Shaffaf Exclusive
Exclusive information to Shaffaf reported that Hezbollah arrested five members of its security organs on charges of “collaborating with Israel”, while a top security official in the party, Muhammad Salim, “Abu Abdo,” fled to Israel with a large sum of money.
Mohammad Salim, aka “Abou Abdo”, the top Hezbollah official who defected to Israel was one of the founders of Hezbollah. Born in Ghbeyri, in the outskirts of Beirut, he had been one of the founders of the party’s “counter-security”(contre espionage). Services. In 1983 he participated in the “Bir al-Abed Intifada against the May 17 agreement” signed between the government of perident Amin Gemayel and Israel. His value equals that of top Hezbollah officials.
Sources add that, during the mid-eighties, with tensions rising between the Amal movement and Hezbollah in Beirut’s Dahyeh, and in South Lebanon, Abou Abdo, along with a group of “brothers”, declared himself a “dissident” from Hezbollah. His presumed dissidence helped him join Amal’s security apparatus and develop close relations with some of its leaders, including Daoud Daoud and Hani Qubeisi (Abu Ali), Nabih Berri’s top security man. At the time, he also enjoyed close relations with the Council of South Lebanon general director, Qabalan Qabalan.
By that time, Salim bought a large house at the outskirts of the village of Ansar, in an area away from village center but close to the highway. He used to live there without his family. Later, Amal discovered he had remained loyal to Hezbollah and raided his house where it discovered a bunker apparently used to keep certain Western hostages. It also found different types of weapons.
In 1988, when the fighting between Amal and Hezbollah was at its fiercest in Dahyeh and in Iqlim al Tuffah, he managed to reach a top position in Amal Movement. After the assassination of Abu Ali Hammoud (one of Amal’s top security officials) by Hezbollah, probably with the help of Salim, Abu Ali Qubeisi (Hani) discovered a large quantity of explosives ready for detonation at Amal headquarters in Bazourieh, half an hour before the start of a meeting which was scheduled to be headed by Lebanon’s present speaker of parliament, Nabih Berri at his return form a visit to Damascus.
The discovery of explosives led to the agent who had planted them, who gave the name of his superior, “Mohammed Salim “.
As in an amercan movie, “Abu Abdo” was chased in streets of south Lebanon villages. After a violent chase, with bullets flying around him and almost killing him, he managed to reach a secret hideout and, later, to reach Dahyeh.
The unexploded bomb in Amal headquarters lead to an extensive execution campaign; anyone who was suspected of a connection with Hezbollah was executed. Members suspected of having ties with Hezbollah were expelled from Amal.
Muhammad Salim returned to Dahyeh to assume his duties again as a Hezbollah secret official. He had a number of security and leadership responsibilities, most important of which was his role as the finance officer for “foreign (terrorist) affairs and, most important, as the officer in charge of financing of Hajj Radwan’s (Imad Mughniyeh) operations.
Leaks about a Hezbollah high official’s ties with Israeli intelligence first appeard in the Beirut press last week. The man’s surname started with the letter “s” and he was said to have been arrested.
Later, it turned out he had disappeared! sources claim an Israeli commando force came to his rescue and secured his passage to Israel near the village of Rmeish. He carried with him a seven figure sum certainly belonging to Hezbollah.
After the publication of the Shaffaf report, Annahar Beirut daily confirmed the man had been “the equivalent of a minister of Infrastructures inside Hezbollah“! Hezbollah published a communiqué claiming that Muhammad Salim “had never been a member of the party”!