“Fuck them, Yaakov! As far as I am concerned, Menachem Begin got it right when he once stated, ‘The world only respects Israel when they fear us, and by God, they will fear us.’”
“Yes, I know, Gershon, but we will also have to deal with the Arabists in the UK Foreign office and the US State Department, as well as the histrionics from Erdoğan.”
“I don’t give a damn. For too long we’ve had to hide in the shadows and kiss every diplomatic ass that parades around the UN and EU in New York, Geneva, and Brussels. We will take these bastards down once and for all, and perhaps we can succeed. If we can’t end terror entirely, we can at least destroy the roots and thus eventually the tree.”
Yaakov Melnik had never seen his friend so emotional and enraged. Prime Minister Mendelsohn had always been the epitome of restraint and calm, but he continued, “Yaakov, as far as that Muslim ass-kisser in the White House is concerned, we know he is no friend of ours and I don’t give a shit what he and his sycophant secretary of state think. I’m done playing their games. The Palestinians will never agree to a two-state solution or any peace deals. That momser Abbas can also go fuck himself. Let the White House suck-ups kiss his ass. I intend to kick it and take his damn sponsors in Iran down. If we don’t, they will try to destroy us sooner than later.”
Minister Melnik knew that the full weight of the Israeli leadership would be behind 9 and the Mossad and that the prime minister would encounter no opposition in the War Cabinet when he detailed the plans to them.
After Eli, Ari, and Dov left the office of the prime minister and the defense minister recovered from Gershon Mendelsohn’s furious outburst, he made a flurry of calls to various departments of the IDF, instructing them to give top priority to a secret mission being prepared by 9. The plan was hotly debated and fine-tuned over a period of weeks by the master planners at IDF headquarters. Countless meetings were held to consider every detail, to ensure that every resource required was made available. Prime Minister Mendelsohn had given strict instructions that he was to be informed every step of the way and on many occasions demanded more clarity and confirmation about key aspects of the planned operations.
After much prolonged and heated discussion, it was agreed that Israel would attempt to take out both the Iranian and North Korean threats. The enormity of this commitment was not lost on the players. All understood that their tiny nation was once again forced to stand alone. The geopolitics surrounding their decision were almost insurmountable.
Prime Minister Mendelsohn, despite some powerful opposition from within his own cabinet and the IDF leadership, was adamant that not a word was to be leaked to the United States. He did not trust the American leader who had shown an anti-Israel face in his agenda and dealings with Israel. The Iranian nuclear threat especially, and the subsequent nuclear treaty were continuing to irk Prime Minister Mendelsohn. The US president and his secretary of state were trying to score a political victory for themselves in attempting to also negotiate a nuclear treaty with North Korea, regardless of the several insulting rebuffs proffered by Kim Jong-un. Therefore, he was irrevocably opposed to enlisting US support or even alerting them as to his intentions.
CHAPTER 34
Training Rosh Pinah and Port of Haifa, September
Ari and Dov immediately established a rigorous and relentless training program for their ground force teams. These teams would be small and highly mobile, executing precision attacks on the heart of the Iranian nuclear program, their military, and the IRGC. The plans were designed for speed and surprise. They would stun the Iranians on the immediate commencement of their attacks and provide the Israeli commandos with overwhelming ground superiority to knock out or manipulate the Iranian communication centres. For this, they would rely on the IDF naval force and IDF Air Force to destroy or jam the communication centres at Bandar Abbas, in Qom, and in Tehran, as well as the Iranian airfields. The key was to jam the S-300 and S-400 surface-to-air missile sites using high-altitude AWAC aircraft circling the perimeter of Iranian air space. If knocking out the missile sites should prove impossible, destroying or jamming their communications was paramount.
