SHIITE MILITANTS IN EUROPE

SHIITE MILITANTS IN EUROPE
Spy Case Casts Light on Hezbollah Recruitment in Germany
By Ulrike Putz in Beirut

A young Israeli man who studied in Germany has been arrested on espionage charges in Israel. Khaled K., of Palestinian descent, allegedly spied for the Hezbollah Shiite militia. His case is expected to highlight Hezbollah recruiting activities in Germany.

When Khaled K. stepped off the plane from Germany to start his summer vacation, it wasn't his family that awaited him at the gate. Instead Shin Bet agents and police greeted the 29-year-old Israeli man of Palestinian descent when he arrived on July 16 at Israel's Ben Gurion International Airport. He was arrested and disappeared into custody for two weeks until Israeli officials filed charges against him on Wednesday and lifted a gag order on coverage of his arrest.

AFP
Hezbollah might be more active in Germany than officials thought.The charges filed by state prosecutors are serious. They allege the man, who comes from the Israeli-Arab town of Kalanswa, sought contact with an agent with connections to Hezbollah in an effort to pass on information.

The indictment alleges he also supplied names of potential recruits to the Shiite militia and that he had expressed his preparedness to take a job at the Rambam Hospital in the Israeli city of Haifa after completing his studies in Germany, where he is enrolled as a student at the University of Göttingen near Hanover. Israeli soldiers in the 2006 war against Hezbollah are still being treated at the Rambam Hospital, and K. was apparently supposed to sound them out in order to obtain information that could be useful to Hezbollah.

Prosecutors also allege that the Israeli-Arab was paid a total of €13,000 for his services. According to the Israeli Foreign Ministry in Jerusalem, he has confessed to the charges.




AP

Suspect Khaled K. is to be tried on espionage charges in Israel.The Khaled K. case has attracted tremendous interest in Israel -- not least of which because he is the embodiment of the Israeli secret service's ultimate nightmare of the "enemy within." In recent months, Palestinians holding Israeli passports or residence permits perpetrated several attacks, and the problem ranks high on the agenda of the country's terrorism experts.

"This incident provides new proof that Israeli-Arabs are attractive recruiting targets for Hezbollah," an Israeli Foreign Ministry statement read. Close to 20 percent of all Israeli citizens are so-called Israeli Arabs -- mostly Palestinians and Druze.

But the case also comes as a surprise to German security officials. SPIEGEL ONLINE has learned that German authorities first learned from Israeli authorities that Khaled K. was under suspicion of espionage.

An acquaintance of K's, however, is well known to the Germans. According to files from the Israeli state prosecutor's office, K. met with a Lebanese surgeon named Hicham H. in Germany sometime in 2002 or earlier. H. is the head of the Orphans Project Lebanon (Waisenkinderprojekt Libanon), which, according to the Israelis, is a cover organization for the Lebanese Martyr Institute. That group is suspected of collecting money for Hezbollah.

For three years, Hicham H. and Khaled K. are suspected of having met every two weeks -- before H. suggested that K. should meet one of his acquaintances. This contact person, also Lebanese, operated under the aliases Rami or Mazen and suggested during their first meeting in Erfurt in 2005 that K. should get himself an unregistered mobile phone. He also said that further contact should only take place via e-mail, according to Israeli investigators.
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Security authorities say that K. thus slipped into the orbit of senior officer Mohammed H., a 50-year-old Lebanese man whose task was to recruit spies for Hezbollah in Europe.

The senior officer allegedly met with his recruits at least four times -- twice in the eastern German city of Erfurt and twice in Frankfurt. At the final meeting, the group is thought to have discussed the exact layout of Hicham H.'s village Kalanswa using Google Earth.

Just why Kalanswa, located near Israel's border with the West Bank, caught the attention of the Hezbollah man is unclear. But the officer asked his protégés to find other natives of the town living in Germany. If they were found to be in financial difficulties, it was thought they might be receptive to becoming well-paid Hezbollah informants.

If Israeli state prosecutors are correct, the case could indicate that Hezbollah is much more active in Germany than previously thought.

