20. Yossi Melman, “Dubai Assassins Used Mossad Methods to Kill Hamas Leader,” Ha’aretz, February 16, 2010.
21. Ron Ben-Yishai, “Hisool Be’Dubai: Ha’Tzilum, Ha’Tachbulot, Ve’Ma’She’Lo Pursam,” Ynet, February 16, 2010.
22. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pMnLgV-6cJE.
23. See Danna Harman, “Dubai Assassination Spotlights Top Cop Skills in a Modern-Day Casablanca,” Christian Science Monitor, March 19, 2010.
24. Ibid.
25. Max Abelson, “New York City’s Assassination Connection,” Observer, March 10, 2010.
26. See Ronen Bergman, “The Dubai Job,” GQ, January 4, 2011.
27. See Max Abelson, “New York City’s Assassination Connection,” Observer, March 10, 2010.
28. Interview, Ramallah, May 15, 2017.
29. Tom Parfitt, “Chechen Link to Dubai Killing of Sulim Yamadayev,” Guardian, April 5, 2009.
30. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pMnLgV-6cJE.
31. Avi Issacharoff, “Report: Dubai Police Chief Tells Mossad Head to ‘Be a Man,’” Ha’aretz, February 27, 2010.
32. Rory McCarthy, Richard Norton-Taylor, and Mark Tran, “Gordon Brown Pledges Inquiry as Israel Refuses to Rule Out Mossad Plot in Dubai,” Guardian, February 17, 2010.
33. See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pMnLgV-6cJE.
34. Lesley Stahl, “The Spymaster: Meir Dagan on Iran’s Threat,” CBS News, 60 Minutes, March 11, 2012.
35. Robert F. Worth and Isabel Kershner, “Hamas Official Murdered in Dubai Hotel,” New York Times, January 29, 2010.
Chapter Eighteen: The Final Victories of an Old Soldier
1. Quoted in Drake Baer and Richard Feloni, “15 Teddy Roosevelt Quotes on Courage, Leadership, and Success,” Business Insider, February 14, 2016.
2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1w60Oiw0hC0.
3. https://web.archive.org/web/20110723234009/http://www.golani.co.il/Info/hi_show.aspx?id=1195&t=5&levelId=.
4. Micha Livna, “Sakanot Hayav: Shloshim Le’Moto Shel Meir Dagan z’l: Dagan Bein Levanon Le’Mat’kal,” Special Broadcast, Israel Channel 1, April 20, 2016.
5. http://www.izkor.gov.il/HalalKorot.aspx?id=510105.
6. See Micha Livna, “Sakanot Hayav: Shloshim Le’Moto Shel Meir Dagan z’l: Dagan Bein Levanon Le’Mat’kal,” Special Broadcast, Israel Channel 1, April 20, 2016.
7. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/tehranbureau/2010/01/updated-who-murdered-professor-ali-mohammadi.html.
8. Sam Ser, “Did a WikiLeaks Document Doom Iranian ‘Mossad Agent’?” Times of Israel, May 16, 2012.
9. Aharon Etengoff, “Report: Iranian Stuxnet Expert Assassinated in Tehran,” TG Daily, November 29, 2010.
10. William Yong and Robert F. Worth, “Bombings Hit Atomic Experts in Iran Streets,” New York Times, November 29, 2010.
11. Interview, Tel Aviv, June 1, 2016.
12. Julian Borger, “New Book Claims Mossad Assassination Unit Killed Iranian Nuclear Scientists,” Guardian, July 11, 2012.
13. Isabel Kershner, “Israeli Strike on Iran Would Be ‘Stupid,’ Ex-Spy Chief Says,” New York Times, May 8, 2011.
14. Alex Gibney, Marc Shmuger (producers), Zero Days (documentary film), Magnolia Pictures, Germany, 2016.
15. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1w60Oiw0hC0.
16. Ibid.
17. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UZd_jlHdVRg.
18. Interview, Tel Aviv, September 30, 2017.
19. Carol Morello, “Yitzhak Hofi, Israeli Spy Chief Who Helped in Episodes of War and Peace, Dies at 87,” Washington Post, September 17, 2014.
20. Interview, Tel Aviv, May 9, 2017.
21. See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UZd_jlHdVRg.
22. Ibid.
23. Eric Lichtblau and James Risen, “Bank Data Is Sifted by U.S. in Secret to Block Terror,” New York Times, June 23, 2006.
24. Ibid.
25. Barton Gellman, Paul Blustein, and Dafna Linzer, “Bank Records Secretly Tapped,” Washington Post, June 23, 2006.
26. Interview, Tel Aviv, May 27, 2017.
27. http://www.abc.net.au/news/2003-08-15/hambali-arrested-in-thailand-reports/1464988.
