LEBANESE authorities have broken up an apparent Israeli spy ring whose members have claimed responsibility for a string of killings of 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, an alleged Palestinian member of the ring, who is still at large, is the brother of Sheikh Jamal Khattab, an Islamic cleric, who is accused of recruiting 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 admitted that his cell was responsible for killing three leading Hezbollah commanders since 1999, as well as for the death of 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 in 2002.

The discovery of the ring is being hailed as Lebanon’s most successful counter-espionage operation in years and a is seen as a boost for its security apparatus after a year of political crisis, bomb attacks and murders of prominent Lebanese.

It is also opportune for Hezbollah, whose Lebanese opponents are pressuring it to dismantle its military wing. Hezbollah which says that its military wing must keep its weapons to counter the threat of Israeli aggression.

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