Mossad HQ had received intelligence from an NIS asset in Pyongyang that Kim Jong-un had ordered an atmospheric test of a hydrogen bomb mounted on an intercontinental missile. Kim’s objective was to intimidate the United States into sitting down to negotiate on his terms. First, he wanted acknowledgement that North Korea was the final victor in the Korean conflict that ceased in 1953. Second, he demanded that as a result of the North’s being the ultimate victor, South Korea be reunited under the Communist regime immediately. Third, the United States and NATO would be required to withdraw completely from the Pacific theatre of operations.
The very idea of Kim’s exploding a nuclear bomb above the Pacific was beyond imagination. The resulting chaos and damage to shipping and aircraft operations would be horrific. The US leadership was still convinced that through negotiation they could come to terms with the North Koreans as they had with the Iranians in their nuclear pact. What the US president and secretary of state didn’t understand was the fact that Kim held them in utter contempt and considered them cowards. The Israelis knew that if terror and nuclear blackmail was to end, they would have to be the force that decapitated the two countries responsible for worldwide terror — especially since the tiny Middle Eastern country was the catalyst for most of the terrorist acts in the world. From a terrorist’s standpoint, if there is no Israel and no Jews, no need for bombs, stabbings, and all-around terror. Just peace and light.
CHAPTER 35
The Mossad groups under Eli Naftali’s supervision would have an equally dangerous and difficult insertion into North Korea. The Mossad and South Korean teams would have to enter North Korea from the sea in small groups. The key for them was to escape detection in the early stages of the insertion and to be able to exfiltrate safely after their operations.
The North Korean Navy aggressively patrolled the coast using helicopters and high-speed patrol craft. The only way the commandos could gain entry to the hinterland behind the coast was to approach via silenced electric Zodiacs that were made with a grey material instead of the typical black rubber, so as to blend better into the seascape. This was another patented Israeli invention.
Once ashore, the teams would be challenged by the harsh conditions of the terrain of the North Korean peninsula, which was at best difficult to navigate and inhospitable. Rugged mountains and rice paddies dominated much of the landscape. Roads were few and far between, and always heavily patrolled by the militia.
The local peasantry was heavily indoctrinated by the Kim regime and terrified of appearing anything but totally loyal — since the regime put whole families into gulags, where they were brutally murdered, even the children. The teams recognized that there would be no assistance from local farmers and villagers. Leaning on the experience of the South Korean joint special forces, they would enter North Korea, train to blend into the countryside, and appear to be simple peasant farmers. Their most immediate concern was to land undetected and travel quickly inland, then get organized and move north to their assigned targets.
Their weakness was their physical appearance. The North Korean peasantry was by and large malnourished and stunted in growth. Colonel Naftalin and his team commanders were concerned that if their teams were in any way challenged by the militia or even the police, their physiques would be a dead giveaway. The South Korean Special Forces, led by a formidable individual, Captain Sung Hi Mok, allayed some of their fears. Captain Mok had a long-simmering loathing of the Kim regime going back to the current Dear Leader’s grandfather.
Mok’s maternal grandmother had been trapped in North Korea ever since the Armistice was declared in 1953. His grandfather had fought alongside the Allied forces. Badly wounded at the Battle of Chosin Reservoir, he was evacuated back to the South and eventually Japan for medical attention. His young wife, having been informed of his whereabouts, elected to stay with her famil
y and sadly was caught up in the chaos after the Armistice was signed. Despite being trapped in North Korea, an uncle managed to spirit her two children away to the South, one of whom was Captain Mok’s father.
Captain Mok’s mother died in childbirth when Mok’s younger sister was born. Captain Mok’s grandfather never remarried and stayed loyal to his wife until she finally passed away in 2005. Only once in that 50-year period was she able to meet her husband and her two grandchildren at a propaganda reunification event organized by the South and North at the Panmunjeom border in 2002.
Captain Sung Mok had led several previous covert missions into the Hermit Kingdom and explained to the Israelis that when they had faced a challenge from the North Korean authorities, they used overwhelming force and removed the threat, hiding the bodies in fields or rice paddies. The bodies were only discovered long after the South Koreans had departed the scene.
