Hezbollah telephone network ‘discovered’

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 BEIRUT 001301 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SIPDIS 
 
NSC FOR ABRAMS/SINGH/GAVITO/HARDING/DEMOPULOS, STATE FOR 
NEA/ELA, NEA/FO FOR ATACHCO, 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 08/23/2017 
TAGS: PGOV, PREL, PTER, ECONEGE, EFIN, LE 
SUBJECT: LEBANON:  HIZBALLAH TELEPHONE NETWORK 'DISCOVERED' 
 
 
Classified By: CDA William Grant for reasons 1.4 (b) and (d) 
 
SUMMARY 
------- 
 
1. (C)  The Ministry of Telecommunications announced it had 
found an illegal telecom network established and operated by 
Hizballah in the parts of Lebanon Hizballah controls. 
Minister of Telecom Marwan Hamadeh initially said the GOL 
would react "fiercely" to what he portrayed as a surprising 
discovery.  Embassy contacts indicate privately, however, 
that the existence of the alternate system was well known. 
An ad hoc government committee of four ministries was 
investigating, but two weeks after the announcement of the 
discovery, there was no decision on what action, if any the 
GOL would take.  The system links villages in the south to 
the southern suburbs of Beirut, and may also link the Biqaa' 
and even downtown Beirut.  Hamadeh says that he will not take 
action without full GOL support.  End Summary. 
 
MINISTRY OF TELECOM EXPRESSES SURPRISE AT DISCOVERY 
----------------------------------- 
 
2. (C) The Lebanese press on August 7 reported that the 
Ministry of Telecommunications had discovered an illicit 
telecommunications system established and operated by 
Hizballah in the areas of southern Lebanon that Hizballah 
controls.  In a meeting with DCM on August 8, Minister of 
Telecommunications Marwan Hamadeh reacted with apparent fury 
over the discovery.  He explained that the GOL had 
established an ad hoc group of four ministries: Defense, 
Interior, Justice and Telecommunications, to investigate the 
installation and recommend action.  He confirmed that neither 
Hizballah nor any other organization had applied for a 
license for the separate system and that it violated the law 
that gives a monopoly on fixed line service to the 
government. 
 
3. (C) DCM and Emboffs followed up with Minister Hamadeh on 
August 21.  Hamadeh said the Ministry of Telecom had 
completed its report, as had the Ministry of Interior, whose 
report complemented the MOT's report with pictures.  However, 
he noted with surprise that the Ministry of Defense did not 
"fulfill its duties."  MOT reported that Israel totally 
destroyed the earlier Hizballah telephone system in the south 
in the July 2006 war, and Hizballah replaced it with an 
underground system.  Hamadeh also pointed out that the GOL 
informants, who include leftists imprisoned in Israel, are 
fearful of retaliation from Hizballah.  DCM asked what action 
the GOL planned to take.  Hamadeh, a stalwart member of the 
March 14 government coalition, did not answer directly but 
said it would be a decision at the PM level and including all 
cabinet members, not a decision by his Ministry alone. 
Hamadeh gave us no indication of if or how the GOL intends to 
break up the network. 
 
4. (C)  In the August 21 meeting, Hamadeh read from his 
Ministry's report explaining the extent of the system.  It 
links ten villages in southern Lebanon, and Hamadeh believes 
the Iranian organization doing postwar reconstruction of 
roads and bridges in the south installed it.  He further 
noted that fiber optic lines are being installed to link the 
south to the Biqaa another Hizballah stronghold.  He then 
explained the GOL cannot investigate the southern suburbs of 
Beirut for connections, because "the area is off limits for 
the government."  However, he seemed to know about a cable, 
run above ground on the regular telephone and electricity 
poles, linking the southern suburbs to Shia neighborhoods in 
Beirut.  He even claimed that there is a "huge" cable linking 
the area to the site of the opposition sit-in at Riad Solh 
square, which is central Beirut, not far from the seat of the 
GOL.  He said the report indicated that this cable runs along 
the wall of the French embassy.  He did not explain the 
location of the hardware and software operations needed to 
run such a system; he only identified cabling.  (Comment: It 
is extremely difficult to believe that the French embassy, 
heavily guarded with cameras outside of the walls in every 
direction, would not notice the installation of a large 
cable.  It is true that the GOL does not officially enter the 
southern suburbs or provide infrastructure repair there.  End 
comment) 
 
OTHER SOURCES SKEPTICAL THIS IS A NEW DISCOVERY 
-------------------- 
 
5. (C)  Subsequently we attempted to confirm this information 
 
BEIRUT 00001301  002 OF 002 
 
 
through a variety of sources, including Embassy staff, 
workers at NGOs in southern Lebanon, and members of the MOT 
staff.  It appears that people in the south knew that 
Hizballah had installed an underground telephone system a few 
years ago.  We have eyewitnesses who saw the work and 
questioned the workers, who admitted that it was in fact a 
Hizballah telephone system.  An MOT official told us at an 
earlier meeting that the GOL had repaired or replaced the 
entire damaged government-run telecom infrastructure in the 
south in a few months after the war and that the illicit 
lines were found at that time, directly beside the MOT lines. 
 
 
6. (C) Gilbert Najjar, Chairman of the Owner Supervisory 
Board, which represents the GOL as owner of the two mobile 
companies, said the MOT suspected illicit activity about a 
year ago, due to both a decrease in the number of new 
subscribers to the government's fixed line provider Ogero in 
certain parts of the south, and signal interference in the 
south.  However, the July war and the discovery of signal 
interference coming from the west (which continues to this 
date), subsequently threw the investigation off track. 
Everyone else, including the chairman of Ogero, claimed the 
discovery of the alternative system was a complete surprise. 
Asked if the bandwidth monitoring equipment that the 
Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (TRA) is proposing 
would have caught this, the chairman of the newly-formed TRA 
responded with a cautious "yes." 
 
7.  (C) One of our sources at the MOT was much more cynical 
about the vehement denial of knowledge at the senior level of 
the Ministry.  He believes firmly there are people within the 
MOT who not only knew about the system, but also benefited 
from it.  He directed our attention to an article in the 
pro-Syrian Ad-Diyyar newspaper that focuses on the sale of 
land in a Christian village in the south.  The article 
attempts to link one Mohammad Khalil Chebli Yassine to the 
ownership of 140 plots of land in this village, which would 
make him "filthy rich" according to our source.  He is also 
the director of finance at the MOT, which is a fact not 
mentioned in the article. 
 
8. (C) Comment.  Establishing a telecom system would be a 
logical step for Hizballah, which provides a number of 
services as a virtual government to residents in the south 
and other areas it dominates.  These include  its own 
electric company, school system, armed militia, and road 
works capability.  Despite the Minister's tough talk, the GOL 
may be reluctant to take strong action that would result in a 
head-to-head conflict with Hizballah. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
GRANT