Spies Against Armageddon

by Dan Raviv

  It turned out that the rough methods of Unit 504’s interrogators had been used for a long time in questioning terrorism suspects and enemy soldiers. Shin Bet’s interrogation experts were aware of what the 504 men were doing and rejected those tactics out of hand. “Those guys think they are a law unto themselves,” said a senior Shin Bet official. “When the public finds out, they will disgrace all of us.”

  It might seem strange that a security operative from an enemy state, kidnapped by Israel’s army and held in an Israeli prison, would be permitted to file legal complaints with Israel’s highest court and to demand millions of dollars in compensation. Yet that is the eternal paradox facing Israeli intelligence. It operates as though on a constant war footing, yet it often has to dance to the tune of democratic law and human rights.

  Dirani proved to be almost worthless. He and Sheik Obeid were not valuable, light bargaining chips. They both became heavy millstones for Israel. The two Lebanese men were released in 2004, part of a prisoner swap. The deal was mediated by the German intelligence service BND, which proved again to be friendly, useful, and ready to assist Israel.

  Frustrated by Hezbollah and not yet fully grasping its wide and dangerous scope, the Mossad stepped up efforts aimed at cracking the militant Shi’ite enemy. In an increasingly dirty war, particularly after the embassy and the Jewish center in Argentina were bombed, no tactics seemed out of bounds.

  By the early 1990s, Israeli intelligence identified the mastermind of the two bombings in South America as Imad Mughniyeh. He had become much more than the TWA hijacker who thrust himself in 1985 into the infamy of the FBI’s most-wanted list—with a bounty of $5 million offered on his head at age 22. In his 30s, he was the major figure in the construction of Hezbollah as a military force—and the point man with Iran’s MOIS and al-Quds Force.

  Aman and the Mossad—having learned bitter lessons after assassinating Musawi—were not going to repeat the mistake by targeting Nasrallah. The two agencies realized that killing the top figure of this particular organization would not achieve the desired goal of disrupting its operational capabilities.

  However, “targeted prevention” was still considered a powerful option if aimed at the right person: the one in charge of planning and executing the terrorist actions against Israel. That person was Mughniyeh—and he understood very well that he would be a prime target.

  After the killing of Musawi, Mughniyeh fled to Iran and found shelter with the Revolutionary Guards. He underwent plastic surgery to change his facial appearance, hoping to fool his pursuers, who had only the one famous photograph of him –taken when he was waving his pistol in the TWA cockpit window.

  Losing sight of Mughniyeh, the Mossad deliberated how to lure him back to terra cognita, a known land such as Lebanon. The Mossad needed a lead.

  The Israelis spotted his brother Fuad, who was also a Hezbollah activist. He owned a car-repair facility in a Shi’ite neighborhood of southern Beirut. The Mossad reportedly tried to recruit Fuad, but then concocted another plan. If he would not cooperate, he would become bait at the end of a fishing line—dead bait.

  In December 1994, the Mossad activated a team of Lebanese agents led by a man named Ahmed Halek. A powerful car bomb was planted in front of Fuad’s garage, and the notorious Mughniyeh’s lesser known brother was killed. It was not revenge for his refusing to work for Israel. In his death, he became a tool in a dirty war becoming ever dirtier.

  It was hoped that Imad could not resist the Shi’ite fraternal duty of attending Fuad’s funeral. Israeli intelligence hoped that Imad would be there. But the elusive and super-cautious Hezbollah military chief did not show up, at least not in a way they could recognize.

  He did, however, launch a vengeance plan. Mughniyeh ordered an investigation to find his brother’s murderers, and a number of Lebanese agents working for the Mossad were arrested by Hezbollah.

  Halek and his wife, Hanan, managed to escape to Israeli-controlled southern Lebanon. Their security was provided by Israel’s Christian ally, the South Lebanon Army (SLA). After a while, the couple was persuaded that they would be much more secure if they were resettled abroad.

  They agreed, and they moved to a foreign country. But after a few months, they returned to southern Lebanon and complained that they had been unable to adjust to a new nation. Once again they were provided with around-the-clock security guards and were warned to keep a low profile.

