Updated: Israel's Mossad suffers a major blow by Hizbullah agent
Lebanon-Israel, Military, 12/30/1997

Hizbullah scored a major hit in its security struggle with Israel by bringing back safely one of its resistance men, Mousa al-Zein, who succeeded in penetrating a Mossad cell.

On Sunday Hizbullah party sources said al-Zein was arrested by the Israelis in 1992 and then transferred from a prison in occupied south Lebanon to an Israeli jail inside the Palestinian territories.

The sources added that al-Zein was exposed to brutal interrogation, which made him pretend to collaborate with Israeli intelligence. He was later assigned security missions, during which he could contact Hizbullah cells with whom information was exchanged and he was given forged and misleading information to pass on to the Israelis.

Hizbullah sources continued that because of fears for his safety, al-Zein was moved from one foreign capital to another by Israelis and then he was transferred to Beirut, where he maintained contact with the Mossad until the operation was stopped by Hizbullah for fear that his cover was compromised.

There were indications that his cover had been compromised. There were attempts to leak information that al-Zein was a bodyguard to former Hizbullah secretary-general Abbas Mussawi, who was killed by Israel, in an effort to implicate al-Zein in the killing. Al-Zein emphasized in a press conference, the next day, that though he was a bodyguard for a Hizbullah official, the official was not Abbas Mussawi.

At the packed press conference in Beirut, Hizbullah's spokesman Nayef Krayem introduced Mousa Zein. Zein said he was captured by Israeli troops in an ambush in south Lebanon in June 1992. He spent three years in an Israeli prison, suffering torture and abuse at the hands of his captors, after which he agreed to work as a Mossad agent, spying on the Hizbullah.

However, Zein said he only gave the Israelis "inconsequential information that would not harm Hizbullah's interests." Zein added he was then given an Israeli passport under the name Albert Pylos and sent to Southeast Asia and Europe where he was supposed to be spying on alleged Hizbullah operations abroad.

Throughout this time he remained in contact with Hizbullah and eventually, they were able to provide him with a Lebanese passport and assist him in his return to Lebanon.

"Since my return to Lebanon about eight months ago, I continued telephone contacts with the enemy," Zein said.

Krayem, the Hizbullah spokesman, heralded the accomplishment as "one of Hizbullah's most important security victories against the Zionist enemy."

Israel's military denied knowledge of such operation.This all comes on the heels of several Mossad operational scandals in recent months, the latest of which were a failed attempt on the life of a Hamas leader in Jordan, and a misinformation campaign carried out by a Mossad operative providing crucial, but false information, about Syria.

Previous Stories:
  Hizbullah - Israeli progress in swap deal   (12/16/1997)
  Mossad revelations on its agent with the false information on Syria   (12/8/1997)
  Mossad officer promoted and opposition anger grows as investigation begins   (10/13/1997)

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