Hezbollah
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In the case of Shuman’s infiltration operation, Hezbollah’s London network needed only to provide basic logistical support for an attack planned not for the streets of London but for the streets of Jerusalem. Shuman’s operational instructions in London were very clear and were intended to bolster his cover story before his travel to Israel on his British passport. He was told to rent an apartment in London, set up a voice mailbox there in case anyone called, and purchase a British cell phone. Having established these supports for his cover story, he purchased a plane ticket at a travel agency that allowed him to pay in cash.176
Shuman arrived in Israel on December 31, 2000. On arrival in Jerusalem, he checked in to the Novotel on the Arab side of Jerusalem’s Route 60 north, a parkway leading out of the city and dividing its Arab eastern and Jewish western neighborhoods. Before he departed for Israel, Shuman’s instructors made him memorize the location of dead drops in East Jerusalem’s Wadi Joz neighborhood, which is located between Mount Scopus and the Old City. Soon after he checked into the Novotel, Shuman made his way to the dead drop and began digging. It is not clear if Shuman found what he was looking for—likely weapons, explosives, or preoperational surveillance information. He soon moved several blocks away, to the Dan Panorama, a hotel in West Jerusalem overlooking the walls of the Old City.177
Shuman later confessed to Israeli authorities that he called his Hezbollah handlers in Lebanon regularly to update them on his progress. That progress, however, was short-lived: on January 5, six days after arriving in the country, Shuman was arrested just 300 meters from the prime minister’s Jerusalem residence.178 At the time of his arrest Shuman carried Sierra Leonean travel documents along with his British passport.179 A search of the items in his possession revealed Shuman had a kippah (a skullcap, often employed by terrorists to blend into Israeli society), a timer that could have been used for an explosive device, maps of Jerusalem, a large sum of money, a video camera, two disposable cameras, and several cellular phones purchased in Israel.180
Recruiting Israeli Arabs Abroad
Even as Hezbollah invested heavily in Palestinian terrorist networks, the group continued to recruit its own operatives to target Israel, often leveraging its foreign operations capabilities to that end. Israeli Arabs were of particular interest to Qais Obeid, especially following the Israeli withdrawal from southern Lebanon in May 2000, though earlier, in the late 1990s and early 2000, Hezbollah had focused on recruiting Israeli Arabs. Back then the group expressed particular interest in members of Israel’s Bedouin communities, whose mobility provided an attractive cover for movement around the country. Both before and after 2000, Hezbollah focused on Israeli Arabs with clean security records.181
With the Israeli occupation of Lebanon over, Hezbollah lost its primary justification for maintaining its armed militia in continued and explicit violation of the Taif Accord, which ended the Lebanese civil war. Refocusing its effort on liberating a few disputed hilltops like the Shebaa Farms (determined by the UN to actually be in Syrian, not Lebanese, territory) could not suffice to maintain a culture of resistance and martyrdom. This explains Hezbollah’s fixation on carrying out cross-border military attacks and its support for terrorism targeting Israel since 2000. Seeking much-needed intelligence and operational support networks south of the border, Hezbollah found Israeli Arabs “an especially attractive target for recruitment and handling,” according to Israeli security sources.182 As full citizens of Israel, Israeli Arab operatives enjoyed complete freedom of movement throughout Israel, enabling them to collect information on strategic locations, critical infrastructure, traffic arteries, and Israeli cities and towns. Beyond luring Jewish and Arab Israeli citizens into drugs for intelligence schemes, Hezbollah endeavored to spot and approach Israeli Arabs staying abroad for recruitment. Sometimes individuals would be considered based on their statements and political positions, whereas other times Hezbollah recruited on a “friend brings a friend” basis.183
Investigation into one such case led Israeli authorities to arrest Khalid Kashkoush, an Israeli Arab medical student from the Qalansua, an Arab city in central Israel, as he landed at Ben Gurion Airport in July 2008. Kashkoush had been studying in Göttingen, Germany, where a relative introduced him to a Lebanese doctor named Hisham Hassan, who headed the Orphaned Children Project Lebanon. Dr. Hassan, Israeli authorities charged, had spotted Kashkoush and put him in touch with a Hezbollah handler. German authorities were likely not surprised by the allegations, given that several German intelligence offices, among other government authorities, publicly identified the Orphaned Children Project’s ties to Hezbollah and Hezbollah’s Martyrs Foundation. Among these offices were those located in Baden-Württemberg and Bremen.184
