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According to reports by the BBC, a high ranking intelligence undercover agent working with the Hezbollah militant group has been tracked and arrested in Uganda.
The suspected undercover Hezbollah agent, Hussein Mahmoud Yassine who is a Lebanese citizen, has lived and worked in Uganda since 2010.
Reports claim that he was tracked for several months before his arrest at the Entebbe International Airport in Uganda by Ugandan intelligence agencies in collaboration with the Mossad.
Mossad refers to the national intelligence agency of Israel. The unit is solely responsible for intelligence collection, covert operations abroad and counter-terrorism work within and outside the state of Israel. The agency is also known for carrying out the extradition of Jews from countries where they are in danger.
The Mossad unit was found in December of 1941 by former Israeli Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion.
In a report published by a Ugandan Media agency, The Kampala Post earlier today, it was gathered that the suspected Lebanese national, Hussein Mahmoud Yassine was arrested while boarding a flight to Lebanon via Addis Ababa. He had arrived at Entebbe International Airport from Tanzania earlier that day.
The report further stated that Mossad informed its Ugandan counterparts about Yassine due to the close intelligence relationship between the two countries.
An anonymous intelligence source told The Kampala Post that Yassine was recruited to the terrorist group by a senior Hezbollah official called Ali Wahib Hussein, known as Abu Jihad.
According to the intelligence source, Hezbollah instructed Yassine to identify potential US and Israeli targets for terrorist attacks in Uganda; to recruit other Lebanese nationals for Hezbollah, and to attempt to recruit Muslim Ugandans to act as Hezbollah intelligence agents.
The source also revealed that Yassine had already identified at least 100 Lebanese citizens living in the country for potential recruitment, including some working with telecommunications provider Africell.
After the announcement of the arrest, the Lebanese consulate in Uganda sent a protest letter to the Ugandan Foreign Ministry, questioning their involvement in the matter and claiming that the arrest will deter Lebanese citizens from doing future business in the country.
About HezbollahHezbollah was founded in the early 1980s as part of an Iranian effort to aggregate a variety of militant Lebanese Shia groups into a unified organization. Hezbollah acts as a proxy for Iran in the ongoing Iran–Israel proxy conflict.
It is an Islamist political party and militant group based in Lebanon. Hezbollah's paramilitary wing is the Jihad Council, and its political wing is Loyalty to the Resistance Bloc party in the Lebanese parliament.
Header Image Credit: France 24
