Busted spy ring in Lebanon was Israel’s top network in the Arab world

Hezbollah parade

By IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org |
French newspaper Le Figaro has published a well-researched account of an ongoing counterintelligence operation in Lebanon, which has resulted in the dismantling of an enormous network of Israeli spy cells in the country. The paper describes the discovery of the Israeli spy network as “one of the most resounding defeats in [Israel’s] history”. IntelNews has been following the counterintelligence operation from its very beginning last February. Since then, over 70 Lebanese nationals have been charged with conducting espionage operations on behalf of Israel, of whom nearly 40 have been apprehended. According to Lebanese officials, the dismantled spy ring was probably Israel’s most important intelligence network in the Arab world. It consisted of neatly compartmentalized cells of no more than three members, which operated autonomously and were not in contact with each other. It also appears that the Lebanese authorities and/or Hezbollah counterintelligence agents had access to the cells’ communications with their Israeli handlers during the planning stages of the counterintelligence operation. Lebanese officials told Le Figaro that a “technical secret” enabled the successful dismantling of the spy cells. There have been rumors that it was Russian technology, employed by a specialist surveillance unit of the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation (FSB), that helped uncover the spy ring. As DEBKAFile reported in August, the FSB unit was commissioned by Hezbollah, the Shia Islamic political and paramilitary organization that controls large parts of Lebanon.