Hezbollah claims to expose Mossad mega-spy in its ranks
Lebanese news agency reports businessman secretly working for Israel foiled plans to avenge death of Imad Mughniyeh
Elhanan Miller is the former Arab affairs reporter for The Times of Israel
Lebanese terror group Hezbollah recently exposed a senior spy working for the Israeli Mossad intelligence agency within its foreign operations branch, a Lebanese news agency reported Tuesday.
Unnamed sources told the El-Nashra news outlet Tuesday that the “collaborator,” exposed a few weeks ago, was an official in unit 910, responsible for “external operations against specific Israeli targets.”
A resident of southern Lebanon whose initials are M. Sh., the man worked as a traveling businessman and was recruited by the Mossad in a “western Asian country,” El-Nashra reported.
Lebanon’s security agencies periodically report the exposure of Israeli-recruited agents in the country, as well as of listening devices often planted in the south.
According to the report, the collaborator had been working for Israel for years and succeeded in thwarting a number of Hezbollah operations planned to avenge the assassination of movement official Imad Mughniyeh in February 2008, ostensibly by Israel.
He also reportedly exposed other Hezbollah agents, including Mohammed Amadar, arrested in Peru in late October with TNT and detonators following a Mossad tip-off; Hossam Yaacoub, convicted in Cyprus for planning attacks against Israeli tourists in March 2013; and Daoud Farhat and Youssef Ayad, arrested in April 2014 in Bangkok for planning terror attacks against Israeli tourists in Thailand.
El-Nashra reported that the collaborator is also suspected of taking part in Mughniyeh’s assassination in Damascus, using an explosive device placed in his car seat, as well as the assassination of Hezbollah official Hassan al-Laqis in December 2013.
“The most important thing is that Hezbollah has dealt a new blow to Israel. It believes it has detected a germ in its body and treated it properly,” the outlet reported.
Mughniyeh’s assassination was considered a major blow to the terror group. Israel has never claimed responsibility, but Hezbollah has blamed Jerusalem for the attack and vowed to take revenge.
The Times of Israel Community.