Web of deceit lies behind death of a traitor to many masters

To the rest of the world, the bomb that wounded two Israeli soldiers on the Lebanese-Israeli border was just another example of Hizbollah "terrorism", a provocation that showed Hizbollah had – in Israel's words – "crossed a red line". Israel warned of retaliation. But the truth was quite different, and infinitely more sensational.

For the bomb was connected to the murder last Friday of a notorious Lebanese drug smuggler who had not only captured an Israeli collaborator accused of murdering one of the most militant Shias in Beirut but was involved in the capture of three Israeli soldiers. Even more dramatic – for the Israelis – is that the murdered man, Ramzi Nohra, used to work for Israeli intelligence.

Indeed, his brother Kamil was named in an Israeli court last month as one of those who suborned an Israeli army lieutenant-colonel to work for Hizbollah. In other words, the killing of 45-year-old Ramzi Nohra and his 31-year-old nephew, Elie Issa, by a booby-trapped bomb beside a south Lebanese road when their Mercedes passed was as politically explosive as it was militarily provocative. Mr Issa belonged to Lebanon's state security organisation, which also worked with Nohra. Over his long career and short life, Nohra also worked for the Israelis and the Syrians.

Welcome, you might say, to Lebanon. But his death was far more important than that. This man used to work as a drug agent for the Israelis and was one of Israel's top collaborators in the south of Lebanon.

He always knew when the wind turned, though, and happily arranged the abduction of another Lebanese collaborator who had killed Fouad Mougnieh, whose brother Imad, one of Iran's top Lebanese hit men, is accused of organising the taking of Western hostages in the Eighties. The convicted killer of Mougnieh was executed in Beirut.

Since the Israelis believed Nohra was involved in the capture of three Israeli soldiers farms two years ago, he was likely to be the target of an Israeli hit squad. Israel said nothing about his killing on Friday, nor is likely to. For Nohra's brother's involvement in the biggest Israeli spy scandal in recent years – the arrest of the Israeli Druze lieutenant-colonel– means that the bombing of Nohra at Ibl al-Saqi had reverberations far beyond the scruffy Shia Muslim village through which Nohra and his nephew were driving. On Sunday, the bomb went off on the Israeli side of the frontier fence, wounding two Israeli soldiers. It was claimed by the "Ramzi Nohra Martyr Organisation", hitherto unknown, of course, but clearly connected to Friday's murders. The Hizbollah said they had nothing to do with it. The Lebanese security cops – like the Israelis – had nothing to say. It seems the crime of this Christian Maronite was that he probably worked for all of them; something that should be remembered when the bombing is held up as an unprovoked attack on Israel.