The North Korean leadership, from senior military officers to senior noncommissioned officers, were usually faithful to the regime. The South Koreans perceived this as a structural weakness, since they believed that once an officer or noncommissioned rank was eliminated, the rest of the ordinary soldiers became paralyzed with fear.
The rank and file risked their own safety on two counts: 1) the potential deadly outcome at the hands of the enemy; and 2) making a decision that might fail or be contrary to the regime. Some had witnessed terrible punishments: whole families thrown into pits with wild dogs to be savaged to bloody shreds or when the victim was tied to a post and then shot by a heavy calibre anti-aircraft gun. The result was the poor victim was pulverized. Then the man’s family was ordered to clean up the mess of flesh and bone. Immediately after, they were sentenced to be imprisoned in one of the forced labour camps for a minimum period of seven years.
Knowing all of this, the South Korean Seals always targeted the officers and noncommissioned leaders immediately when confronted by them. The North Korean troops, especially the local militia, became leaderless and totally inept. Nine times out of ten, they surrendered to await their fate at the hands of the enemy. Since the missions were top secret, they were not to take any prisoners. Unfortunately, the North Koreans were all eliminated.
Having convinced their Israeli comrades that this was the only way to avoid widespread detection, Eli and Macha accepted the rules of engagement.
CHAPTER 36
The special forces under Captain Sarah Holtzman’s command would be charged with neutralizing the Basij militia. This group was feared and loathed by the Iranian citizenry on account of their vicious and brutal behaviour toward the dress codes of ordinary citizens. Thugs would ride around the major cities — Tehran in particular — on motorcycles, enforcing their interpretation of Islam. Men were required to have beards and women had to be veiled and covered. Any person they deemed to be dressed inappropriately or not growing a beard was brutally beaten in the street and, in some cases, taken for interrogation and imprisoned.
For Sarah, this operation held great personal importance. Her family had arrived in Palestine from Germany in 1934. Almost all of her relatives had been involved in secret security missions inside and outside Israel over the years. Her great-grandfather, Yitzak Holzman, had been an ardent Zionist. Having observed the Nazis under Hitler’s dictatorship escalating violence against the Jews, Yitzak had managed to have one of his cousins in England provide funds so that he could leave Germany and emigrate to Palestine. As with any endeavour to escape a brutal dictatorship, all that was required was the lubricant of money. Yitzak’s cousin, Jacob Holzman, greased the wheels (through some intermediaries) and made it possible for Yitzak and his family to leave Germany with relative ease via the Netherlands and Portugal.
The Holzman family that arrived in Palestine in October 1934 was a proud and ebullient group. The whole contingent, led by Yitzak and his wife, Sharon, consisted of his parents, Avrum and Talia Holzman; his aging grandfather, Marcus; his in-laws, Joseph and Mina Nimowitz; two of his brothers, Micha and Schlomo; and his two children, Alon and Shoshanna.
All of the Holzmans were immediately drawn to the Zionist cause. Yitzak’s son, Alon, signed up when the British formed the Jewish Brigade in defence of Palestine. He was quickly promoted, finally finishing World War II as a major. By 1948, he was a senior officer in the nascent IDF. By 1946, he had married and had his own children, Faigi and David. David was Sarah’s father. Sarah was born in 1996.
Sarah continued the family’s ardent involvement in the Zionist cause. There was no question about her joining the IDF and volunteering for the hardest missions. One of her uncles on her mother’s side, Oscar Cohen, a brave man who had volunteered for the intelligence services when he was just twenty-two years old, had moved to Iran, posing as a Lebanese businessman importing machine tools and precision instruments. In fact, he was a deep cover Mossad agent and for over thirty years after the 1979 Revolution, he sent prolific information about the Iranian missile program back to Israel.
Oscar’s successful machine tool and instrument business allowed him access to many influential regime officials and ministries. His expertise in sourcing specific products was eagerly sought after, particularly by the Revolutionary Guards, who were spearheading the missile and nuclear programs. On many occasions, Oscar travelled to Germany, Austria, Sweden, and the UK to negotiate purchases on behalf of the Iranian regime. Occasionally, he would meet one of his Mossad handlers while visiting a trade show in Frankfurt or London.