28. Phil Hirschkorn, “Lawyer: Detained Pakistani to Face Terrorism Charges,” CNN, August 6, 2003.
29. See interview, Tel Aviv, May 27, 2017.
30. Ibid.
31. Ibid.
32. See Eric Lichtblau and James Risen, “Bank Data Is Sifted by U.S. in Secret to Block Terror,” New York Times, June 23, 2006.
33. Terry Atlas and Andrew Mayeda, “When Money Is a Weapon: How the Treasury Got into the Spy Game,” Bloomberg, January 20, 2015.
34. Jonathan Fahey and Chris Kahn, “European Sanctions Have Begun to Block the Iranian Banking System Off from the Rest of the World,” Business Insider, March 15, 2012.
Chapter Nineteen: Operation Pegasus
1. Yossi Melman, “Who Is New Mossad Chief Tamir Pardo?,” Ha’aretz, November 29, 2010.
2. Interview, May 30, 2016.
3. Ulrike Putz, “Sabotaging Iran’s Nuclear Program: Mossad Behind Tehran Assassinations, Says Source,” Der Spiegel Online, August 2, 2011.
4. Chris Kraul and Sebastian Rotella, “Drug Probe Finds Hezbollah Link,” Los Angeles Times, October 22, 2008.
5. Jo Becker, “Beirut Bank Seen as a Hub of Hezbollah’s Financing,” New York Times, December 13, 2011.
6. Ibid.
7. Chris Kraul and Sebastian Rotella, “Colombia Drug Ring May Link to Hezbollah,” Seattle Times, October 25, 2008.
8. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pjeEbEBfC_Q.
9. Michael Ware, “Los Zetas Called Mexico’s Most Dangerous Drug Cartel,” CNN, August 6, 2009.
10. Alicia A. Caldwell and Mark Stevenson, “U.S. Intelligence Says Sinaloa Cartel Has Won Battle for Ciudad Juarez Drug Routes,” CNS News, April 9, 2010.
11. Joby Warrick, “U.S. Accuses Lebanese Companies of Laundering Money for Hezbollah,” Washington Post, April 23, 2013.
12. U.S. Attorney’s Office, Southern District of New York, “Manhattan U.S. Attorney Announces $102 Million Settlement of Civil Forfeiture and Money Laundering Claims Against Lebanese Canadian Bank,” (press release), June 25, 2013.
Chapter Twenty: Money in the Crosshairs
1. Chaim Urinson, “Palestinian Behind Kidnap, Murder of 3 Israeli Teens Gets 3 Life Sentences,” Ha’aretz, January 6, 2015.
2. Ben Hartman, JPost.com Staff, Lahav Harkov, and Yaakov Lappin, “Listen: Recording of Kidnapped Teen’s Distress Call to Police Released,” Jerusalem Post, July 1, 2014.
3. Jodi Rudoren, “Bedouin Trackers Hunting for Clues to Kidnapped Boys,” New York Times, June 23, 2014.
4. “Security Forces Find Missing Teens’ Bodies in West Bank,” Ynet News, June 30, 2014.
5. Isabel Kershner, “Trouble Underfoot on Israeli Kibbutz near the Border,” New York Times, July 18, 2014.
6. Nir Davori, “Echrai Ha’Ksafim Shel Hamas Husal Be’Tzfon Re’Tzu’at A’aza,” Mako Hadashot, August 24, 2014.
7. Yossi Melman, “Meet David Cohen: The Jewish ‘Sanctions Guru’ Appointed Deputy Chief of the CIA,” Jerusalem Post, January 15, 2015.
8. Jean-Charles Brisard and Damien Martinez, “Islamic State: The Economy-Based Terrorist Funding” Thomson Reuters, October 2014.
9. Matthew Levitt, “Declaring an Islamic State, Running a Criminal Enterprise,” Hill, July 7, 2014.
10. Matthew Levitt, “Terrorist Financing and the Islamic State,” Washington Institute for Near East Policy, Washington, D.C., November 13, 2014.
11. http://www.npr.org/2014/07/21/333537790/after-ultimatum-christians-flee-iraqi-city-en-masse.
12. http://www.catholicworldreport.com/Blog/3264/isis_tags_christian_homes_in_mosul_for_confiscation_as_christians_flee.aspx.
13. https://barnabasfund.org/news/Islamic-State-auctions-seized-Christian-homes-in-Iraq-in-bid-for-cash?audience=AU.
14. Financial Action Task Force, “Financing of the Terrorist Organisat
ion Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL),” FATF Report, February 2015.
15. Ana Swanson, “How the Islamic State Makes Its Money,” Washington Post, November 18, 2015. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/11/18/how-isis-makes-itsmoney/.
