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It was a few minutes after 11 p.m. on Tuesday, February 12, when one of the generals handed a short message to then-Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak. Barak glanced at the five-word message, pursed his lips, then turned to the reporters and continued explaining his trip to Turkey. The short message announced that Imad Mughniyeh had been assassinated. But Barak did not react much; perhaps because he knew in advance, or perhaps because he was too shocked. An hour earlier, a man of medium height and a thick beard had been killed in his car bomb in Damascus. The news spread quickly: This man was Imad Mughniyeh, one of the world's geniuses of guerrilla warfare. Robert Bauer, a former CIA agent who was responsible for following up on Mughniyeh's case for years, says: Mughniyeh was probably the smartest and most capable person the CIA has ever encountered.