Hizbollah expansion opens door to infiltrators

Recent admission of "some cases" by group's deputy leader lends credence to reports that group uncovered a high-level spy for Israel.

The Hizbollah deputy leader Sheikh Naim Qassem gives an interview at his office in Beirut’s suburbs on February 28, 2012. Sharif Karim / Reuters

BEIRUT // The revelation that Hizbollah uncovered an Israeli spy in its top echelons is a warning to the group’s leadership of the challenges that come with its growing influence in the region.

Experts on the Lebanese Shiite party and militia said the infiltration is not a surprise given Hizbollah’s evolution into one of the most sophisticated non-state actors in the world.

Hizbollah now has an arsenal more powerful than many nation-states and is primed for battle on two fronts. The militia is heavily involved in fighting in Syria to prop up Bashar Al Assad while on alert for any renewed confrontation with Israel.

At the same time, the party’s bureaucracy and operations within Lebanon have continued to expand, leaving it increasingly vulnerable to espionage on various levels.

“Any organisation that expands and has a large presence becomes easier to infiltrate,” said Qassem Qassir, an expert on Hizbollah. “This is a sign and alarm bell that Hizbollah needs to reassess its policies and actions.”

Hizbollah’s second-in-command, Sheikh Naim Qassem, acknowledged over the weekend that the party has been battling espionage within its ranks.

The militia’s growth had made it subject to infiltrations, he said on Hizbollah’s Al Nour radio station.

“There is no party in the world with numbers this huge and with this level of expansion that has been able to remain as steadfast as Hizbollah,” Mr Qassem said. “They had major infiltrations whereas Hizbollah has worked greatly to battle espionage within it and its surroundings and there were some cases that came to light and they are limited.”

Mr Qassem’s comments did not name any culprits but it appeared to be a confirmation of recent reports that Hizbollah had apprehended a senior operative accused of spying for Israel.

Local media identified the alleged spy as Mohammad Shawraba, who was described by Lebanese newspaper The Daily Star as the head of the party's External Operations Unit.

The newspaper said Mr Shawraba was suspected of tipping off Israel to retaliatory operations aimed at avenging the death of Imad Mughniyeh, the party’s elusive top military commander who was killed in a car bomb in Damascus in 2008. The attack was widely believed to have been carried out by Israel.

Mr Qassem’s statement was the first acknowledgement that Hizbollah had been infiltrated by spies since a 2011 speech by Hassan Nasrallah, the group’s leader, in which he said the CIA had recruited agents within the party’s ranks.

"It's certainly damaging from a reputational viewpoint because Hizbollah has traditionally enjoyed a reputation of being hard to penetrate by Israeli intelligence agencies," said Nicholas Blanford, the author of Warriors of God, a book on the military evolution of the party. "Twenty years ago, the notion of a senior Hizbollah member being caught spying for Israel was unthinkable, but 20 years ago, Hizbollah was a smaller, more tightly controlled and disciplined organisation."

Hizbollah has rarely admitted the infiltration of its ranks by Israeli intelligence agents. In fact, the party has often boasted of its success in occasionally penetrating Israel’s formidable intelligence apparatus.

For a group that prides itself on its discipline and the religious piety of its cadres, the revelation is a blow to Hizbollah’s reputation and record.

But the group’s rapid expansion has included both its institutions and presence in civil society, as it sought to grow its support base in areas of Lebanon shattered by Israeli aggression.

With the end of the 2006 Israeli war on Lebanon, direct military confrontations between Hizbollah and Israel have been replaced by more clandestine operations and espionage.

The group also has a large military force in Syria, where it controls much of the Qalamoun region straddling the Lebanese border, which it says offers a defence against extremist rebel groups entering into Lebanon.

The rapid expansion requires Hizbollah to reassess its weaknesses and existing command structure to be able to face Israel in this phase of the conflict, Mr Qassir said.

Still, the fact that it was able to identify Mr Shawraba at all is an indication of the depth of the group’s abilities.

“Today, Hizbollah is a large sprawling bureaucracy with looser internal control mechanisms which has made it easier for Israel to penetrate,” Mr Blanford said. “On the other hand, the fact that Hizbollah is able to unearth these Israeli agents is testament to the efficiency of its counter-intelligence apparatus.”

“The real problem for Hizbollah is not the spies they have caught in their ranks but the ones they have not yet found,” he added.