Begin forwarded message:
From: "Mario Profaca" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: November 4, 2008 3:18:24 AM PST
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: [SPY NEWS] Leader of the Mossad ring, related to 9/11 bomber
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.roadstoiraq.com/2008/11/03/leader-of-the-mossad-ring-related-to-911-bomber/
Leader of the Mossad ring, related to 9/11 bomber
Newspaper Al-Rai revealed that the leader of the "Israeli-spy" cell
arrested in Lebanon, already imprisoned by Syria 15 days before his
arrest in Lebanon 3 months ago.
The newspaper added that that his arrest was joint cooperation between
the Syrian and Lebanese intelligence services.
Lebanese newspaper Daily Star says that the leader of the spy ring Ali
Al-Jarrah is related to the Lebanese 9/11 suicide operationZiad Al-
Jarrah.
Members of Israeli spy ring 'related to 9/11 hijacker'
'Lebanon is an open theater for espionage'
By Andrew Wander
Daily Star staff
Monday, November 03, 2008
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BEIRUT: Two men arrested for running an Israeli spy ring in the Bekaa
Valley are relatives of a suicide hijacker who piloted a plane in the
September 11, 2001, attacks, a security source told The Daily Star on
Sunday. The Lebanese Army announced on Saturday that it had arrested
two people suspected of involvement with a spy network that gathered
information for Israel's intelligence services.
The army said that the men had been arrested on Friday, but the source
said that they were actually captured two weeks ago and the discovery
of the arrests by the media prompted the army to announce their capture.
The army said the men had admitted "gathering information on political
party offices and monitoring the movements of party figures for the
enemy."
The statement added that the men had been found with "communications
devices and other sophisticated equipment," which they used to gather
information and transmit it to Mossad agents.
Speaking on the condition of anonymity, the source said the men are
relatives of Ziad Jarrah, the Lebanese who helped commandeer United
Airlines Flight 93 before it crashed into a Pennsylvania field on
September 11, 2001, killing everyone on board. Jarrah's family is from
the town of Al-Marej in the Bekaa Valley, where the arrests took place.
The Jarrah family have repeatedly denied that Ziad was part of the
September 11 plot, claiming he was instead a innocent passenger on the
plane, but an official investigation concluded that he was a senior
member of the hijacking team who had undergone flight training in
order to carry out the attacks.
Residents of Al-Marej told As-Safir newspaper that the men were
arrested when security forces raided a home in the town and seized
equipment from a car. The newspaper said investigators had found
documents which prove that the men had been in contact with Israeli
intelligence agents. Investigators said that the men had passed
information about the location of Lebanese and Syrian army outposts to
the Israelis.
One of the two men arrested, identified only by his initials "A.D.J.,"
is believed to have been the head of the spy ring. Security sources
told The Daily Star that the man was a member of the Palestinian
militant group Fatah al-Intifadah, which is known to be active along
the Syrian border.
The other man who was arrested is said to be a relative of "A.D.J."
and was allegedly involved in conducting reconnaissance work for
Mossad in the Bekaa Valley.
Investigators said that the spy ring had been active in the area since
the late 1980s.
Retired General Elias Hanna told The Daily Star that Lebanon provided
the perfect environment for spies to operate. "Lebanon is an open
theater for espionage and counter-espionage," he said. "It has all the
elements that are needed in international and regional conflict."
But he said that if the group had been operating since the 1980s it
would be surprising. "That's 20 years," he said. "That's a long period
of time."
The timing of the arrests was also surprising, he said, given that
senior officials in the Lebanese Army had recently been replaced,
disrupting the continuity needed for counter-espionage operations.
"You have to work on these cases for a long period of time. It
requires information and long periods of monitoring," Hanna said.
"The previous period was chaotic in Lebanon, so I don't know how the
arrests happened," he added.
He said the group were probably trying to gather information about
Hizbullah, but would not have been able to infiltrate the group.
"Hizbullah is an intelligence-proof entity," he said. "It operates
with a very high level of secrecy. If you cannot get inside it, you
study its environment. This is what we are seeing."
Investigators say the men were tasked with monitoring the movements of
senior political figures in the Bekaa region, which lies on the main
route between Beirut and Damascus.
Officials are also investigating a theory that the group provided
intelligence to the Israelis that may have helped them plan the
killing of the senior Hizbullah military commander Imad Mughniyeh in
Damascus in February.
Hizbullah's leader, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, has accused Israel of
being behind the car bomb that killed Mughniyeh and has pledged that
the Shiite group will take revenge for his death.
An Israeli government spokesman refused to comment on the arrests.
"Every couple of weeks there is someone, somewhere accusing the Mossad
of something. As a rule, we don't comment on all these accusations,"
the spokesman said on Sunday.
Meanwhile, the Lebanese Army denied the validity of media reports that
linked two men seen crossing the Lebanese-Israeli border on Sunday
with the case. In a statement issued on Sunday, the army said that the
reports were "confused."