What Do These Hezbollah Plots Foiled “By Chance” Reveal?

Security incidents involving Hezbollah members and uncovered “by chance” by the Lebanese authorities are multiplying, raising serious questions about the pro-Iranian party’s intentions against the backdrop of the currently paused war between the United States and Iran.

On Tuesday evening, five men who turned out to be Hezbollah members were arrested in the mountains between the three predominantly Christian districts of Batroun, Bsharri and Koura in northern Lebanon. According to Lebanese media, they aroused suspicion when they tried to tear up documents they were carrying before being caught, appearing extremely nervous. They also had no phones with them in what was a fairly remote area.

An Internal Security Forces patrol spotted them. One is reportedly from a village in Zgharta, while the others are from the Bekaa Valley and southern Lebanon. The documents, some of which were torn up, contained lists of people belonging to groups, along with descriptions of weapons, including some intended for snipers, according to security sources quoted by the media.

More seriously still, other Lebanese media sources report that Hezbollah operatives allegedly searched an apartment where the five men had been staying before Lebanese security forces could search it. This prompted analysts to wonder what the men were hiding and whether this was a large-scale operation that had been cut short.

The incident is all the more troubling because it came to light “by chance,” just like the discovery of Hezbollah explosives about a month ago in an unmarked car traveling from the Bekaa Valley to Beirut. Those explosives, it bears recalling, were similar to those used in numerous assassinations in Lebanon.

That incident continues to cause controversy: Hezbollah failed to secure its members’ release, as it had wanted, but managed to prevent the case from being referred to the Judicial Council, as its critics had advocated. The fallout has affected the government, prompting ministers from the Lebanese Forces party to boycott cabinet meetings.

To these two cases must be added—with caution—the murder of a former Iraqi MP known for his hostility toward Hezbollah, discovered on Wednesday in Beirut’s Tariq al-Jadideh neighborhood. This is a predominantly Sunni area of the capital, but the apartment had been rented for a few days by a Lebanese national and two Syrians. It is not clear whether Hezbollah was involved in this crime in any way, but the case has raised questions because, in 2012, the former MP received death threats for calling Hassan Nasrallah, Hezbollah’s former secretary-general, a “liar.”

This growing string of coincidences raises several questions: if these operations are being thwarted by chance, what is really happening behind the scenes? What dangers does Lebanon face in these dark times, when uncertainty reigns?

Are these “coincidences” really coincidences, or have the authorities decided to tighten the net around Hezbollah without making it too obvious?

Prime Minister Nawaf Salam’s remarks seem to support that possibility. “The era of impunity is over,” he declared on Wednesday. Still, excessive optimism would be misplaced, as Lebanon waits for regional developments to reveal what its future holds.

The Israeli threat, after all, remains very real. And the Hezbollah infrastructure being dismantled by the Lebanese authorities through “sheer luck” apparently holds few secrets for the enemies to the south: on Wednesday, the Israeli website Alma published a security report containing comprehensive maps of Hezbollah’s civilian and military structures in several regions of the country…