Until the German government shut it down in 2002, the Martyrs Foundation operated in Germany as the al-Shahid Social Relief Institution.185 The US Treasury Department followed suit in July 2007, designating the Martyrs Foundation (including its US office, the Goodwill Charitable Organization) as a terrorist entity. Senior Martyrs Foundation officials were not only involved in fundraising for Hezbollah, according to the Treasury Department; they were also “directly involved in Hizballah operations against Israel during the July–August 2006 conflict.” In fact, Treasury noted, “a Lebanon-based leader of the Martyrs Foundation has directed and financed terrorist cells in the Gaza Strip that worked with Hizballah and PIJ.”186 The Orphans Project website was not coy about its ties to the Martyrs Foundation: The site informed donors that the funds it raised were directly transferred to the Lebanese Martyrs Foundation’s bank account.187
According to Israeli authorities, Kashkoush would meet Dr. Hisham several times after their introduction in 2002. After a few meetings, Hisham suggested Kashkoush establish a business relationship with someone he called Rami. In December 2005, Kashkoush met Rami in Erfurt, Germany, where Kashkoush was instructed to buy a “clean” phone and to set future meetings by email. Rami, who identified himself now as Mazen, was actually Mohamad Hashem, an “experienced Hezbollah senior handler.” According to Israeli officials, “Mohamad Hashem frequently visits in various countries for meetings with Hizbullah agents to give instructions and money and receive information.”188
Kashkoush and Hashem met several times over the next couple of years, including in Erfurt in December 2006 and in Frankfurt in April 2007 and January 2008. Hashem asked for the names of other Israeli citizens studying abroad who might be possible targets for recruitment by Hezbollah. He also asked Kashkoush to supply information to Hezbollah about Israel and to identify addresses and public buildings in Qalansua on Google Earth maps. Moreover, he was told to try to get a job at an Israeli hospital, where he could collect information on hospitalized members of the Israeli security forces. He was given basic security training and paid €13,000 for his activities on behalf of Hezbollah. Once arrested, Kashkoush reportedly informed Israeli authorities not only about his recruitment by Mohamad Hashem but also about the activities of another Hezbollah agent, Ayman Kamel Shihadeh, a Palestinian from Hebron who had already been the target of the Shin Bet’s attention for his association with Hezbollah.189
One event that, interestingly, shook Kashkoush was the August 2009 arrest of Rawi Sultani, another Israeli Arab, on charges of spying for Hezbollah. A resident of Tira, a town just seven miles from Kashkoush’s home in Qalansua, Sultani also lived near the home of then–IDF chief of staff Lt. Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi. Recruited by a Hezbollah speaker at a summer camp in Morocco run by the Israeli Arab Balad (National Democratic Assembly) Party, Sultani informed officials that he and the Israeli chief of staff worked out at the same gym.190
Keen to exact revenge for the previous year’s assassination of Imad Mughniyeh, the Hezbollah recruiter—Salman Harb—asked Sultani for detailed information on Ashkenazi. Hezbollah had hoped to target a current or former senior Israeli official, someone roughly equal in rank and importance to Hezbollah’s Mughniyeh. The sitting chief of staff made for a particularly attractive target.191
Hezbollah had been gunning for Ashkenazi for years. Six years earlier, IDF Lt. Col. Omar al-Heib, a Bedouin tracker who lost an eye in an explosion in 1996 while on an IDF mission in Lebanon, was charged with espionage for providing Hezbollah with details about Israeli military installations in general and about General Ashkenazi, then head of Israel’s Northern Command, in particular. Sentencing al-Heib to fifteen years in jail, a Tel Aviv court concluded that in return for drugs and money, al-Heib, a senior IDF officer, willingly supplied information to Hezbollah.192
Salman Harb must have marveled at his good fortune for having stumbled onto a potentially huge source—someone who went to the same gym as a longtime Hezbollah target. The information provided by this twenty-three-year-old participant in an outreach seminar represented an ideal operational opportunity, so Sultani and Harb kept in touch by phone, email, and Facebook after their meeting in Morocco. As it happened, Israeli intelligence operations eventually tagged Rawi Sultani as an Israeli citizen who was in communication with Hezbollah.193 Informed of this discovery, the Shin Bet and the International Serious Crimes Unit of the Israeli police tracked Sultani’s email and Facebook correspondence with Hezbollah, unraveling the plot to target Ashkenazi before it became operational.194