Oscar needed to exercise extreme caution, since he was well aware that the VEVAK and Quds Force across Europe were on the lookout for Iranian citizens whom they considered “enemies of the State.” If he needed to deliver critical information to Mossad, he would book a trip to visit a supplier and always stay at a specific hotel in Frankfurt, London, or Stockholm. Mossad had agents in these cities and covertly had access to hotel reservations. When Oscar stayed over, he always stayed a minimum of two nights. On the second day, he would order breakfast to his room. When the dishes were cleared from his room, a microfilm or flash drive would be found concealed under some unfinished eggs. Mossad knew his room number and would have an agent retrieve them before the breakfast trolley moved off the floor. Oscar never met his contacts or handlers. If they wanted to communicate with him, they would leave a message on his room telephone. The message was simple and straightforward.
“Hello Oscar, it’s Brian at Delta Machine and Tools. Please call me back. We need two more days to present our offer on the high-speed lathes discussed on Wednesday.”
When he received this message, Oscar knew that the two days referred to Friday and he would travel out to Delta Machine and Tools, where he would receive a proposal package. Within the package would be specific instructions from Mossad. Unbeknownst to Oscar, Delta Machine and Tools was owned by a former Mossad agent. The company did in fact manufacture high-quality products that were in great demand, and even though Oscar imported products from many suppliers, he always visited with Delta, since they had branch companies in Frankfurt and Stockholm.
The information Oscar provided to Israel regarding the Iranian missile and nuclear programs was invaluable. All parties recognized the dangerous game he was playing and did everything in their power to protect his true identity.
Then, suddenly, Oscar’s information and contacts ceased. One day in 2010, there was a large public execution in Tehran’s Tanzim Square, where some fifteen homosexuals and enemies of the state were hung from cranes. The Iranian news media were obligated to show the gory details and as the TV cameras panned in on each of the victims, Mossad personnel saw Oscar before a black hood was placed over his head. He was about to be hung from a crane.
The Iranians never admitted they had been compromised, and as far as Oscar’s crimes were concerned, they were never revealed. He was simply executed as an enemy of the state.
As is often the case, a small mistake had cost Oscar his life. While in Stockholm on one of his visits, VEVAK had decided to watch his activities
in a routine check to see if he was who he purported to be. Oscar was in the hotel bar one evening, waiting to dine with one of his suppliers. The owner of the supplier came with two colleagues, one of whom was an Israeli. Oscar recognized his accent and made the mistake of conversing briefly with him in Hebrew. The VEVAK agents were sitting at the bar, keeping a routine watch on Oscar and overheard him speaking Hebrew.
Inadvertently, Oscar Cohen had signed his own death warrant. As soon as he returned to Tehran, he was arrested, tried, and incarcerated, and probably tortured before his execution.
Sarah’s large extended family had grieved Oscar’s ignominious death, but for obvious reasons the details were kept secret. His body was disposed of along with the other fourteen victims in unmarked graves.
CHAPTER 37
As Sarah grew up and joined the IDF, she harboured a burning desire to seek revenge on the twisted, hateful Iranian mullahs and their repressive autocratic regime. Even though she was a young teenager at the beginning, she felt a terrible sense of loss. Over time in the IDF, she became a well-regarded officer and leader. She was a ferocious practitioner of the unique Israeli unarmed combat technique of Krav Maga. She and her fellow commandos were all trained in the fierce martial art so that even the smallest, slightest woman had the skills to kill a man twice her size in seconds.
Sarah relentlessly drove her command to practice and practice yet again. Her skills and those of her troops in the art of Krav Maga were legendary within the elite forces. She was incredibly protective of her charges and strove every hour to make them better warriors. Her biggest fear — and the content of her nightmares prior to a mission — was losing one of her personnel. The thought of having to face the deceased’s loved ones was dreadful.
The End of Terror Page 11