Lebanon arrests 50 suspected of spying for Israel

BEIRUT, July 26 (Reuters) Lebanese security forces working with Hizbollah have detained some 50 people suspected of spying for Israel in recent days as it pounds Lebanon in a two-week assault, security sources said today.

At least 36 informants, many of them former members of a now defunct pro-Israeli militia, were arrested in the eastern Bekaa Valley and the south, which have seen heavy Israeli bombardment, they said.

Around 22 informants were arrested in Beirut and its southern suburbs earlier in the conflict, some accused of helping Israeli planes pinpoint Hizbollah targets.

Security sources said that up to 15 more had since been detained in Beirut and that they had confessed to spying for Israel, bringing the total number of informants arrested during the conflict to around 70.

''The campaign of arrests is ongoing, some were caught in the act,'' one source said.

Some of the former members of Israel's South Lebanon Army proxy, which collapsed when Israeli troops withdrew from southern Lebanon in 2000, had served jail sentences for working with an enemy state but had resumed their contacts with Israel after their release, the sources said.

Hizbollah, the Shi'ite Muslim guerrilla group now facing off against Israel, mounted a war of attrition through the 1990s that helped end Israel's 22-year occupation in Lebanon.

Israeli officials now say they want to create a new security zone in southern Lebanon that they will control by air but not through direct occupation, until international forces arrive to take over.

The current war was sparked by Hizbollah's capture of two Israeli soldiers in a cross-border attack on July 12.

REUTERS MQA PM2125