  Mughniyeh and his security teams kept searching and they spotted the weak link in Ahmed Halek’s chain: his love for women and alcohol. They sent a southern Lebanese agent—Ramzi Nahara, the drug dealer who for many years had been an informer for Israeli intelligence but then was imprisoned.

  Nahara was grateful to Hezbollah leaders for his freedom. They believed that he had changed to their side, so they put his name on a list of prisoners to be released in a swap with Israel. So now it was time to pay his debt to Hezbollah.

  Nahara and a few helpers invited Halek to a drinking party where he was promised a chance to meet beautiful women. Halek left his security guards behind and went to the party. Nahara put a drug in his drink. Halek fell asleep, was thrown into the trunk of a car, and driven northward to Beirut. There, he was interrogated by Hezbollah and Syrian intelligence. Mughniyeh personally took part in torturing Halek by cutting off a few of his fingers.

  Halek admitted that he had spied for Israel for many years. His wife was also arrested.

  Halek provided detailed descriptions of his spycraft training in Cyprus and in Israel itself. He was put on trial by Lebanon in 1996, sentenced to death, and executed by a firing squad. His last request was that his wife—who was also convicted and sentenced to 15 years—be allowed to travel to Israel to collect $100,000, which he had been promised by the Mossad. Obviously, the Lebanese refused to let her go.

  As for Nahara’s role as a double agent now working for Hezbollah, Israeli intelligence was not about to forgive and forget. It took a few years, but a cleverly disguised roadside bomb in southern Lebanon destroyed Nahara’s Mercedes and killed him.

  The tit-for-tat war between Israel and Hezbollah continued at a high intensity until the Israelis decided to leave Lebanon in May 2000. The Shi’ite fighters kept spilling the blood of Israelis and the SLA. The sacrifice, in exchange for little or no gain, had become intolerable.

  Similar to the American public when considering Vietnam in the 1970s, the Israeli public was asking, “What are we doing there?”

  Ehud Barak—the former Sayeret Matkal commando who now held the posts of prime minister and defense minister—made up his mind. Israeli troops would be withdrawn from Lebanon, and 18 years of occupation would come to an end.

  To avoid casualties, the Israelis pulled out in the middle of the night: a hasty departure that left behind some of their Lebanese agents. Many were resettled in Israel, including people on the Mossad payroll and SLA soldiers with their families.

  Hezbollah portrayed the evacuation as its historic victory: It had pushed the Zionists out of Lebanon. Some of the Shi’ite factions vowed to keep battling to eject the Jews from Palestine, as well.

  There was, at last, a ceasefire agreement. The tranquility promised in 1982 by Prime Minister Menachem Begin returned, at least for a while, to both sides of the Israel-Lebanon border. Yet Hezbollah remained a sworn enemy of Israel. Nasrallah promised that the battle against Israel would resume—sooner or later.

  Israel’s intelligence and the military, while licking their wounds, knew that they had scores of scores still to settle. Imad Mughniyeh remained at the top of the Mossad’s most-wanted list.

  The Israelis did not have to wait long for an opportunity. In June 2000, top commanders of Hezbollah—dubbed the Fabulous Five by Israeli analysts—visited Shi’ite border installations at the frontier with Israel. Among the five was Mughniyeh.

  An IDF observer spotted the visiting group, and on-line cameras transmitted their images back to Aman’s center in the Kirya. An intelligence officer there id
entified all of them—most importantly, Mughniyeh, despite his new facial features.

  Preparations immediately began on the Israeli side, to muster either a sniper to the scene quickly or an aircraft that could fire a missile. As with almost all assassinations, a go-ahead would be needed from the prime minister.

  In this instance, Barak did not give the okay. To the chagrin of some intelligence officers, Barak decided that shooting at Mughniyeh would be considered a violation of the withdrawal agreement. This showed that, while prime ministers sometimes made cold-blooded decisions, they frequently felt constrained by considerations of international implications. Many governments would have been angry at Israel for breaking a deal that had been so hard to arrange.

