Mustafa Mahmoud Mazeh

Infobox Person
name = Mustafa Mahmoud Mazeh


imagesize = 5.24kb
caption = Mustafa Mahmoud Mazeh
birth_date = 1968
birth_place = Conakry, Guinea
death_date = death date|1989|08|3, aged 21 years
death_place = Paddington, Central London
restingplace= Behesht-e Zahra cemetery, Tehran
occupation = student
nationality = Lebanese
religion = Twelver Shi'a Islam

Mustafa Mahmoud Mazeh (c. 1968–August 3, 1989) was a Muslim Lebanese man who died priming a bomb intended to kill the India-born British author Salman Rushdie. This failed assassination attempt was carried out after Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the leader of Iran, issued a "fatwā" calling for the assassination of Salman Rushdie following the publication of "The Satanic Verses", calling the book "blasphemous against Islam". The "fatwā" requiring Rushdie's execution was proclaimed on February 14, 1989 on Radio Tehran, and a bounty of $5.2 million had been put on Rushdie's head by Iranian religious leaders. [cite news |title=Khomeini Spurns Rushdie Regrets And Reiterates Threat of Death |url=http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=950DE3DF1730F933A15751C0A96F948260&scp=1&sq=rushdie+bounty&st=nyt |work=New York Times |date=February 20, 1989]

Biography

Mazeh was born in Conakry, Guinea. A Lebanese citizen, he grew up outside Beirut and joined a local Hezbollah cell while in his teens.

On August 3, 1989, Mazeh was trying to prime a bomb hidden in a book with RDX explosives when it detonated, killing him and taking out two floors of the Beverley House Hotel in Sussex Gardens, Paddington, Central London. A previously unknown Lebanese group, the Organisation of the Mujahidin of Islam, claimed in a letter to a Beirut newspaper that Mazeh, whom they referred to as Gharib, said he died preparing an attack "on the apostate Rushdie".cite news |first=Anthony |last=Loyd |title=Tomb of the unknown assassin reveals mission to kill Rushdie |url=http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/article531110.ece |publisher="The Times" |date=2005-06-08 ] In January 1990 Scotland Yard's antiterrorist squad noted in its inquest that there was only a hint that Mazeh belonged to a terrorist group, and that the reason why he was in London was "not clear", there being no evidence of a link to Rushdie.

The Islamic World Movement of Martyrs' Commemoration built a shrine in Tehran's Behesht-e Zahra cemetery for him that notes he was "Martyred in London, August 3, 1989. The first martyr to die on a mission to kill Salman Rushdie."

James Phillips of the Heritage Foundation testified before the United States Congress that a "March 1989" (sic) explosion in Britain was one of several Hezbollah terrorist attacks, in this case an attempt to assassinate Rushdie that failed when the bomb exploded prematurely in London. [cite web |url=http://foreignaffairs.house.gov/110/phi062007.htm |author=James Phillips |title=Hezbollah’s Terrorist Threat to the European Union - Testimony before the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, Subcommittee on Europe |date=2007-06-20 ]

It is reported Fact|date=July 2008 Mazeh's parents were invited to live in a village called Kiapey near Sari, Iran. [cite news|url=http://www.gazette.de/Archiv/Gazette-8-November1998/Netticker.html|publisher="Die Gazette"|title=Irgendwann lohnt es sich|language=German|date=1998-11-08]

ee also

*The Satanic Verses controversy

References