Saturday, June 25, 2011

Hezbollah leader calls US embassy in Beirut ‘den of spies’ as group members confess to working for CIA

Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah said the group had captured three spies among its members, two of whom were recruited by the US Central Intelligence Agency.

The US embassy in Beirut immediately dismissed the accusations as “empty,” saying Mr. Nasrallah seemed to be “addressing internal problems within Hezbollah.”

In the first such acknowledgement of infiltration since the Iranian-backed Shiite group’s founding in the 1980s, Mr. Nasrallah refused to give the identities of two party members he said were working for the Central Intelligence Agency.

But he said a third case was also under investigation, and slammed the American embassy in Beirut as a “den of spies.”

“When the Israeli enemy failed to infiltrate Hezbollah, it turned to the most powerful intelligence agency,” he said in a closed-circuit television speech, referring to the CIA.

“Our investigation has found that... (CIA) intelligence officers have recruited two of our members separately, whom we shall not name out of respect for the privacy of their families,” he said.

The spies, one of whom was recruited five months ago, did not pose a serious threat to the movement or its military capabilities, he said.

“None of these three cases are within the first line of senior leadership. They were not in positions of sensitive responsibility ... it is impossible to touch the military and security infrastructure of the resistance and its ability to confront,” Mr. Nasrallah said. “None of them have sensitive information that could harm the structure of the resistance.”

Mr. Nasrallah also said the group was investigating whether the third member of the militant group had been recruited by the CIA, Israel’s Mossad or the intelligence service of a European country.

A US embassy spokesperson told AFP there was no substance to Mr. Nasrallah’s accusations, pointing instead to internal problems within Hezbollah.

“These are the same kinds of empty accusations that we have repeatedly heard from Hezbollah,” the US spokesperson said shortly after Mr. Nasrallah’s speech.

“There is no substance to his accusation,” he added. “It appears as if Nasrallah was addressing internal problems within Hezbollah with which we have nothing to do. Our position toward Hezbollah is well known and has not changed.”

The United States blacklists Hezbollah as a terrorist organization.

Mr. Nasrallah warned that Hezbollah, which prides itself on the discipline of its members and its immunity to infiltration, was facing a new threat.

“A new confrontation has now begun,” he said. “We were already in a state of confrontation with the Israeli enemy, but now we are being targeted by US intelligence, opening a new front in our struggle.”

The Shiite leader insisted, however, that the alleged agents had not been involved in the 2008 assassination of senior Hezbollah operative Imad Mughniyeh in the Syrian capital Damascus.

Hezbollah openly accused Israel of being behind the bombing that killed Mr. Mughniyeh and vowed to avenge his death. The Jewish state denies responsibility.

More than 100 people in Lebanon have been arrested on suspicion of spying for Israel since April 2009, including military personnel and telecommunications employees.

Lebanon and Israel technically remain in a state of war and convicted spies face life imprisonment or the death sentence if found guilty of contributing to Lebanese loss of life.

Lebanon has protested to the United Nations over the alleged spy networks.

Syrian and Iranian-backed Hezbollah last fought a devastating war with Israel in 2006. Hezbollah has claimed that it defeated Israel in that conflict, and even within Israel there was a sense that Israeli forces performed poorly.

The month-long conflict killed more than 1,200 Lebanese, mainly civilians, and 160 Israelis, mainly soldiers, and destroyed much of Lebanon’s major infrastructure.

Mr. Nasrallah said the information about the spies was not intended to distance the group from a UN-backed tribunal investigating the 2005 assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Al Hariri.

It is expected to accuse members of the Shiite group of being linked to the killing. The indictment is confidential.

Media reports have said the tribunal may issue its first indictments in September or October.

Hezbollah, which says the tribunal is political and an Israeli tool, has repeatedly denied any link to the 2005 killing.

(Sara Ghasemilee, a senior editor at Al Arabiya English

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