16. http://abcnews.go.com/International/us-warplanes-destroy-116-isis-fuel-trucks-syria/story?id=35229047.
17. http://www.iraqoilreport.com/news/armed-intel-u-s-strikes-curtail-oil-sector-17473/.
18. http://www.ibtimes.com/amid-anti-isis-fight-90-islamic-state-oil-destroyed-us-led-coalition-airstrikes-syria-2234357.
19. Ibid.
20. Jim Miklaszewsi and Corky Siemaszko, “Millions in ISIS Cash Destroyed in U.S. Airstrike,” NBC News, January 11, 2016.
21. Patrick B. Johnston et al., Foundations of the Islamic State: Management, Money, and Terror in Iraq, 2005–2010. Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 2016.
Afterword
1. Stephanie Clifford, “Arab Bank Liable for Supporting Terrorist Efforts, Jury Finds,” New York Times, September 22, 2014.
2. Marcy Gordon, “Arab Bank to Pay $24 Million Fine,” Washington Post, August 18, 2005.
3. See Stephanie Clifford, “Arab Bank Liable for Supporting Terrorist Efforts, Jury Finds,” New York Times, September 22, 2014.
4. Stephanie Clifford, “Arab Bank Reaches Settlement in Suit Accusing It of Financing Terrorism,” New York Times, August 14, 2015.
5. Reuters, “Manhattan Jury Finds Palestinian Authority Liable for Terrorist Attacks,” Washington Post, February 23, 2015.
6. Ibid.
7. Greg Tepper and Ilan Ben Zion, “Ex-Mossad Chief’s Health Reportedly in Peril After Liver Transplant in Belarus,” Times of Israel, October 17, 2012.
8. Interview, May 9, 2017.
9. Amir Tibon, “Netanyahu vs. the Generals,” Politico, July 3, 2016.
10. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1w60Oiw0hC0.
11. “Ex-Mossad Chief Dagan Laid to Rest with Military Honors,” Times of Israel, March 20, 2016.
12. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ul42FYUop3Y.
13. Interview, Tel Aviv, September 30, 2016.
*That codename was first publicly revealed by Israeli journalist Ronen Bergman in a 2008 book he authored about Israel’s war against Iran; the name passed the military censor’s scrutiny, although only in English, while in the Hebrew-language media, he referred to the unit name as Gilgal. A reference to the unit’s actual Hebrew name, Tziltzal, was first published in a book by Orde F. Kittrie in the 2015 book Lawfare: Law as a Weapon of War from Oxford University Press.
**The manuscript was reviewed by security sources in Israel prior to publication.
* Jarah was released after several months and allowed to return to the United States.
* The four men were released, along with 1,023 other terrorists, as part of a 2011 prisoner exchange between the State of Israel and Hamas. In the highly controversial exchange, Israel released 1,027 terrorists, including many with blood on their hands for their active role in terrorist attacks including suicide bombings, in exchange for one soldier, Corporal Gilad Shalit, who had been seized in 2005 just outside the Gaza Strip. The release of so many terrorists with “blood on their hands” was political dynamite in Israel; the families of those who had been killed by the terrorists protested. On behalf of the families, Shurat HaDin, the Tel Aviv–based civil rights center, petitioned the Israeli Supreme Court in the attempt—unsuccessful—to block the prisoner release.
* Uri L. is a pseudonym.
* Lavi S. is a pseudonym.
* A Hamas suicide bomber had been killed earlier in the day attempting to blow himself up inside the central bus station in the southern city of Ashqelon.
* Because of Israeli bastions inside Hebron as well as immediately surrounding the city, the Palestinians were in charge of 80 percent of the city. An international monitoring group, the Temporary International Presence in Hebron, consisting of observers from Denmark, Italy, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, and Turkey, was established in 1997 at the invitation of the Government of Israel and the Palestinian Authority to help maintain peace and a sense of security for the residents of the city.
* Arabic for “enough already.”
* The other four hijackers included two men from the United Arab Emirates, and one each from Egypt and Lebanon.
** Marzook was arrested in 1995 and deported in 1997; the U.S. government allowed him to keep much of the money ostensibly raised for the struggle in Palestine. He was one of the first billionaires to emerge in the Hamas hierarchy. Today, Marzook is widely viewed as the Hamas second-in-command.
* According to published accounts, a Kidon team was behind the assassination of Fathi Shiqaqi in Malta.
* Shai U. is a pseudonym.
* It took Israel four long years to apprehend Hamed following the arrests of the Gang of Death. He was captured by the Ya’ma’m, the Israel Border Guard’s special operations counterterrorist unit, while holed up in a safe house in the al-Balu’a section of Ramallah. He was ultimately tried and convicted of the deaths of seventy-eight Israelis; he was sentenced to forty-five life sentences.
