Lebanon arrests deputy mayor for taking part in alleged Israeli spy ring

Lebanese authorities have arrested the deputy mayor of a village in the country's Bekaa Valley suspected of belonging to an Israeli spy network, the newspaper Al-Akhbar reported yesterday.

The Lebanese paper said 61-year-old Ziad al-Homsy of the village of Saadnayel was contacted by Mossad agents in Thailand and asked to glean information about the fate of three Israeli soldiers captured during the first Lebanon war in 1982. Al-Homsy, who is also a journalist, would use that job as a cover.

IDF soldiers Yehuda Katz, Zvi Feldman and Zachary Baumel were taken captive in the Battle of Sultan Yacoub and were last seen alive while being paraded in Damascus shortly after the battle.

Al-Homsy's arrest is part of a Lebanese crackdown on alleged Israeli intelligence networks in which at least 25 people have been apprehended. The arrests, mainly in southern Lebanon, appear to be part of a campaign against people suspected of gathering information on Hezbollah militants for the Mossad intelligence agency. Iranian-backed Hezbollah guerrillas fought a 34-day war with Israel in 2006 that killed 1,200 people in Lebanon and 159 in Israel.

With elections due on June 7, the arrests of suspected Israeli agents have taken on a political dimension in Lebanon's power struggle between pro-West and opposition factions. Hezbollah said yesterday that al-Homsy was a member of the pro-West Future Movement led by Saad Hariri, the son of slain former Lebanon prime minister Rafik Hariri. The Forward Movement admitted he was a member of the organization but distanced itself from al-Homsy, saying it had no prior knowledge of his alleged involvement with Israel.

Meanwhile, two Lebanese men suspected of spying for Israel fled across the heavily fortified border yesterday. The two men crossed near the village of Yaroun with their children, said a senior military official.

It was the second time suspected spies have escaped to Israel since the government stepped up its arrests. A man wanted by authorities fled in a similar manner on May 5, said a top security official.

It is unclear how they managed to get past the border fence without triggering the electronic alarms that normally alert Israelis to such infiltrations. Lebanese citizens who try to sneak into Israel are normally detained, questioned and sent back to Lebanon.

There was no immediate word from Israel, which has declined to comment on the recent espionage allegations.

Meanwhile, authorities arrested two suspected spies over the weekend in southern Lebanon and the eastern Bekaa Valley, said security officials. Security forces seized transmission devices in related raids, they said. The officials all spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media.

Nine of the 15 people arrested in recent weeks have been charged with collaborating with Israel. They include a retired general, his wife and his nephew, a government security agent.

Last week, police displayed sophisticated devices they said were seized from Palestinians living in the country and from Lebanese recruited by Israel to spy on Hezbollah.