FEW people would want to be in the shoes of Ghassem Soleimani, an Iranian blamed for terrorist attacks against Jewish targets from Argentina to Israel. His name is said to have been placed at the top of a hit list compiled by Mossad, the feared Israeli secret service.

Soleimani is in Lebanon, where Mossad has struck twice in five months, killing an Al-Qaeda leader and a senior official of Hezbollah, the extremist Shi’ite Muslim group, in separate car bomb attacks.

Soleimani was targeted by Mossad after being linked to the bombing of a a Jewish community centre in Buenos Aires in 1994, in which 85 people died, and to a series of operations against Israelis. The most recent was thwarted last month when soldiers arrested a suicide bomber preparing to blow up a market place in Petah Tikva, a small town near Tel Aviv.

Soleimani is also the head of a group of Iranian commandos in Lebanon known as the Jerusalem Force. It is part of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards and is armed with long-range rockets that could reach targets on the outskirts of Tel Aviv.

Meir Dagan, the Mossad chief charged with restoring its reputation for ruthlessness after a series of bungled operations in the late 1990s, has identified Soleimani as his number one target. A source confirmed: “Soleimani is a walking dead man.”

Dagan has reactivated Mossad’s Independence unit, which kills enemies of Israel abroad. Its operations in Lebanon are aimed at ending Iranian support for Palestinian terrorists while a fragile ceasefire holds in Israel, the West Bank and Gaza.

Proof of the danger that Dagan poses to Soleimani came last Saturday. A queue of cars was stuck in the humid southern outskirts of Beirut. A middle-aged driver waited patiently before turning into Hadi Nasrallah Street on his way to work at the Iranian embassy.

It was the last move Ali Hussein Salah made. A 2kg bomb ripped his car apart, leaving the 42-year-old father of six mutilated and charred. One of Soleimani’s most trusted allies had been eliminated.

Less than 300 miles south, in a villa on a hilltop beside the northern approach to Tel Aviv, Dagan was with some colleagues when he received a telephone call. He listened for a moment, said “Well done”, then hung up.

“Another son of a bitch will not celebrate Ramadan this year,” he declared. “Back to work, guys.” Life has been tough from the start for Dagan, who was born on a train between Russia and Poland in 1945. After his family emigrated to Israel he joined the Israeli Defence Forces and was decorated for bravery after twice being wounded in the six day war of 1967.

He was credited with ending a wave of Palestinian terror in Gaza during 1971 when his commander was Ariel Sharon, now Israel’s prime minister. Sharon appointed Dagan to head Mossad last year.

The Independence team is vital to Dagan’s plans. Its members are multilingual former commandos, trained to operate undetected in various cultures.

In March they killed Abu Mohammed Al-Masri, the head of Al-Qaeda in Lebanon.Last weekend two agents disguised as Arabs stuck their bomb to their target’s car and slipped away unnoticed.

An intelligence source close to the team said they had tailed their victim, who was providing money and training for Palestinian groups opposed to the ceasefire, for more than a week.

Hezbollah promised to retaliate. Naeem Kassem, its deputy secretary-general, said: “Every Israeli assault will be confronted in the appropriate way. It will be costly.”

On Friday the militant Islamic group Hamas vowed to punish Israel over a West Bank raid in which two of its fighters and an Israeli soldier died.

Palestinian medical staff in Nablus said two other Palestinians had died in the latest violence — a man of 20 from bullet wounds after throwing stones at Israeli troops in a protest over the raid and a 41-year-old bystander who inhaled tear gas sprayed by soldiers.

Hamas says it is still committed to the ceasefire, however, and for the moment Soleimani and his Jerusalem Force are seen as greater threats.

“As the intifada is taking a break, this is Mossad time,” said a source. “We’re not allowed to kill the bastards in Gaza, so it’s time to take care of the countries around us.”

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