Lebanese terrorist Samir Kuntar had been planning a major terror attack against Israel in the Golan Heights area just before his elimination,
Yediot Aharonot reports Sunday, based on "the most reliable Western sources."
Kuntar had established himself over the past year as a "ticking time bomb" and independent source of terror attacks against Israel, the sources stated, noting that both Israelis and sources in the Arab world confirmed this information from their viewpoints.
According to those same sources, Kuntar has not been associated with Hezbollah for some time now - instead, operating under even more extreme groups, dubbed the Syrian National Defense Committees.
Kuntar's group was established in the place of the cruel
Shabiha organization, which the Syrian Army distanced itself from for its savagery; the new group discarded the poor reputation, its political and economic aims, and toned down its rhetoric.
Farhan al-Shaalan, another key terrorist, was also a member of the organization and was also killed in the Sunday night strike.
Kantar is notorious for the 1979 murder of three Israelis, including 31-year-old Danny Haran, and his four-year-old daughter.
He was freed by Israel as part of a prisoner swap in 2008, three decades after the murders, and he became a high-profile figure in the Lebanese Shiite terror group Hezbollah.