Hezbollah Security Personnel Arrest Suspicious Foreign Nationals in Lebanon
Demonstration in Lebanon
in solidarity with the Palestinian people, December 31, 2023
Since October 8, 2023, when the Lebanese resistance organization Hezbollah expressed its support for the Palestinian resistance under attack by the Israeli army, the embassies of several countries which support Israel, including Britain and Canada, have brought special forces, ammunition and advanced equipment into Lebanon under the pretext of evacuating their diplomats and nationals if the situation deteriorates.
The newspaper Al-Akhbar reported in November that mysterious foreign military cargo flights, potentially carrying equipment for use against Hezbollah, were landing at the Beirut and Hamat airports. According to Intelsky, a website monitoring aircraft movement in the region, between November 14 and 20, nine planes from various NATO countries were recorded landing at Beirut and Hamat airports, including several flying from Tel Aviv.
News agencies now report that Hezbollah security personnel have recently arrested Dutch and Spanish nationals as part of a program of additional measures initiated by Hezbollah security officials in response to increased efforts by Israeli and other foreign intelligence agencies to collect information needed to assassinate Hezbollah and Hamas cadres. Israel assassinated prominent Hamas leader Saleh al-Arouri in an airstrike in the southern Beirut suburb of Dahiya in December and prominent Hezbollah commander Ali Hussein Burji in January in south Lebanon.
On February 28 Hezbollah security personnel arrested six Dutch nationals in the southern suburbs of Beirut, Al-Akhbar reported. The men were found in possession of military-grade weapons, ammunition and equipment. The Dutch government claimed the six men were part of a special group sent to evacuate its nationals if the conflict between Hezbollah and Israel expanded.
Hezbollah handed the men over to the Lebanese Intelligence Directorate, where they were interrogated and kept in detention until the early morning on March 1. Sources speaking with Al-Akhbar said the six men claimed to be members of the Dutch military, simulating an evacuation attempt from inside the southern suburb, the newspaper reported. Contact with them was lost after they entered the southern suburb and were stopped by Hezbollah security personnel. Two employees of the Dutch embassy residing in the southern suburb allegedly participated in the failed simulation, the newspaper says.
However, journalist Hasan Illaik of the Lebanese news outlet Al-Mahatta reported that the embassy employees were not Dutch nationals and that the "Dutch ambassador to Lebanon quickly arrived at the ministry to pressure their release, under the pretext that they had not committed any crime. This is, of course, untrue given that this is a major violation of the law and that it was a significant security threat."
Illaik added that, "even more suspiciously, the armed group claimed to have carried out the operation without consulting their own embassy. It was also discovered that they launched their operation from Kaslik," a coastal town north of Beirut, "rather than from the embassy or a place affiliated with the embassy." Neither the Lebanese military nor the Dutch government provided an official statement or explanation for the incident.
Al-Akhbar reported on March 2 that Hezbollah's security service arrested a Spanish national in the Al-Kafaat area in the southern Beirut suburbs. The man was filming with his phone on the street, claiming he was lost and needed to send his location to friends to pick him up. However, during the interrogation, it was discovered that his phone contained an advanced program preventing access to the stored data. High-level officials from the Spanish embassy then intervened to win his release. It was later discovered that the man possessed a diplomatic passport.
This article was published in
Volume 54
Number 16 - March 5, 2024
Article Link:
https://cpcml.ca/Tmlm2024/Articles/MS54165.HTM
Website: www.cpcml.ca Email: editor@cpcml.ca