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ALLY BACKS ASSASSINATION NETWORK
ISRAEL’S MOSSAD CAUGHT RED-HANDED IN MURDER NETWORK IN LEBANON
By Christopher Bollyn
Israel’s long history of involvement in political assassinations in Lebanon was exposed when a Lebanese assassin confessed to working for Israeli intelligence and having killed a number of Lebanese and Palestinian resistance leaders.
A Lebanese man working for Mossad, Israel’s military intelligence agency, confessed to having assassinated a number of senior members of the Lebanon-based Hezbollah and Palestinian resistance groups over a seven-year period, according to a recent Reuters news report. The confession by the Lebanese assassin that he worked for Mossad is a significant confirmation that Israel has long been involved in carrying out political murders in Lebanon.
On June 13, the Lebanese army reported that Mahmud Rafah, who had been arrested along with three others in connection with the May 26 killing of two Islamic Jihad officials, was a leading member of an Israeli “terrorist” network behind at least three other major assassinations in Lebanon.
“Investigations by military intelligence showed that the terrorist network that was discovered had links to the Israeli Mossad for several years and that its members underwent training both
“The network was tasked by this agency [Mossad] with carrying out these operations and was given secret communication and monitoring devices for this purpose, along with detailed maps of the target,” the army said, including “forged documents and bags with secret pockets.”
TOOLS OF THE TRADE
The find included an Israeli camera that can take detailed photographs of streets while concealed within a bag and forged driving and identity documents which Rafah had received from Israel, the army said.
The Lebanese army released television footage that showed equipment discovered at Rafah’s house in the Lebanese town of Hasbaya, on the border with Israel, and in a chalet that it said had been used in the latest assassinations.
The footage also showed an air conditioning unit and a large speaker with built-in secret cabinets that the army said were used to transport explosives used in the Sidon bombing. Other finds included a television cabinet and a table fitted with secret drawers to conceal coded messaging devices.
Numerous Palestinian and Hezbollah resistance leaders have been killed in Lebanon in attacks, which the organizations blamed on Israel.
Rafah admitted to the murder of Ali Hasan Dib, a Hezbollah official, in 1999 in the southern town of Arba, the killing of another Hezbollah official in Beirut in 2003 and the killing of Jihad Ahmad Jibril, a Palestinian, in 2002, the army said. Jibril, who was killed in a car bombing in Beirut, was the son of Ahmad Jibril, head of the Damascusbased Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command, a Palestinian resistance group opposed to the Israeli occupation of Palestine.
Rafah also confessed to planting bombs that had either been found and defused or missed their targets, the army statement said.
Christopher Bollyn is a much-traveled international journalist currently based in Chicago, serving as Midwest bureau chief for American Free Press. He has written extensively on a wide variety of subjects including the controversy surrounding computerized voting systems, the Arab-Israeli conflict and the many unanswered questions surrounding the 9-11 terrorist attacks.
(Issue #27, July 3, 2006)
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