As Sheik Hassan Nasrallah has so adamantly claimed this year, Hezbollah has partially uncovered the CIA's spy network in Lebanon. This has lead to the capture of several foreign spies working for the CIA in recent months and has damaged the intelligence agency's ability to gather vital information on the terrorist organization during a very tense time in the region.
What makes it interesting is that Hezbollah beat the CIA at its own game, using methodical counterintelligence (CI) analysis and CI investigations to uncover the informants. The unit, which Nasrallah claims is a "spy combat unit,” demonstrated how CI analysis and CI operations are supposed to function in order to protect an agency’s information and how the CIA has not maintained a “greater awareness of counterintelligence,” as former CIA director Leon Panetta said last year.
As reported by the AP last week, CIA officials were warned their spies in Lebanon were vulnerable, and an ensuing study found weaknesses in intelligence operations there. Subsequently, recommendations were issued in order to create measures to counter the problems raised from Hezbollah counterintelligence efforts.
Apparently this did not prove to be enough, though it is unclear if the new measures were in fact not successful or if Hezbollah simply followed older evidence created before the new measures were put in place by the CIA. Nevertheless, Hezbollah’s unit tasked with CI proved that methodical analysis coupled with the financial support they receive from Iran can be a recipe to successfully combat the most powerful intelligence agency in the world.
Reportedly, using only the latest commercial software, Hezbollah’s CI analysts began methodically searching for traitors by first examining cell phone data and looking for anomalies. Then analysts identified cell phones that, for instance, were used rarely or always from specific locations and only for a short period of time. Then they underwent the tedious task of looking at who in that area had information that might be worth selling to the CIA, while others tracked CIA case officers who fell into predictable patterns when meeting their sources.
Apparently the investigations took years, but eventually Hezbollah, and later the Lebanese government began making arrests, and regardless of whatever actions the CIA took, they were not enough. Bad tradecraft lead to the capture of CIA assets and ultimately the agency failed to protect them due to their inability to recognize Hezbollah counterintelligence operations.
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