Report: “Israeli” Penetration to Phones, Using Austrian Numbers

As-Safir newspaper on Friday uncovered what it dubbed "serious chapters" on "Israel's" ability to control the telecoms sector by creating phone numbers that coincide with each other on a single phone line without the knowledge of its owner, "hence fabricating fake calls at different locations at different times."

It said that the Lebanese army intelligence bureau along with a number of employees at the telecoms ministry as well as members of the Resistance's security service have formed a teamwork that was able to cope with "Israel's" techniques and advanced software through several tests and tryouts.

These tryouts have shown "Israel's" penetration to telephone lines belonging to cadres of the Resistance, the report said.

It said the discovery came in April 2009, when police intelligence chief Col. Wissam Al Hassan presented the case file of "Israel spy" Adib Alam to head of Hizbullah's coordination and liaison committee Wafiq Safa.

Hassan, at the time, pointed out that a Hizbullah cadre was involved in spying for "Israel".
As-Safir reported that after examining the data submitted to Hizbullah by the intelligence bureau, the Resistance with the help of technical experts concluded that "Israel" has programmed alternate phone lines to Resistance cadres via SMS using Austrian numbers.

It said using this process; "Israel" was able to eavesdrop on Hizbullah phone activity via silent SMS under the number 03-764 313.

Furthermore, the report said an investigation conducted by Hizbullah, in cooperation with the Lebanese army intelligence bureau and the telecoms ministry, showed that the suspicious phone numbers existed during long periods of time and that they coincided with the presence of intensive SMS activity between the targeted numbers and foreign numbers located inside the border with "Israel".

Moreover, the paper said that only a few seconds separate between the consecutive SMSes, and therefore, this proves the messages were sent via a certain program rather than people. Last but not least, the abovementioned information proves that those who executed the operation used developed techniques and are of high level of expertise. In addition, the foreign numbers used in the process assures these were used from inside the occupied territories.