Circles close to Hezbollah in Beirut have confirmed that for nearly two years the party has expected something against it, such as the recent accusation that it was responsible for the Bulgaria bombing. The intelligence war between this Shiite organization and the West has a long record. Yet ever since Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah gave a public speech in Beirut in June 2011, it has become an uncontrolled battle and a new strike is imminent, according to those in Beirut.
Ever since Hezbollah was established in Lebanon in the early 1980s, and became an active military force in the mid-1990s, the group's primary security and intelligence struggle has been with Israel. Its only intelligence confrontations with Washington were secondary or indirect. Things, however, seem to have changed in the past two years. This has resulted in new, public rounds in the "spy wars" between American security services and the southern suburbs of Beirut — Hezbollah's stronghold. Thus, those close to Hezbollah say that the accusation regarding the group's responsibility in the Bulgaria bombing came in the following context: