Revelations about the latest spy ring operating in Egypt suggest that while national security was not compromised, potentially vulnerable telecommunication networks will remain a target for Israel, reports Mohamed Abdel-Baky Last Monday Egypt turned a new espionage page with Israeli, publicly at least, when it was announced that Egyptian security had uncovered a spy ring that had been working for Tel Aviv for the past two years. Abdel-Razeq Hassan, 37, began working for Mossad in 2007. He was arrested at Cairo airport in August, en route to China where, it is alleged, he was to meet with new recruits. "State security prosecutors have announced that they have uncovered a spy network that included an Egyptian and two Israelis," said State Security Prosecutor Hisham Badawi. The two Israelis, named as Idid Moushay and Joseph Daymour, have been charged in absentia. The official charge sheet includes spying for a foreign country, providing information on the communications industry in Egypt and specific information about Egyptian citizens working in telecommunications in order to recruit them to work for the Israeli secret service, and threatening relations between Egypt and Syria by offering information on Syrian and Lebanese citizens for recruitment. Hassan is also charged with receiving $37,000 -- mainly spent on trips to India, Thailand, Syria, Nepal and Laos for training and meetings -- from his two Israeli accomplices. Recruiting Hassan appears to have been an easy process. He is alleged to have offered his services by sending an e-mail, which included contact details, to the Mossad website in May 2007. Three months later he received a phone call from Moushay who introduced himself as a Mossad contact person and asked Hassan to go to Thailand for a meeting. Hassan failed to make the journey because his visa had expired. In September 2007 Hassan went to India where he is alleged to have received an e-mail from Daymour instructing him to go to the Israeli embassy. Hassan received $1,800 as compensation for the expenses he had incurred. Subsequently Hassan was sent to China to set up an import-export company as cover for his intelligence gathering work. He was given $5,000 to set up the company, and promised a monthly salary of $800 and additional benefits. Hassan's first assignment was to set up an HR website targeting Syrians looking for jobs and identifying possible recruits. He is accused of then flying to Damascus with a forged passport to interview the identified candidates. Hassan was then instructed to recruit Egyptians working in the telecommunications sector, particularly mobile phone networks, shortly before he was arrested. The timing of the announcement has led to speculation that it was a response to statements made a month ago by former head of Israeli Military Intelligence Amos Yaldin that Israel has been working in recent years to infiltrate Egypt and destabilise its regime. Others have suggested that it is a riposte to a new Israeli book that rehashes allegations against Ashraf Marwan. Hassan is not the first Egyptian to face espionage charges. Over the last 25 years several espionage networks working for Tel Aviv have been uncovered by Egypt's Intelligence Service. In 1996, in one of the more celebrated cases, Azzam Azzam was arrested. The following year he was jailed for 15 years for spying for Israel. In 2004 he was released in a prisoner exchange deal in return for six Egyptian students who had entered Israel illegally. A worker at a textile plant in Cairo, Azzam was accused of passing on Egyptian state secrets by inscribing them in invisible ink in women's underwear. Sherif El-Velaly, recruited in Spain by Mossad, was arrested in 2000. Like Azzam, he passed information to the Israelis concerning Egypt's industrial base. Hassan's case sees Egyptians being recruited especially to pass on information on the telecommunications sector. It is this, says General Sameh Seif El-Yazal, an expert on the national security and intelligence, that constitutes a new departure. Mobile and other telecommunication networks are a potential goldmine of information for foreign intelligence services though, El-Yazal told Al-Ahram Weekly, "according to my information Israel has never been successful in penetrating the communications sector in Egypt." El-Yazal added that the way Hassan was recruited was not only crude but already familiar to Egyptian intelligence. El-Yazal said Hassan's limited education forced his Israeli recruiters to give him minor assignments at the beginning. Emad Gad, expert at Al-Ahram Centre for Political and Strategic Studies, said that penetrating the country's cell phone network could help Israel and any foreign intelligence get information about anything concerning Egypt. "They could listen in on any telephone conversation, get database about subscribers, be an active user and control the data and network from anywhere," Gad added.
