The militant group Hezbollah has revealed the identities of CIA officers working undercover in Lebanon, a blow to agency operations in the region and the latest salvo in an escalating spy war.
Hezbollah made the names public in a broadcast Friday night on a Lebanese television station, al-Manar. Using animated videos, the station recreated meetings purported to take place between CIA officers and paid informants at Starbucks and Pizza Hut.
The disclosure comes after Hezbollah managed to partially unravel the agency’s spy network in Lebanon after running a double agent against the CIA, former and current U.S. intelligence officials said. They requested anonymity to discuss matters of intelligence.
In June, Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah bragged that his group had identified at least two spies working for the CIA. It is not clear whether one of those spies was, in fact, the same double agent working for Hezbollah, which is considered a terrorist group by the U.S. Nasrallah has called the U.S. Embassy in Beirut a “den of spies.”
The fiasco happened despite top CIA officials being warned to be extra careful when handling informants after Hezbollah and Lebanese officials arrested scores of Israeli spies in 2009.
The outing of the officers is particularly damaging because it will hinder the ability of these CIA employees to work overseas again — especially in the Internet age where references to their names will be widely available to other foreign intelligence agencies.
The CIA dismissed Hezbollah’s assertions.
“The agency does not, as a rule, address spurious claims from terrorist groups,” CIA spokeswoman Jennifer Youngblood said. “I think it’s worth remembering that Hezbollah is a dangerous organization, with al-Manar as its propaganda arm. That fact alone should cast some doubt on the credibility of the group’s claims.”
Former officials said one of the named officers was considered a rising star at the CIA and had been involved in many important operations in Iraq. Whether or not this employee would be able to continue a CIA career outside the U.S. is unknown. Former officials said it is likely Hezbollah has already shared photographs of the case officers with Iran, its closest ally.
It was not immediately clear whether the exposed CIA officers in Lebanon have been pulled out of the country.
(Source: Fox News)
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5 Responses
The usual way one deals with an enemy secret agent operating in your territory is, to use the words of the novelists and spy-story writers, “to terminate with extreme prejudice”. Press releases and internet postings would be a radical departure (John le Caree would not approve).
yes, and if you torture anyone long enough and brutal enough as hisbulah does, they will confess to everything and anything. and so hizbula can reveal CIA spies, Israeli spies, and even shoplifters who will reveal anybody else just so the torture will stop. That is what hizbula (the army of god, ha ha) is about!
god is spelled here with OUT a capital g, since it is referring to their avoda zara
The article reports, in part: “… meetings purported to take place between CIA officers and paid informants at Starbucks and Pizza Hut.”
Now, there’s the CIA’s mistake right there – in Lebanon, have your secret meetings at Schwarma Hut, or Hummus Hut, or McHommed’s, or Burger Sheik, but not Pizza Hut. And don’t order the BLT.
nfgo3, very clever! Your comments are as laughable as the CIA!
No. 4: Just to be clear, I was not seriously questioning the CIA’s skill. I just found it interesting, and ironic, that reach of American culture, in the form of fast-food/chain restaurants, goes so far that CIA undercover operations can take place, in a country heavily influenced by Hezbollah, in culturally American restaurants.