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Sami Shihab, Hezbollah operative who escaped from Egypt, waves a Hezbollah flag at the mass rally (Al-Manar TV, February 16, 2011).
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Overview
1. On February 16 Hezbollah held its annual rally in the southern suburb of Beirut, commemorating the deaths of three of its senior operatives: Ghareb Harb, Abbas Mussawi and Imad Mughnieh. The main event of the rally was a speech (broadcast on a large screen) by Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah. Sami Shihab, commander of a Hezbollah network in Egypt, who recently escaped from an Egyptian prison, mounted the stage and waved a Hezbollah flag.1
Sami Shihab, Hezbollah operative who escaped from Egypt, appears
before the large crowd attending the rally (Al-Manar TV, February 16, 2011).
2. Sami Hani Shihab is the alias of Muhammad Yussuf Ahmed Mansour, an operative in Hezbollah’s Unit 1800. He headed a Hezbollah network in Egypt, which according to the Egyptians was directed by Iran. According to large amounts of detailed information in the Egyptian media, the network had 49 members. At first it smuggled weapons into the Gaza Strip by a route (whose starting point may have been Iran) through Sudan and from there to Egypt and the Gaza Strip through the tunnels in the Rafah area. According to the Egyptian media, at some point the network received instructions from Hezbollah to carry out attacks on Egyptian territory, especially targeting tourist sites along the Red Sea customarily visited by Israelis2 [the summary of the information revealed by interrogating Sami Shihab and appeared in the Egyptian media in April 2009; see the Appendix].
3. The Egyptians regarded the exposure of the Hezbollah network as a sign of blatant Iranian intervention in Egypt’s internal affairs and national security. The genuine fear of the possible implications of Iranian subversion led the Egyptians to undertake a media campaign against Iran, around which Egyptian President Mubarak, the Egyptian foreign minister and the Egyptian media rallied. The Saudi Arabian media were also enlisted, which put Iran and the Lebanese government on the defensive.
Saudi Arabian cartoons about the exposure of the Hezbollah network in Egypt
Hassan Nasrallah, switched on by Iran (Al-Nadwah, Saudi Arabia, April 14, 2009).
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Hassan Nasrallah, Iran’s wind-up toy, pushes a wagon inscribed “We have no other branches” [i.e., in the Arab countries, a claim made by Nasrallah in his speech]. The bomb reads “the Iranian project” (Al-Nadwah, Saudi Arabia, April 12, 2009).
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4. Hezbollah’s defiance may indicate its growing self confidence (and also of Iran, its patron), which was also expressed in a speech made at the rally by Hassan Nasrallah (who threatened to attack senior IDF officers traveling abroad and even to “take over the Galilee” if Lebanon was “forced” to go to war). The reason for the self-confidence is the perception of the radical camp (Iran, Syria, Hezbollah and Hamas) that it will profit from the dramatic events in Egypt and Tunisia, which may spread to other pro-Western countries. That is true despite the fact that there is also internal unrest in the radical camp’s countries, especially Iran, unrest which is brutally suppressed by the regimes.
Appendix
Egyptian media reports about information revealed by the interrogation of Sami Shihab
1. On April 13, 2009, the Egyptian daily Al-Masri Al-Yawm printed a report of the interrogation of Muhammad Yussuf Ahmed Mansour, a Lebanese Shi’ite from the southern suburb of Beirut, who entered Egypt on a forged passport.
2. Mansour admitted that he was a Hezbollah operative, aka Sami Hani Shihab, which was verified by Hassan Nasrallah in his speech. The main points of his statements made during interrogation by the Egyptian security services were the following:
1) He admitted that as a Hezbollah operative he was enlisted by the organization’s general recruitment division. He underwent military training but suffered a spinal injury. After his recovery he joined Unit 1800, which deals with the “Palestinian issue” through “the ring countries” [i.e., the countries encircling Israel]. He received intensive intelligence training enabling him to carry out missions in Egypt.
2) In 2005 he was sent to Cairo to set up a Hezbollah network called “the Egyptian branch.” Its objective was defined as “supporting the Palestinian cause.” His direct commander in Lebanon was a Hezbollah operative named Muhammad Qabalan. Qabalan was chosen for the role because he had been in Egypt in 2007 and 2008, and was familiar with the southern Sinai Peninsula, which he had visited using a forged Egyptian passport in the name of Hassan al-Ghul.3
3) Hezbollah’s [Egyptian Branch] operatives conducted reconnaissance of tourist sites along the Red Sea coast to collect intelligence about vacationing Israeli tourists. [The Arab and Egyptian media reported that the network planned a number of showcase attacks at tourist sites using car bombs and explosive belts.] One of the network’s operatives was a resident of Port Said named Hassan al-Manakhili, who had been instructed to collect information about the Nuweiba area [on the Red Sea coast in the eastern Sinai Peninsula] and to conduct reconnaissance in the Ras al-Shaitan area [near Nuweiba] [On April 23, 2009, the Egyptian daily Al-Akhbar reported that Sami Shihab had instructed Hassan al-Manakhili and five other detained men from Port Said to purchase a boat and rent a fishing store in Port Said to collect information about the ships passing through the Suez Canal].
3) Hezbollah operative Muhammad Qabalan dealt with infiltrating operatives and weapons into the Gaza Strip for attacks on Israel. To that end the network purchased C4 [a high-quality plastic explosive produced in Iran] and stored it in the home of a network operative in El Arish. The explosives were used to prepare explosive belts and suitcases. In addition, the necessary equipment for making IEDs was purchased, such as electrical wires and ball bearings. On April 18 Egyptian sources close to the investigation told an Al-Sharq al-Awsat correspondent in Cairo that the explosives were supposed to have been smuggled into Israel by Israeli Arabs for use in carrying out terrorist attacks.
4) In preparation for smuggling the explosives into Israel Muhammad Qabalan went to Sudan “to make a number of logistic contacts.” He went to “make the acquaintance of African and Sudanese smugglers to infiltrate operatives into Gaza.” The smugglers agreed and would be paid $2,000 for each operative infiltrated into the Gaza Strip, and $16,000 for a car. The network infiltrated operatives into the Gaza Strip but according to the interrogation, only a small number.
3. Another operative who was detained, Muhammad Ramadan, admitted that he had infiltrated into Egypt [from the Gaza Strip] through the tunnels [in Rafah] with a friend. Their objective was to locate men who would infiltrate into Israel to carry out suicide bombing attacks.4 Muhammad Ramadan met with Hezbollah network head Sami Shihab, who told him he could help him and provide him with the means of carrying out attacks. The Egyptian media claimed that the attacks were not carried out because the Israeli Arabs who were involved were apprehended by the Israeli intelligence service.
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