The U.S. Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell has suggested that it was also possible that Syrian intelligence was responsible for the killing. Without naming a source, the German newspaper Die Welt wrote that a story had been circulated amongst German diplomatic staff that it was possible that associates of late Assef Shawkat had assassinated Mughniyeh. This would have been in revenge for Mughniyeh tipping off Syrian President Bashar al-Assad regarding a coup plotted against him, which the Syrian government had foiled a couple of days before his assassination. Releasing the story in advance of going to print, Die Welt said the Syrian embassy in Berlin had rejected the coup story as utterly untrue. Lebanese politicians Walid Jumblatt and Saad Hariri as well as Mughniyeh's Iranian widow also accused Syrian officials. His widow, after returning to Iran from Damascus, stated "This is why the Syrian regime has refused the help of Iran and Hizbollah in the investigation of the murder... The Syrian traitors assisted in my husband’s murder." However, later she denied her statements. According to a leaked US official report, top Syrian officials were stunned by the assassination of Mughniyeh and engaged in an internecine struggle to blame each other for the breach of security that resulted in Mughniyeh's death.