Authorities waited to arrest Sultani, however, until they were sure they had collected sufficient evidence to convict him.195 In December 2008, Sultani flew to Poland to meet with a Hezbollah operative going by the name Sami. Sultani officially joined Hezbollah at this meeting and passed along information he had gathered about Ashkenazi and other Israeli officials and IDF bases.196 Sultani was provided encryption software for his computer and a secure email address at which he could contact his handlers. (The same had been done for Kashkoush.) Once he returned to Israel, Sultani kept in touch with both Sami and Salman Harb. Later, a former senior Shin Bet official would assess that Iran was most likely kept informed of Hezbollah’s efforts to collect intelligence on Ashkenazi.197 Sultani’s arrest came in late August 2009, and ultimately he was sentenced to five years and eight months for spying on the chief of staff and maintaining contact with a foreign agent.198
In more recent years, evidence has emerged indicating that a core group of Hezbollah operatives working with Qais Obeid—people like Mohamad Hashem, Ayman Shihadeh, and Salman Harb—have the responsibility of meeting Israeli Arab recruits abroad. Another such operative is Hassan Jaja, who recruited Israeli Arab political activist Ameer Makhoul, among others. Makhoul, who is from Haifa, headed the Union of Arab Community-Based Associations, which works to strengthen and expand the voluntary work of Arabs. Makhoul is an author and the brother of a former Knesset member, and his arrest sparked protests among Israeli Arabs. In custody, however, Makhoul reportedly admitted to meeting Hassan Jaja in Jordan in 2004, finding out Jaja was a Hezbollah operative soon after the July 2006 war, and agreeing to serve as a Hezbollah source two years later. In 2008, Makhoul reached out to Jaja and offered his services, which led to a meeting in Copenhagen, at which one of Jaja’s men installed an encoding program on Makhoul’s laptop and provided Makhoul cash to cover the cost of the trip to Denmark. Sitting at a Copenhagen café, the Hezbollah operative asked Makhoul to collect information about Israeli army bases, Shin Bet and Mossad offices, the home address of the head of the Shin Bet, security surrounding the prime minister’s and defense minister’s convoys, and information on the impact of terror attacks in Israel. Makhoul was also asked for information about Israeli Arabs and Israelis of Russian descent experiencing financial stress who might be open to a recruitment pitch by Hezbollah.199
Back in Israel, Makhoul reportedly sent Jaja at least ten encoded emails providing details on the precise location of two Shin Bet installations, including means of entry and security procedures; the location of a Mossad facility; information about the IDF’s Nachshonim base (which Makhoul inexplicably thought was an American base); and the location of the Rafael Advanced Defense Systems factory off the Acre–Haifa highway. Ultimately, Makhoul was given a reduced sentence of nine years in prison as part of a plea bargain in which he confessed to espionage and related charges.200
Denmark, it turns out, had been central to at least one earlier Hezbollah recruitment gambit. In December 2004, a Danish citizen of Lebanese descent named Khaled Ashuah arrived in Israel on a Turkish Airlines flight. His newly issued Danish passport bore no markings from his trip to Lebanon to visit family the previous summer. While in Lebanon, Ashuah’s brother introduced him to Hezbollah officials who recruited him as an agent and instructed him to travel to Israel to collect intelligence, much like Smyrek, Ayub, and Shuman had done before him. After three weeks of training and preparation, Ashuah returned home to Denmark with $2,000 and clear operational instructions from Hezbollah. Once his new passport arrived, he flew to Israel with plans to travel north, where he would stay with Israeli Arab relatives and identify suitable sites for future Hezbollah attacks. But while riding the train between Nahariya and Haifa, Ashuah apparently filmed security installations in a rather conspicuous manner. An Israel Railways security officer notified authorities, who arrested Ashuah.201
Under questioning, Ashuah admitted to being recruited by Hezbollah and said he had been sent to Israel to collect intelligence on security installations and army bases in the north of the country. He was also told to identify Israeli Arabs to be recruited, although he appears to have had time only to try to recruit a couple of people, including his cousin, Hussein Ashuah. Brashly, Ashuah told police he considered this first visit just a test for more important operations he planned to carry out on behalf of Hezbollah in the future.202
The aggressive and proactive posture of Hezbollah’s Unit 1800 led Israeli intelligence to devote significant resources toward intelligence collection efforts targeting not only Imad Mughniyeh but also key deputies like Unit 1800 commander Haj Halil Hareb. At least once, senior officials considered responding to Hezbollah terrorist activity with targeted assassinations of such leaders, according to a study prepared for the US Air Force on the use of air operations in Israel’s war against Hezbollah.203 Nasrallah, for his part, warned that Hezbollah had its own “target bank” of Israeli military and critical infrastructure sites it could attack within minutes of any Israeli attack.204 Such threats would have to be taken very seriously, given Hezbollah’s success infiltrating its own operatives into Israel and recruiting Palestinians and Israeli Arabs to collect such intelligence for the group.
