MY one short conversation with the world's second most wanted terrorist - Imad Mughnieh, killed in a bomb blast on Tuesday night - was about pizza. We spoke over a crackling radio from the control tower of Beirut International Airport to a hijacked TWA jet baking in the Mediterranean sunshine. Hijackings were so routine in Beruit in 1985 - one plane was even seized by the head of airport security over a pay dispute - that local officials were used to seeing the press corps show up. My only question was how to talk my way on board.

My resourceful Lebanese driver thought he had hit on the perfect solution. Several days into the hijacking, the Shia gunmen were complaining about poor food. We loaded up with bags of “manaish”, a traditional Lebanese breakfast of pizza bread covered in olive oil and served with yogurt.

“Control tower to TWA, are you there?” we asked.

“Who is this?” demanded a voice on the other end.

“We are journalists, we heard that you wanted some fresh food. We have brought you breakfast. Can we come and deliver it?” we replied.

Pause. “Let me check,” came the response. The driver and I exchanged hopeful glances. Then came a different voice, with greater authority.

“All journalists are dogs!” screamed Mughnieh. He leant out of the cockpit window and let off a volley of automatic rifle fire, forcing our colleagues to dive for cover. So much for our scoop. We handed the free breakfast to the airport officials and fled, keeping our guilty secret from the photographers and television journalists who were dusting themselves off on the balcony below.

As a 22-year-old freelancer I learnt an important lesson that day about getting too close to a story. The other lesson that I, and the dwindling band of Westerners in Beirut, were to learn to our cost was that Mughnieh's campaign had only just begun. Academics, journalists and anyone unfortunate enough to fall into Hezbollah's clutches were fair game on the streets of Beirut. Within a year my neighbour, Brian Keenan, had been taken, along with a colleague, John McCarthy.

The Beirut that I lived in has now largely disappeared. New hotels and apartment blocks have shot up and the old Green Line, which used to divide the capital, has been transformed into a shiny new commercial centre. The old airport has been knocked down and replaced.

But, unfortunately, the legacy of the war lives on. Lebanon is still paralysed by sectarian divisions. Rafik Hariri, the former Prime Minister and the man responsible for rebuilding the city, was assassinated three years ago yesterday. Mughnieh had put on some weight and his beard had turned grey, but he was still up to his old tricks when he finally succumbed to the same tactics he had used so often against others.

Richard Beeston is Foreign Editor of The Times

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