Hezbollah accuses U.S. embassy in Lebanon of hosting CIA recruitment center

Lebanese Shiite armed group Hezbollah has revealed over the weekend that the United States' Central Intelligence Agency has used the U.S. Embassy compound in Awkar, north of Beirut, as a venue to recruit Lebanese informants to spy on it. According to the report aired on the Hezbollah-affiliated Al- Manar TV station, the CIA had tasked a team of 10 officers, including women, of recruiting Lebanese spies to gather information on Hezbollah's officials and fighters along with the addresses of the party's arms depots. Speaking during a rally in Beirut on Saturday evening, Deputy Secretary General of Hezbollah Sheikh Naeem Qassem said that the information revealed by Al-Manar, should be considered as "only a small fraction" of data owned by Hezbollah on the activities of the CIA in Lebanon. Al-Manar reported that the 10 officers, registered as diplomats at the U.S. Embassy, had served as CIA agents for three years in Lebanon. "The CIA officers were active in recruiting agents from various segments of the Lebanese society: government employees, security and military personnel, religious, banking and academic figures, the report said, adding that while recruitment of agents took place inside the embassy premises, meetings with them were held in fast-food restaurants and coffee shops. In November, U.S. officials had admitted that a group of CIA informants in Lebanon had been captured earlier this year by Hezbollah, damaging agency operations against the organization that is labeled a terrorist group by Washington. Meanwhile, the Al-Manar report also accused the CIA officers of corruption while recruiting Lebanese agents. "The CIA officers seized part of the money allocated for agents and requested them to sign receipts of amounts bigger than what these agents received, the report said.