Qais Obeid’s efforts to recruit Israeli Arabs and to infiltrate operatives into Israel continue as of this writing. In 2005, reports emerged that Obeid flew from Beirut to Egypt, where he held meetings with members of Fatah’s al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades—who at the time were practically operating as terrorist subcontractors for Hezbollah—in El Arish in the northern Sinai.205 In late 2009, Obeid’s name appeared in the press again, this time when he called to comfort the mother of a Fatah operative who had been killed by Israeli authorities after allegedly taking part in the shooting of an Israeli civilian, with promises that Hezbollah would “assist the family in anything she asked for.” By this time not only Israel but the Palestinian Authority too feared that Hezbollah was actively trying to infiltrate Palestinian Authority ranks in order to recruit Fatah members.206 Six months later, their suspicions were confirmed when Palestinian Authority security agencies arrested dozens of Hezbollah recruits in the West Bank. The young men, Palestinian officials reported, were part of an organized Hezbollah recruitment effort led by Qais Obeid to undermine the relative calm Israelis and Palestinians were then experiencing on the ground.207
In the winter of 2011, the IDF decided to renew Lt. Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi’s security detail even though he had retired as chief of staff almost a year prior. Fresh intelligence suggested that Hezbollah was planning attacks on Israeli targets worldwide to avenge Mughniyeh’s assassination. Due to Hezbollah’s previous attempts to target Ashkenazi, and Ashkenazi’s status as IDF chief of staff when Mughniyeh was assassinated, Israel was not taking any chances.2
08 A few weeks later, in January 2012, the Israeli military announced again that it was tightening Ashkenazi’s security. Nearing the anniversary of Mughniyeh’s death, this second announcement came just days after Thai police arrested a suspected Hezbollah operative in Bangkok and a week after Bulgarian security officials found a suspicious package on a bus carrying Israeli tourists.209
Beyond Hezbollah’s persistent efforts to recruit Israeli Arabs and its operational focus on infiltrating operatives into Israel, Hezbollah has engaged, as we have seen, in a variety of operational and support activities far away from the Blue Line separating Israel and Lebanon. Among the lesser-known stories of Hezbollah’s global footprint are its activities in Africa.
Notes
1. Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS), “Terrorist Group Profiler: Hamas,” June 2002. See also Stewart Bell, “Hamas May Have Chemical Weapons: CSIS Report Says Terror Group May Be Experimenting,” National Post (Canada), December 10, 2003.
2. Israeli Defense Forces, Military Intelligence, “Iran and Syria as Strategic Support for Palestinian Terrorism,” September 2002. Report based on the interrogations of arrested Palestinian terrorists and captured Palestinian Authority documents.
3. Douglas Frantz and James Risen, “A Secret Iran-Arafat Connection Is Seen Fueling the Mideast Fire,” New York Times, March 24, 2002.
4. Molly Moore and John Ward Anderson, “Suicide Bombers Change Mideast’s Military Balance,” Washington Post, August 17, 2002.