Hezbollah says the United States has been using its Lebanon embassy as a venue to recruit informants to spy on the Lebanese resistance movement.
A report aired on al-Manar TV channel on Saturday said the CIA had mandated a team of 10 officers, including women, with recruiting Lebanese spies to gather information on Hezbollah, Xinhua reported.
The spies were to inform the officers at the US embassy in Awkar, north of Beirut, on Hezbollah officials and fighters and provide the addresses of the movement’s arms depots.
Hezbollah Deputy Secretary General Sheikh Naim Qassem said that the revelation was “only a small fraction” of data at hand on Washington’s spy activities in Lebanon.
The officers, registered as diplomats at the US embassy, had served as CIA agents in Lebanon for three years.
The CIA officers were active in recruiting agents from various posts including government employees, security and military personnel, religious, banking and academic figures, the report said.
The recruitment of agents reportedly took place inside the US embassy premises while meetings were held in fast-food restaurants and coffee shops.
In November, US officials admitted that a group of CIA informants in Lebanon had been captured by Hezbollah, which served a serious blow on Washington’s spying operations in the country.
