A network of spy stations is transmitting information from Lebanon to Iran, according to a report in the Saudi daily Al-Watan [Arabic]. In the report, journalist Fatima Houhou writes that information passed on to Tehran includes video, phone, and electronic data.
Houhou goes on to suggest that the information is being transferred to Iran by Hezbollah, the regime’s terrorist entity in Lebanon.
If confirmed, the report will complicate foreign policy analysis suggesting that Hezbollah has pivoted from being an Iranian proxy to being a Lebanese entity advancing Lebanese interests. Such analysis has been used to advocate engagement with the organization, but has been meeting with increasing skepticism:
Counterterrorism expert Matthew Levitt says that Hezbollah has closely aligned itself with Iran’s Quds Force, an elite paramilitary group linked directly to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, while fighting alongside the Assad regime. In recent years, the partnership between Hezbollah and Iran has tightened to the point that the group’s allegiance to Khamenei is paramount, he says. “What we see now is that Hezbollah is going to do things today that are in Iran’s interest even if they expressly run counter to the interests of Lebanon and Hezbollah’s own interest there.”
A recent analysis by Middle East scholar Tony Badran describes more directly how Hezbollah is promoting its own interests — including its role in the Syrian conflict, where it has gone all-in on behalf of the regime — at the expense of Lebanon’s national security and destabilizing the region:
Hezbollah’s effort to transport into Lebanon the strategic weapons it had stored in Syria is placing the country in tremendous danger. What makes the peril inescapable is the fact that Hezbollah has turned entire population centers into military sites. It has embedded its military infrastructure inside towns and villages all throughout the country. The Israelis have already struck one such convoy in Syria… Given that Hezbollah will surely attempt to bring in more of these weapons systems stored in Syria, an Israeli strike in Lebanon is, in all likelihood, a matter of time.
[Photo: Matanya / Wiki Commons]
