The white van pulled up and blocked our car. Three bearded men climbed out. We knew instantly they were from Hizbullah.

Who are you? What are you doing here? What have you been photographing, the men asked.

We are journalists, we explained. We were in Yahfoufa, a Lebanese hamlet near the Syrian border, reporting a story.

They didn't buy it. Instead, they thought we were Israeli spies.

And so began our ordeal that would take us from a Hizbullah hideout to a Lebanese Army cell. My Shiite fixer, Ali, and I were grilled for hours, often in handcuffs, and detained overnight.

It all began two weeks earlier when Ali and I, along with another colleague, dined with some members of Lebanon's militant Shiite Hizbullah in the Bekaa Valley. The grilled lamb and chicken and salads were delicious, conversations with the Hizbullah men relaxed and friendly.

We finished the day taking a few potshots at a watermelon with Ali's automatic pistol.

Two weeks later, on Sunday, Ali and I drove into the Bekaa to report on smuggling across the border. I wanted to visit Toufeil, the most remote village in Lebanon reached only by a dirt track.

But the Army stationed in the Bekaa told me I would need permission to travel to Toufeil from the Lebanese Defense Ministry in Beirut. Instead, we headed to Yahfoufa, a hamlet set in a rocky valley near the Syrian border.

As always, we talked to people and snapped a few photos. But that got the attention of the local Hizbullah men.

After they stopped us on our way out of Yahfoufa, the Hizbullah men told us to follow them.

We ended up at a nearby house in Yahfoufa where we were offered cups of Turkish coffee. Soon, more Hizbullah men arrived and we were escorted to an office in the village of Nabi Sheet. Ali and I handed over our cellphones, wallets, and my small backpack of journalistic gear for their perusal. That didn't help the situation.

In the eyes of our captors, my GPS device and a satellite phone – intended to aid our trip to remote Toufeil – only marked us as spies. Still, I was not unduly worried. I had been detained by Hizbullah before. It usually meant sitting with them for two or three hours while they verified my identity. I reeled off a list of names of top Hizbullah officials whom they could contact.

However, the Hizbullah men of the Bekaa are a tough, suspicious breed and unused to foreigners tramping around their areas.

Furthermore, Hizbullah has grown more wary of foreign journalists since the recent revelation that two Israeli correspondents had entered Lebanon on foreign passports and reported from the party's strongholds in Beirut and the south, an act that has made life more difficult and potentially dangerous for Western journalists operating here.

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