Hezbollah claims ‘victory’ in intelligence war with CIA

Iranian-backed Hezbollah boasted Wednesday that it has succeeded in exposing CIA operatives in Lebanon and urged the government to take immediate measures against the U.S. embassy near Beirut.

“Our security... has exposed several American and Israeli plots on Lebanon,” Hezbollah MP Hassan Fadlallah told reporters outside parliament.

“We call on the Lebanese government to take immediate action... and raise the issue with the United Nations and embassies, so that the whole world is aware of what the U.S. embassy in Lebanon is doing,” he added.

Fadlallah, who heads parliament’s telecommunications committee, said the Lebanese Shiite militant group, which is also backed by Syria, had succeeded in uncovering Central Intelligence Agency operatives that had infiltrated Hezbollah.

“Lebanese intelligence vanquished U.S. and Israeli intelligence in what is now known as the intelligence war,” Fadlallah said.

“The resistance blinded American intelligence eyes.”

The MP’s comments came days after reports emerged that Hezbollah had uncovered several operatives within the movement working for the CIA.

In the first acknowledgement of infiltration since the Shiite group’s founding in the 1980s, Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah in June said members of his group had confessed to being CIA agents.

Nasrallah accused his arch foe Israel of turning to the U.S. spy agency after failing to infiltrate his party, slamming the American embassy in Beirut as a “den of spies.”

The U.S. embassy in Beirut dismissed the accusations as “empty”.

More than 100 people in Lebanon have been arrested on suspicion of spying for Israel since April 2009, including military personnel and telecoms employees.

Lebanon and Israel technically remain in a state of war and convicted spies face life imprisonment or the death sentence if found guilty of contributing to Lebanese loss of life.

Lebanon has protested to the United Nations over the alleged spy networks.