Lebanese authorities have broken up an apparent Israeli spy ring whose members have claimed responsibility for a string of killings of leading Hezbollah and Palestinian militants since 1999.

The spies’ confessions, reported extensively in the Lebanese media, provide a rare glimpse into the clandestine battle between the Israeli Mossad intelligence agency and the Hezbollah organisation and its militant Palestinian allies.

In a bizarre twist, Hussein Khattab, a Palestinian member of the spy ring, who is still at large, is the brother of Sheikh Jamal Khattab, an Islamic cleric who has allegedly recruited Arab fighters for al-Qaeda in Iraq.

The Israeli network was discovered after the killing last month of two Islamic Jihad officials, the brothers Nidal and Mahmoud Majzoub, in a car bomb blast in Sidon, Lebanon. Lebanese intelligence officers last week arrested Mahmoud Rafeh, 59, a retired policeman from the Lebanese town of Hasbaya, his wife and two children, and discovered bomb-making materials, code machines and other espionage equipment in his home.

Mr Rafeh confessed to the killings of the Majzoubs and to working for Mossad since 1994. He also confessed that his cell was responsible for killing three leading Hezbollah commanders since 1999, as well as Jihad Jibril, the son of Ahmad Jibril, the head of the Damascus-based Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command, who died in a car bomb blast in 2002.

The discovery of the ring is being hailed as Lebanon’s most successful counter-espionage operation in years. It is also opportune for Hezbollah, which says that its military wing must keep its weapons to counter the threat of Israeli aggression.

Some of the group’s Lebanese opponents suspect that the discovery of the Israeli network is a Hezbollah fabrication.

Referring to the murder last year of the former Prime Minister of Lebanon, Walid Jumblatt, leader of Lebanon’s Druze and an outspoken critic of Hezbollah, told The Times: "We are expected to believe that this big spy ring was uncovered two weeks after the killing of the Majzoub brothers, yet Rafik Hariri died in February 2005 and we still don’t know who killed him."

The United Nations Security Council is poised to grant a year-long extension to a UN commission investigating Mr Hariri’s murder, and to expand its inquiry into 14 other recent killings and bombings, which many Lebanese blame on neighbouring Syria.

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