Beirut, a spy’s haven
During the Cold War, Berlin was John Le Carré’s setting, and Vienna formed the backdrop of Orson Welles’s spy thriller The Third Man. In comparison, the clandestine war unraveling in the Middle East is set in Beirut. Western spies, Iranian operatives, Syrian intelligence services, Hezbollah activists, the Mossad, the CIA and other intelligence agencies are locked in an impenetrable war in which victories are sometimes proclaimed, but never defeats.
In this behind-the-scenes war, the Israeli intelligence services have endured this year one of the most resounding defeats of their history. As expected, they have issued no comment about the dismantling of their most important spy network in an Arab country. The figures are, however, unprecedented: More than 70 Lebanese nationals have been charged with espionage for Israel during the past few months, around 40 suspects have been arrested and 30 others are still wanted by Lebanese authorities. Some have managed to escape, flying to an unknown destination or crossing the border between Lebanon and Israel, two countries that are still technically at war since 1949. Others ceased their activities. Unlike master spies in novels, the members of these networks belonged to the less glamorous world of field intelligence, one of informants and anonymous cells tasked with collecting fragmentary information, setting up objective files or monitoring the enemy’s daily movements. These agents, some of whom have been dormant for years, were recruited across all Lebanese communities, including Christians, Sunnis and Shia from South Lebanon, the Bekaa or Beirut.
“Some had been working for Israel for years, sometimes even since the 1980s,” says General Achraf Rifi, director general of the Internal Security Forces, which were behind many of the arrests. “They were recruited for various financial, ideological or psychological motives. Some cases involved blackmail, whether of a sexual nature or otherwise. But the main recruiting factor was Israel’s long occupation of South Lebanon,which put the Lebanese people in touch with the Israelis and somehow made it acceptable to deal with them.”
“One thing is sure,” comments a Western diplomatic source in Beirut, “it’s a good haul. Since its semi-failure during the 2006 July War, when it relied on its aerial and technological intelligence, Israel may have demanded a bit too much of its networks, causing them to take undue risks to rebuild their lists of targets. These arrests, however, were the fruit of unprecedented work by the Lebanese security forces.”
As in all these cases, it is difficult to sort out the intricacies of the story. This is especially true in Lebanon, where Hezbollah, which has become a state within the state, has its own counter-espionage services cooperating sometimes with state agencies, which are still full of pro-Syrian agents and officers but are being managed – ever since Syria’s withdrawal from the country – by Sunnis loyal to Rafik Hariri, notably with regard to the ISF.
According to the same diplomat, “the trigger came when Hezbollah realized how deep it had been permeated by Israel.” A clandestine, impenetrable and paranoid organization in which the central element of security is the recruitment of Shia cadres, Hezbollah was dealt a harsh blow in February 2008 with the assassination of its top military commander, Imad Mugniyah, in Damascus. This assassination, which was attributed to the Mossad, set the party’s counter-espionage machine in motion, and the first arrests were made toward the end of 2008. In November, two Sunni brothers and natives of the Bekaa village of al-Marj were captured by Hezbollah: Ali and Youssef Jarrah were accused of spying for Israel for the past 20 years. They were found to be in possession of photo and video equipment, in addition to a GPS device hidden in their vehicle. The car, which was fitted to take pictures, was frequently parked at the Masnaa border crossing on the Beirut-Damascus road, which was used by the Hezbollah officials. Using an Israeli passport, Ali Jarrah used to go to Israel via Cyprus or Jordan for briefing and training purposes. According to Lebanese sources, he was also reportedly sent on a reconnaissance mission to the Damascus neighborhood where Mugniyah was assassinated.
Extensive haul
In January 2009, Hezbollah captured two other suspects. Joseph Sader, an employee at Beirut’s international airport, was kidnapped on his way to work. When questioned, he reportedly admitted doing the same intelligence job in an airport used as a transit base by Middle Eastern emissaries and diplomats. The fourth agent arrested by Hezbollah was a mechanic from the southern Shia town of Nabatiyeh: Marwan Fakir was a car dealer who provided the Shia movement with cars upon request. He is suspected of having used his talents as a mechanic to install location devices on the cars the party gave him to repair. These cases were merely a prelude to the extensive haul that would come next, one which would involve the Lebanese services.
A Lebanese general recruited by Israel
The wave of arrests started in May 2009. General Adib Alam, a retired Christian officer and a veteran of the LAF Intelligence Directorate, was arrested along with his wife and nephew. According to Lebanese media outlets, he reportedly admitted to having been recruited by the Israeli intelligence services in 1998. His employers are thought to have convinced him to retire from the military and to establish an agency specializing in the recruitment of Asian domestic workers. Adib Alam used this cover to go to Greece, Cyprus and Italy where he met with the officers he dealt with. He is suspected of having provided information regarding Hezbollah and the internal movements of the Lebanese Armed Forces, and is thought to have had access to the passport department, which represents an important source of information.
In turn, Mansour Diab, a Sunni colonel and native of the northern region of Akkar, is suspected of dealing with Israel. This Marine commando was one of the heroes of the assault that took the Nahr al-Bared refugee camp by storm and was wounded in action in the summer of 2007. He was probably recruited by the Mossad during his traineeships in the United States. Shahid Toumieh, another colonel from Akkar, was also arrested along with a retired customs official. This goes without mentioning Nasser Nader, who is suspected of staging a surveillance operation of Hezbollah’s stronghold in Dahiyeh, which was devastated by high-precision Israeli bombings in 2006.
What makes this wave of arrests even more unusual is the fact that according to the customary rules, the spy cells were never composed of more than two or three members each. They operated in an autonomous and compartmentalized way and did not know one another. General Rifi only provided the following explanation: “We managed to uncover a technical secret, which allowed us to unmask these cells. Some sent messages to their Israeli liaison officers, saying they felt the heat, and they were told not to worry. And then we started making the arrests, and others will follow. Those who have managed to flee have ceased their activities anyway.”
“An extraordinary investigation tool”
The story behind this “technical secret” seems to be linked to another case. “The secret in question relates to the investigation into Rafik Hariri’s assassination,” says a diplomatic source in Beirut. “Western intelligence services thus equipped Lebanon’s ISF with powerful software that can analyze tens of thousands of phone calls and detect abnormal patterns, such as mobile phones that are turned on at specific times only or that communicate exclusively with one or two numbers. This is an extraordinary investigation tool.” Captain Wissam Eid, a brilliant officer specializing in IT systems, was put in charge of this program. A Lebanese source who wished to remain anonymous, as is the case with most interlocutors, said that “he very likely made several discoveries thanks to this software, especially with regard to Hezbollah communications …” Did Captain Eid know too much? Did he find out that Hezbollah is involved in Rafik Hariri’s assassination? The fact remains that on January 25, 2008, his armored car was shredded by a car bomb, killing him on the spot. His system has, since then, made another haul possible, dealing a heavy blow to Israel in a war in which there are no heroes.