The Return of Jewish Dead - Regev and Goldwasser

I love how Israeli Jews, especially those in the West Bank, get all self-righteous about the return of bodies of IDF soldiers in exchange for 200 dead Hezbollah and five live terrorists including Samir Kuntar, whose acts when he was 17 remain outrageous offenses.

If Israel is going to maintain mandatory enlistments at the age of 18, the social contract that the IDF has with the people to bring them all back dead or alive, must remain sacrosanct and beyond religious or political ideology. Israel and Jews should not be comparing the "deal" that they got with Hezbollah.

To compare the lives of Regev and Goldwasser with the rabble that were returned is an insult to Jewish dead. the IDF has an obligation to bring those soldiers home so that every other soldier or soldier-in-waiting knows that regardless of whether they live or die in the service, the state of Israel is and will do what is necessary to give them back to their families and the country whose principles and existence they fought and died to defend. The rest of the calculations are the equivalent of dancing to the enemies tune. Israel dances to its own music, not that of others.

The argument that this deal with Hezbollah will encourage further "kidnappings" is almost laughable. Do you think for a second that IDF soldiers are not going to put up a vicious fight to prevent the kidnappings from occurring? They aren't just going to stand there and give up. They are going to fight like hell to avoid being taken prisoner, just as every other soldier does. And in that fight, that soldier knows that his country will do what it takes to get him home, dead or alive. Besides which, I am sure that Israel did not give back all of the bodies of Hezbollah fighters, did it? As much as IDF and Israel wants its citizen-soldiers back, Hezbollah probably isn't too keen on having its dead in Jewish hands. It is a sad situation all around, no doubt, but everyone knew this day was coming. They knew (or had very strong indications) that Regev and Goldwasser were dead awhile ago.

Pity that it's only today that the government put up a video on youtube about the crimes of Samir Kuntar. This should have been done some time ago and it is disappointing that Israel did not attempt to control the media spin on the release of the prisoners and terrorists. There should have been a more concerted effort to tell the world and diaspora Jewry why exactly Israel would accept two bodies in exchange for what it gave up in return, and why, according to the Israeli calculus, getting its soldiers back, dead or alive, is priority number one.

Explained properly in the right media and with enough frequency, Israel might have scored a media victory by comparing what Israelis do with what its enemies do. Israel mourns its dead. Nasrallah holds "victory" celebrations. In the end, Israel must satisfy itself that it did the right thing, without regard to what it had to give up in order to do so. Doing the right thing for its citizens and soldiers in order to preserve the social contract is fundamental and should never, in the final analysis, sacrificed on the altar of religious politics.

Randy Shiner

MIA (Ron Arad)'s family snubs Olmert

View from the booth: If I was Ron Arad's family, I would react the same way. But as long as Kuntar remains in jail in Israel, he is a hero to Hezbollah. Out of jail, he is a hero to Hezbollah. Oh, nevermind. I was thinking about something to do with the greater good for Israel and peace on its Northern Border with Hezbollahstan/Lebanon. Nobody wins this except for the people whose lives might be saved by making the exchange. I'd hate to have to make this decision, and it's a good thing I don't have to. Pass the mustard.

Randy Shiner


MIA's family snubs Olmert


Published: 06/17/2008


The family of a missing Israeli airman canceled a meeting with Ehud Olmert in protest of a likely prisoner swap with Hezbollah.

The Israeli prime minister was scheduled on Tuesday to visit relatives of Ron Arad, who bailed out over Lebanon in 1986 and disappeared into captivity, but the family called off the meeting.

Political sources said Olmert planned to inform the Arads of his government's offer to free Samir Kuntar, a jailed Lebanese terrorist, as part of an upcoming deal with Hezbollah in which it would repatriate two Israeli soldiers abducted in 2006.

Kuntar was sentenced to life in prison for a 1979 cross-border attack in which three Israelis were killed, and has since become a Hezbollah hero.

The Arad family has long argued that Israel should insist the Lebanese militia provide information on the missing airman's whereabouts as a condition for Kuntar's release. Hezbollah says it knows nothing about Arad.