Hezbollah planned to assassinate Olmert, Arab report claims

ِAn Israeli collaborator within the ranks of Lebanese terrorist group Hezbollah thwarted the organization’s plan to assassinate former Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert and attack the Israeli embassy in Azerbaijan in 2009, a London-based Arab daily reported on Wednesday.

Al-Araby Al-Jadid quoted a Lebanese political source as saying that Muhammad Shorba, arrested by Hezbollah late last year, was appointed by Hezbollah to avenge the assassination of Hezbollah leader Imad Mughniyeh in February 2008 by striking Jewish and Israeli targets in Europe and Latin America.

As prime minister, Olmert launched the Second Lebanon War in August 2006 following Hezbollah’s cross-border kidnapping of Israeli soldiers Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev, and was also reportedly involved in Mughniyeh’s assassination. The daily did not provide any details on when or how Olmert’s assassination was to take place.

The assassination of Mughniyeh was considered a major blow to Hezbollah, which vowed at the time to avenge the death.

Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah acknowledged Shorba’s arrest in an interview with Lebanese TV station Al-Mayadeen in January, saying he had fallen under suspicion five months earlier and admitted to collaborating with Israel following his arrest.

Shorba worked as a traveling businessman and was recruited by the Mossad in a “western Asian country,” according to a December report in Lebanese daily El-Nashra.

He also reportedly exposed several 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.

Omri Nir, an expert on Lebanese politics at Jerusalem’s Hebrew University said that given Hezbollah’s past attempts to gather intelligence on Israeli officials, the report in Al-Araby Al-Jadid was not out of the question.

In August 2009, 23-year-old Rawi Sultani of Tirah was indicted for spying on then-IDF chief of staff Gabi Ashkenazi at the gym.

“It certainly sounds plausible,” Nir told The Times of Israel. “I imagine that just like any state, they collect intelligence so that one day when the operational opportunity arises they can claim it was done to avenge Mughniyeh.”

The fact that Hezbollah did not hand Shorba over to Lebanese security but insists on interrogating him itself, as well as his mention in Nasrallah’s interview, indicated that he is likely “a big fish,” Nir added.

Israel significantly stepped up its intelligence gathering in Lebanon following the 2006 Second Lebanon War, when it exhausted its target bank within days due to lack of quality information on Hezbollah, he said.

“Hezbollah knows this, and is stressed. Every few months Lebanese media reports on [Israeli] surveillance devices, cameras along the border, or spy planes,” Nir noted. The assassination of Hezbollah commander Hassan al-Lakis in Beirut in December 2013 would not have been possible without inside involvement, he added.

A report in the Daily Beast last month revealed that Mughniyeh’s assassination was carried out as a joint operation between Israeli and American security agents.

Jerusalem and Washington have not officially claimed responsibility for the killing.