U.S. Embassy Denies as 'Empty Accusations' Nasrallah CIA Infiltration Charges
Hizbullah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah's charges that the Central Intelligence Agency had infiltrated his group in Lebanon were "empty accusations," a U.S. embassy spokesperson said Friday.
"These are the same kinds of empty accusations that we have repeatedly heard from Hizbullah," the spokesperson told Agence France Presse shortly after Nasrallah made the allegations in a televised speech.
"There is no substance to his accusation," he added. "It appears as if Nasrallah was addressing internal problems within Hizbullah with which we have nothing to do.
"Our position towards Hizbullah is well known and has not changed."
Nasrallah on Friday said two members of his party had confessed to being CIA agents and accused arch-foe Israel of turning to the U.S. spy agency after itself failing to infiltrate his Iran-backed party.
Nasrallah also said the group was investigating whether a third member of the party had been recruited by the CIA, Israel's Mossad or the intelligence service of a European country.
It was the first such acknowledgment of infiltration by Hizbullah, which prides itself on the discipline of its members, since its establishment in the 1980s.
Washington blacklists Iranian- and Syrian-backed Hizbullah as a “terrorist” organization.
Hizbullah number one also slammed the U.S. embassy in Lebanon as a “den of spies.”
“The U.S. embassy in Awkar is a center for spying and recruiting Israeli agents,” he charged.
Source: Agence France Presse
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