Lebanon to UN: Israel deployed spies

Beirut also asks UN peacekeepers to help return 2 Lebanese spy suspects who crossed Israeli border.

By JERUSALEM POST STAFF
Saniora 224.88 ap (photo credit: AP [file])
Saniora 224.88 ap
(photo credit: AP [file])
Lebanon on Thursday complained to the United Nations about alleged spying on the country by Israel. The office of Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Saniora said that Beirut filed a complaint saying Israel has deployed spies in Lebanon. The development came on the heels of a government campaign which resulted in over a dozen arrests of suspects said to have been spying for Israel. Lebanon considers itself at war with Israel and spying for or collaborating with the neighboring country can be punishable by death. Beirut also officially asked the UN peacekeepers in southern Lebanon to help return two Lebanese spy suspects who fled across the heavily fortified border to Israel earlier this week. On Wednesday, Al-Safir reported that a Lebanese deputy mayor who was arrested for alleged involvement in a network accused of spying for Israel had admitted that he received orders from the Mossad last year to get close to the Hizbullah-led opposition and its leadership. According to the Lebanese newspaper, Ziad Homsi, the deputy mayor of Saadnayel, a town with some 8,500 inhabitants in the Bekaa Valley, resumed communication with old contacts from the nationalist and Nasserist movements and asked one of them to pass on a message to Hizbullah chief Hassan Nasrallah that "he was absolutely committed to the resistance option" and was ready to become a martyr for the cause. Brenda Gazzar contributed to this report