'Mossad agent' was in charge of security for Hezbollah's Hassan Nasrallah

Lebanon’s Hezbollah has discovered an alleged Israeli intelligence agent working within their ranks, according to a report on Tuesday in the Lebanese news site Elnashra.

The high-ranking Hezbollah member, who previously acted as head of security for leader Hassan Nasrallah, is accused of being an agent for Mossad – Israeli’s secretive national intelligence agency.

Elnashra referred to the mole only as “M” and said he was arrested several weeks ago. Hezbollah, the site said, had released the news on Tuesday to prove “the calamity that has befallen Israeli intelligence, which has lost a senior source of information in the ranks of Hezbollah”.

M worked as a businessman and “frequently travelled abroad for work.” He was said to have been detained after returning to Lebanon from a meeting with his “Israeli handlers”.

The mole – who the news site said was recruited by Mossad in an Asian country eight years ago – allegedly passed information to Israeli secret services that led to the 2009 assassination of high-ranking Hezbollah official Imad Mughniyah and the 2013 killing of Hassan al-Laqqi.

He is also said to have revealed Hezbollah members to the Israelis that led to the arrest of Mohammed Amadar in Peru this year and Hossam Yaacoub in Cyprus last year, as well as Daoud Farhat and Youssef Ayad – detained in April 2014 in Bangkok for allegedly planning attacks against tourists in Thailand.

Arch foes Hezbollah and Israel fought a deadly war in 2006 that killed hundreds of people. The Lebanese Shiite movement’s leader Nasrallah rarely appears in public for fear of being assassinated by Israel.

Tuesday’s reports said M was arrested along with several other senior members as part of an operation to uncover double agents.

None of Hezbollah’s claims could be independently sourced and no publicly available evidence has been presented to back up their allegations.