Israeli plans to withdraw troops from part of a divided village on the Lebanese border are a ploy to divert attention from spy networks uncovered in Lebanon, Prime Minister Fuad Siniora said on Monday. "This shrewd propaganda by the Israeli press reflects Israeli anger and embarrassment in the face of several Israeli spy networks uncovered by Lebanese security throughout Lebanon," Siniora said in a statement.
His comments followed reports in the Israeli press that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is to announce this week that Israel wants to withdraw its troops from the northern part of the divided border village of Ghajar. Israel's Security Cabinet is expected to discuss the issue on Wednesday.
Following the end of Israel's war on Hezbollah in Lebanon in August 2006, Israel has kept a military presence in the northern part of the village and has built a security fence to prevent Shi'ite guerrillas from entering.
After the war, Israel said it would keep its troops in northern Ghajar until security arrangements were agreed with UN and Lebanese forces, but such accords have not yet been struck.
The village, at the foot of Mount Hermon straddling the Lebanese-Syrian border, is perched on a cliff overlooking the precious Wazzani spring, which has been a source of continuous disputes between Israel and Lebanon.
Siniora said Israeli media reports that the withdrawal was a bid to boost his own government ahead of the June legislative elections were but a ploy to divide the Lebanese.
"No one will be fooled by these claims," he said, adding that since the 2006 war Lebanon has been demanding that Israel withdraw from Ghajar unconditionally in line with UN Resolution 1701.
[Iran Press TV Latest] Lebanese authorities have arrested six more people accused of spying for Tel Aviv amid a campaign aimed at curtailing Israel's intelligence operations in Lebanon.
The latest captures take to 16 the number of suspected Israeli spies arrested since January, an army spokesperson, speaking on condition of anonymity, told AFP.
The arrests include a police officer and his wife who were taken into custody late Sunday. Three others, accused of passing on information to Israel, were detained also on Sunday in the southern the village of Habboush.
The report comes as Lebanese authorities have stepped up efforts to identify and capture those collecting intelligence on Lebanon on behalf of Israel.
In late April, two Lebanese men and a Palestinian confessed to supplying Israeli intelligence agents with information regarding Hezbollah activities.
The men, with alleged links to Israel's intelligence service Mossad, were exposed during an interrogation of a retired Lebanese general also suspected of spying on behalf of Israel, the Lebanese newspaper Al-Akhbar reported.
The former Lebanese general told interrogators that he had worked for Israel for more than 10 years and regularly met with his Israeli contacts in Europe.
Lebanon, which considers itself at war with Israel, bans its citizens from having any contact with Tel Aviv. Under Lebanese law, death penalty awaits one who is convicted of espionage.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
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Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
Israeli plans to withdraw troops from part of a divided village on the Lebanese border are a ploy to divert attention from spy networks uncovered in Lebanon, Prime Minister Fuad Siniora said on Monday. "This shrewd propaganda by the Israeli press reflects Israeli anger and embarrassment in the face of several Israeli spy networks uncovered by Lebanese security throughout Lebanon," Siniora said in a statement.
