BEIRUT (Dispatches) -- Lebanon’s
security forces have dismantled more than 15 Israeli spy networks over the past few weeks, marking one of the largest security operations in the country since 2009, Al-Akhbar newspaper reported Monday.
They operated on Lebanese territories as well as in Syria, which came to the attention of Lebanon’s Information Branch, the intelligence unit of the internal security forces, and were dismantled, it said.
The operation, launched four weeks ago, is one of the largest carried out since 2009 when the Mossad’s spy networks collapsed one by one.
Despite the high number of suspects, the newspaper said, Information Branch operatives are trying to keep the operation under wraps. They are claiming that the detainees are held over fraud and drug offenses, it added.
According to Al-Akhbar, the suspects provided “directly or indirectly and with or without prior knowledge” the occupying regime of Israel with information on its targets, including Hezbollah and Palestinian resistance forces in Lebanon, especially Hamas.
The investigations found that the spy network had penetrated the Information Branch itself and got very close to its leadership.
The crackdown also saw a Syrian suspect arrested. The Damascus-based suspect admitted that he was monitoring civilian, military, and commercial sites and sending maps from the Syrian capital, but that he was not aware of the goal.
Syria and the Zionist regime are technically at war since 1967 when Israel occupied the Arab country’s Golan Heights.
The occupying regime maintains a significant military presence in the territory, which it uses as a launchpad for attacks on Syrian soil.
The attacks started to grow significantly in scale and frequency after 2011, when Syria found itself in the grip of rampant foreign-backed militancy and terrorism.
Tel Aviv claims that its attacks target supplies headed for Hezbollah.
Al-Akhbar said the number of those interrogated over the past month exceeded 35, and nearly 20 of them were held at the Information Branch while one was held by Hezbollah and another in Syria. The arrestees included Lebanese, Palestinian, and Syrian people.
The investigations showed that 12 of the detainees were aware that they were working with the occupying regime of Israel, while the rest assumed they were working for international institutions or NGOs.
The report said the Information Branch is expected to provide competent judicial authorities with investigation records for referral to the military court.
Israel launched two wars on Lebanon in 2000 and 2006, which both saw Hezbollah inflicting heavy losses on the regime’s military.
The regime has been violating Lebanese airspace on an almost daily basis, carrying out what it calls “routine reconnaissance missions.”
Beirut has filed several complaints with the UN against Israeli violations of Lebanon’s sovereignty by land, sea, and air in defiance of UN Security Council Resolution 1701, which brokered a ceasefire in Israel’s 2006 war and calls on Tel Aviv to respect Lebanese sovereignty and territorial integrity.