  Yet America’s FBI and the European Union had Mughniyeh on their “most wanted” lists, offering millions of dollars of bounty on his head. U.S. counterterrorism agencies found him to be extremely slippery, but they came close to capturing him once. The National Security Agency intercepted his travel plans, learning that he would be flying—with a close Hezbollah colleague—from Tehran to Damascus, by way of Kuwait. The CIA asked Kuwaiti authorities to come up with a pretext to hold that airliner on the runway, until U.S. Navy SEAL commandos could get to the scene. The SEALs would arrest Mughniyeh.

  The Kuwaitis delayed the plane for about an hour, but then—as Americans involved recalled later—lost their nerve. Fearing that Hezbollah would take revenge against them, the Kuwaitis let Mughniyeh leave. Considering that this was only a few years after America saved Kuwait’s rulers and restored them to their throne, by ejecting Iraq’s invaders in 1991, some U.S. officials complained bitterly about ingratitude.

  As for the Israelis, they would wait until 2008 for another shot at Mughniyeh, while continuing to be on the receiving end of his bloody plots.

  When the mighty Israeli army rolled into Lebanon in 1982, one might have predicted that it could soon declare victory and leave. The official cause was irritation stemming from a PLO mini-state, and the effect was its dissolution. A huge sense of triumph might have been expected.

  However, the normal relationship between cause and effect was broken in Lebanon by the bloody and unusual nature of a conflict that took many lives—with no progress to show for it, for anyone.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Biological Penetration

  An old man, leaning on his cane, shuffled slowly along Rue Mouffetard—a famous pedestrians-only thoroughfare frequented by tourists on the vivacious Left Bank of Paris. Drifting out of one of the many restaurants, as if on cinematic cue, came the voice of Yves Montand singing the immortal “Autumn Leaves.”

  It was a classic scene in the 5th arrondissement of the City of Light, and Professor Marcus Klingberg was slowly heading to his favorite café to read his favorite newspaper, the Communist Party daily L’Humanité.

  It was April 2005. Klingberg was in his late 80s and appeared fragile. Yet, his daily strolls could be seen as a real-life incarnation of what the prophet Ezekiel envisioned in the Bible: the resurrection of the dead from the Valley of Dry Bones. For decades one of Israel’s leading scientists—with a job about which he was supposed to say nothing—Dr. Klingberg had been in the valley of the vanished, and now he was back from the dead.

  His family and its lawyers had persuaded Israeli judges that Klingberg’s days were numbered and death would come soon, and thus he should be released from prison. Yet to anyone watching him walk, and hearing him talk, on Rue Mouffetard and in his nearby apartment, it was clear that predictions of his imminent passing were premature. But the deed was done. Klingberg was now a free man in Paris.

  In scientific circles, he had been known as a brilliant epidemiologist. Within Israel’s intelligence community, he was considered the most effective spy the Soviet Union ever planted in the Jewish state. His name became synonymous with treason. But, speaking soon after his release, he did not consider himself a traitor.

  Later in the day, Klingberg planned to meet his daughter, Sylvia. He hoped that she would arrive with his grandson, a rising star in the French Communist Party. With pride, the aged scientist and spy declared: “We are three generations. Me, my daughter, and my grandson. Ideologues. Believers in Communism.”

  Then he would return to his small apartment and would surf the internet, hoping that Israeli news websites might carry something negative about the man he hated above all: Yehiel Horev. For two decades, Horev had pursued and even persecuted leakers and alleged threats to the airtight secrecy of sensitive projects in Israel.

  Admirers of Victor Hugo novels and Broadway musicals might think that if Dr. Klingberg or any other Israeli under suspicion was Jean Valjean, then Yehiel Horev was the unyielding, obsessive Inspector Javert.

  Horev was the much-feared head of Malmab: an acronym for Memuneh al-haBitachon b’Ma’arechet haBitachon (the One in Charge of Security in the Defense Ministry). Malmab was the field security unit of the ministry, and it developed in parallel with the nuclear smuggling and security “Science Liaison Bureau” founded by Binyamin Blumberg—and led later by the longtime Shin Bet kidnapping expert Rafi Eitan.