* The Arab Bank maintained the accounts of seemingly benevolent organizations that operated in the West Bank and Gaza that were, in fact, mere fronts for the Hamas military wing and that were all outlawed by Israel.
* Ironically, Harpoon’s position and the merits of Operation Green Lantern were exonerated in the United States Supreme Court landmark 2010 decision, Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project. In that decision, the court held that money was fungible and that it was not necessary for law enforcement agencies or private plaintiffs to track the actual dollars, rubles, rials, euros, nor pounds being supplied to the terrorists or attribute them to an actual use or attack. In the eyes of the Supreme Court, providing any services, even wiring funds from account to account on behalf of designated terrorist groups, would make banks and financial institutions liable for criminal and civil penalties.
* An additional thirty-four Israelis were killed on October 7, 2004, when a suicide bomber blew himself up at a resort in Egypt’s Sinai Desert, targeting Israeli holiday travelers.
* Sarah is a pseudonym.
* The G-8 included the leaders of the United States, Canada, Great Britain, France, Germany, Japan, Italy, and Russia. The European Union was also represented at the summit.
* For two years, the State of Israel engaged Hezbollah, through intermediaries such as the German Federal Intelligence Service, the Bundesnachrichtendienst, to secure the release of the two abducted soldiers. The negotiations were carried out under the premise that both captives were still alive. Hezbollah demanded that Israel release Samir Kuntar, a Druze, who had led a terrorist raid against the northern Israeli city of Nahariya in 1979 and murdered four, including a young father and his daughter, in cold blood before being apprehended. Israel vowed never to release Kuntar, but Nasrallah seemed to know how to manipulate the raw nerve endings of the Israeli psyche. The Israelis eventually agreed to release the aged Kuntar, but when the exchange of prisoners took place, the IDF received two coffins instead of the two alive soldiers. Hezbollah greeted Kuntar as a returning hero. The long arm of Israeli justice never forgot about Kuntar, however. He was finally killed in an explosion of a building in Syria in December 2015.
* Imad Mughniyeh was killed in Damascus, Syria, on February 12, 2008, when a powerful explosive device was detonated inside the headrest of his Mitsubishi Pajero. The international media attributed Mughniyeh’s assassination to a joint CIA-Mossad operation. Both the United States and the State of Israel neither confirmed nor denied any involvement in Mughniyeh’s death. Neither expressed any remorse, either; many veteran CIA and Mossad officials were quite clear in interviews to the press that the world was a much better place with Mughniyeh dead.
* In 2009, President Chávez replaced the DISIP with a new internal security and intelligence service.
* According to published accounts (https://www.defensetech.org/
2008/06/02/hezbollahs-cyber-warfare-program/) Hezbollah has been very active—and very capable—in assembling potent SIGINT and cyberwarfare capabilities. On May 8, 2008, Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah declared that the organization’s communications network was its most important weapon—just as important to the group’s nefarious purposes as were its missiles. Hezbollah’s SIGINT and cyberwarfare capabilities include fiber-optic cable tapping and manipulation, data interception, and network and Internet hijacking.
* The State of Israel and its intelligence services do not, as a measure of policy and operational guidelines, reveal the identities of their assets.
* Another such group, designated as a Hezbollah facilitator a few years later, was the Martyrs Foundation. The Martyrs Foundation was an Iranian parastatal organization that directed infusions of Iranian cash into the accounts of Hezbollah, Hamas, and the PIJ; the group, a brokerage house of sorts, maintained offices throughout Lebanon, staffed by representatives from the terrorist groups that received cash assistance, and used those offices to relay the monies gathered to the Palestinian territories and to Party of God units in southern Lebanon.
* The families would eventually win judgments against North Korea and Iran on September 29, 2016, in the amount of $38 million in compensatory and $131 million in punitive damages. The Anti-Terrorism Act and New York City claims cases against the LCB are still ongoing at the time of this writing.
* The reference of Unit 101 was highly symbolic. Unit 101 was a controversial counterterrorist and counterinsurgency commando force that was created by a young Ariel Sharon in 1953 to mount cross-border retaliatory raids against Palestinian raiders in the West Bank and Gaza.
* Hamas efforts to free Yassin from jail included the 1992 kidnapping and murder of Border Guard Sergeant Nissim Toledano—the crime that sparked a chain of events that connected Hamas and Hezbollah. Israel was forced to free Yassin in 1997, after a botched Mossad assassination attempt of Hamas political leader Khaled Meshal in Amman, Jordan; Jordan threatened to execute the Israeli spies unless the Israeli government released the Hamas founder. Yassin was killed on March 22, 2004, by an Israeli air strike.
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