliban, harkened back to an earlier era of terror. A secretive, underground operator whose name was not even known for years, he was one of the first to turn Islamic militancy’s weapons against the United States in the 1980s.

Mughniyeh emerged during the turmoil of Lebanon’s 1975-90 civil war, rising to become Hezbollah’s security chief, and the dramatic suicide bombings he is accused of engineering in Beirut were some of the deadliest against Americans until al-Qaida’s Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

He vanished in the early 1990s, reportedly undergoing plastic surgery and moving between Lebanon, Syria and Iran on fake passports.

One Western official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence matters, said Wednesday that Mughniyeh was linked to the 1996 bombing of the Khobar Towers near Dhahran in Saudi Arabia, an attack which killed 19 Americans.

Mughniyeh continued to head external operations for Hezbollah and was “very active and very dangerous,” the official said.

His slaying could raise tensions between Israel and Hezbollah, as well as with the militant group’s allies, Syria and Iran. Israel and Hezbollah fought a bloody war in the summer of 2006, and some Lebanese figures close to the Shiite militant group called Wednesday for attacks against Israel in retaliation for Mughniyeh’s death.

Hezbollah called for a huge turnout at Mughniyeh’s funeral in south Beirut today. The same day, government supporters are planning a rally of hundreds of thousands in downtown Beirut to mark the third anniversary of the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.

With fears growing of street violence between the two camps, the U.S. Embassy strongly encouraged American citizens in Lebanon to limit all but essential travel today.

Hezbollah announced on its Al-Manar television that Mughniyeh “became a martyr at the hands of the Zionist Israelis.” The station played Quranic verses in memorial and aired a rare, apparently recent picture of Mughniyeh – showing a burly, bespectacled man with a black and gray beard wearing military camouflage and a military cap.

Syrian Interior Minister Brig. Gen. Bassam Abdul-Majid said Mughniyeh was killed Tuesday night in a car bombing in the upscale Damascus neighborhood of Kfar Sousse, the state news agency SANA reported.

Witnesses in the Syrian capital said the explosion tore apart the silver Mitsubishi Pajero, killing a passerby and leaving only the front of the sport utility vehicle intact. Security forces sealed off the area and removed the body. The Lebanese television station LBC said Mughniyeh was leaving a ceremony at an Iranian school and was approaching his car when it blew up. By Wednesday, the area had been cleared and there was no indication a car bombing had taken place.