  Dr. Klingberg vanished into the Israeli prison system in 1983. He was gone for 20 years, including very strict house arrest for the last five years of that time. Israel’s military censor prevented any news media from mentioning his name, his disappearance, or his conviction on charges of aggravated espionage.

  The truth, which Klingberg did not deny, was that he provided secret Israeli defense and scientific information to Soviet intelligence officers over a very long period. Israeli security officials identify Klingberg as the spy who caused the worst damage to the nation’s most sensitive defense systems. As well as transferring hidden data on everything he knew—including, according to reports, non-conventional weapons produced and held by Israel—he demonstrated how negligent his nation’s counter-intelligence efforts could be.

  Klingberg should have been caught back in the early 1960s. He worked, after all, in one of the most secretive and guarded places in the country: the Israel Institute for Biological Research (IIBR), where he served as deputy director.

  The high-walled Institute contains laboratories where Israel has manufactured an arsenal of chemical and biological weapons. Many commentators would say that using them would almost as unthinkable as using nuclear bombs.

  Reports about the existence of non-conventional weapons was never acknowledged by Israel’s government. The sophisticated work at Nes Tziona included the development of countermeasures to protect Israelis, in case Arabs or Iranians might attack with chemical or biological arms.

  Klingberg’s life is an intriguing story: an extreme exemplar of Jewish destiny enveloped in Holocaust survival, Communist ideology, scientific achievements, access to top secrets, and above all living in denial.

  Avraham Mordecai-Marcus Klingberg was born in Warsaw, Poland, in 1918. World War I was just ending, but momentous events continued to swirl all around Europe. Russia was caught in civil war after its Bolshevik Revolution, and Poland had strangely redrawn borders and a vigorous campaign for self-determination.

  Klingberg’s parents were rich and religious, and one of his grandfathers was a renowned rabbi. Despite his Orthodox roots, the young man had a secular, liberal education. When he matriculated at the medical school at Warsaw University in 1935, he rubbed shoulders with students more radical than he. Klingberg was captivated by Marxist ideas and the need for the working class to rise up in a “proletarian revolution.”

  His grandfather did not like the young Klingberg’s inclinations, but the old man displayed a sense of humor about it: “Well, Mordecai, you won’t be a rabbi in Eretz Yisrael (the Land of Israel), but it is consolation, perhaps, that you’ll be a rabbi in the Communist Party.”

  When the Second World War broke out in September 1939, Klingberg was about half-way through medical school. Poland was conquered within the month and was divided between Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia as part of a pre-war conspira
cy. The 21-year-old student saved himself by finding shelter in the Soviet Union. He left behind his entire family, and they were all murdered by the Nazis in the Holocaust.

  In his own old age, Klingberg sounded regretful and even guilt-ridden as he insisted that he had acted on the orders of his sick father: “I left Poland because of the Germans, at Father’s request. Mother was against it. But Father said, ‘You have to leave. At least one member of the family has to stay alive, and you should go.’”

  The emotional parting from his parents was a scar that never healed, though he covered that pain as just one of the many masks he wore. His parents’ deaths would haunt Klingberg all his life.

  He continued his medical studies in the Soviet system at the University of Minsk, only to suffer another interruption. In June 1941, Germany invaded the Soviet Union—as Adolf Hitler double-crossed Josef Stalin—and Klingberg boasted, more than 60 years later: “At 10 a.m. on the morning after the invasion, I volunteered for the Red Army, and I am proud of that to this day.”

  He served at the front for four months and suffered light leg wounds from shrapnel. After recovery, he was transferred to another unit, where he was allowed to practice the profession for which he had been studying: epidemiology, the study of how diseases spread. “The Russians called me Mark,” he said. “In Poland, I was Marek.”

  In 1943, he took an advanced course in Moscow and was part of a team that dealt with an epidemic that left thousands of people dead in the Ural Mountains. “When the disease broke out, no one knew the cause,” he related. “But we were able to stop it and prevent its spread.” The cause of the epidemic was a fungus, which developed in wheat that rotted under the snow and emitted a toxin. Another contribution he made was in researching typhoid fever.