This would save Syria the embarrassment of being exposed On June 9, 2011, the IAEA announced that Syria had failed to report the construction of a nuclear reactor, a gross violation of the NPT. IAEA Board of Governors, Implementation of the NPT Safeguards Agreement in the Syrian Arab Republic, June 9, 2011. Interview with “Charles,” April 2012.
“turned out to be right, while my analysts turned out to be wrong” Interview with Hayden, August 20, 2014.
“Whatever we asked for, we got” Interview with “Eldy,” August 2014.
“I okayed three hundred [Mossad] operations” Interview with Olmert, August 29, 2011.
one man was the primary driving force Interview with Dagan, May 26, 2013.
“That’s him. That’s Maurice” Interview with “Leila,” March 2013.
This generated more information about Mughniyeh Interview with “Leila,” March 2013.
he relocated from Beirut to Damascus Interviews with “Iftach,” May 2011, “Leila,” March 2013, and Richard Kemp, March 2007.
the most dangerous place for the Mossad to operate Interview with Dagan, May 29, 2013.
he turned to another country to assist with an assassination Interview with “Neta,” July 2013.
The United States would not normally participate in the execution Asked to explain the United States’ targeted killings against Al Qaeda, Hayden noted that “assassination” was defined as forbidden lethal acts “against political enemies,” whereas “U.S. targeted killings against Al Qaeda are against members of an opposing armed enemy force. This is war. This is under the laws of armed conflict.” He added, “Israel is probably the only other country in the world who thinks like the United States—that what we do there is legal.” Interview with Hayden, August 20, 2014.
the CIA legal advisers came up with a solution Interview with “Neta,” July 2013.
President Bush then granted Dagan’s request for assistance According to a Newsweek report it took Bush about thirty seconds to reply to Hayden’s question on hitting Mughniyeh by saying, “Yes, and why haven’t you done this already? You have my blessing. Go with God.” Jeff Stein, “How the CIA Took Down Hezbollah’s Top Terrorist, Imad Mugniyah,” Newsweek, January 31, 2015.
but only on the condition that it be kept a secret President Bush ordered total secrecy about all aspects of Mughniyeh’s killing. Only in January 2015 did The Washington Post’s Adam Goldman and Newsweek’s Jeff Stein publish, on exactly the same day, reports about the collaboration between the Mossad and the CIA in this operation. At least parts of these two reports seem to have come from the same sources, described there as senior American intelligence officials who were involved in the killing. According to these sources (unlike what is described in this book), the CIA and not the Mossad was the main actor, while Michael Hayden was the supreme commander of the operation. In an interview with Hayden in the D.C. offices of the Chertoff Group, where he serves as principal, in July 2016, I read him the section of this book dealing with the collaboration between Israel and the United States in the hit on Mughniyeh. When I finished, Hayden smiled and said: “Interesting story. I have nothing to say.”
“This was a gigantic, multi-force operation” Interview with “Iftach,” May 2011.
“even the most careful of men becomes full of confidence” Interview with “Iftach,” May 2011.
using a bomb detonated by remote control “If we succeed, just promise me you’ll let me be the one giving the okay (rashai) order,” said N., and went back to the drawing board. Interview with Dagan, May 29, 2013.
The Mossad’s explosives experts promised Faithful to his undertaking to Bush, Olmert called in N, who was in charge of the technological aspects of the operation, and I, the supreme commander of the hunt for Maurice, and repeatedly demanded that the Mossad assure him that it was capable of ensuring Mughniyeh and Mughniyeh alone would be killed—in other words, that it would be able to ascertain that there was no one else nearby and that the blast would be pinpointed at him alone. The Americans insisted on witnessing trial runs of the hit to satisfy them that the Mossad had this capability.
each time the operation was called off at the last second Interviews with “Loacker,” February 2015, and “Lexicon,” January 2017.
Olmert, however, refused to let them proceed Interviews with “Shimshon,” August 2011, “Iftach,” May 2011, and “Lexicon,” January 2017.
right before he opened the door, the order to execute was given Dagan had kept his promise to let N. issue the order to kill Mughniyeh, but N. had passed the privilege on to an electronics engineer who had played a central role in the operation. Interview with “Loacker,” January 2015.
The bomb exploded. Imad Mughniyeh…was finally dead In June 2008, Prime Minister Olmert visited the White House. Vice President Cheney was waiting outside to welcome him as the motorcade of limousines drew up under the portico. As Olmert walked up, Cheney, instead of shaking Olmert’s outstretched hand, came to attention and saluted the Israeli prime minister. Only the two men and their close aides understood the meaning of the gesture. Inside the Oval Office, President Bush thanked Olmert dearly for doing away with Mughniyeh. He then showed him Saddam Hussein’s pistol, kept in a special box inscribed “To Our President,” given by the Delta Force team that captured the Iraqi tyrant. Interview with “Shimshon,” August 2011.
“Just think what this does to the Syrians” Interview with Dagan, May 29, 2013.
He was furious with the Syrians for failing to look after his comrade Interviews with “Shimshon,” August 2011, and “Diamond,” March 2014.
Mughniyeh’s funeral was held in pouring rain Description of the funeral and pictures of it courtesy of the Der Spiegel correspondent in Beirut, Ulrike Putz, who attended it.
“You crossed the borders, Zionists” The Revolutionary Guards and Mughniyeh’s successors concocted a number of daring schemes to abduct Israelis who had served in the intelligence community, to blow up Israeli diplomatic missions and Zionist institutions across the globe, to attack the members of the Chabad Hasidic sect who maintain centers for Israeli travelers all over the world, and to strike at Israeli tourists wherever they could lay their hands on them. Almost all of these plans were thwarted thanks to precise warnings issued by Israeli intelligence. In one case, the police in Thailand, after getting a hot tip from the Mossad, chased a group of Iranian and Lebanese terrorists. One of them had a sophisticated time-fused bomb that he was planning to attach to an Israeli diplomat’s car. Instead, he threw it at the police as they came after him. But it hit a tree and bounced back to the terrorist’s feet before it went off, ripping off both his legs. The cops left the rest of him sitting against the tree so that press photographers could record the horrific moment for posterity.
“His operational capabilities were greater” Interview with Dagan, June 19, 2013.
“Lucky for us, he wasn’t” Interview with “Terminal,” September 2014.
This behavior “took discipline,” Olmert observed “Boehner’s Meeting with Prime Minister Olmert,” March 23, 2008, Tel Aviv 000738 (author’s archive, received from Julian Assange).
But Olmert rejected the idea Interview with “Shimshon,” November 2012.
“Suleiman was a real shit” Interview with Olmert, August 29, 2011.
“a hand in three primary areas” “Manhunting Timeline 2008,” Intellipedia, NSA (Snowden archive), www.documentcloud.org/documents/2165140-manhunting-redacted.html#document/p1.
the Israelis knew there was no chance the United States would get involved By April 2008, the CIA had reached the conclusion that Assad would not start a war over the bombing of the reactor, that there was no more need for secrecy, and that it was possible to use the materials on the affair for other purposes. Israel was firmly opposed to the publication of the pictures, but Hayden thought otherwise: “We needed to make it [the S
yrian reactor affair] more public because we were about to enter into an agreement with North Korea, which was guilty of the greatest proliferation crime in history. We had to inform Congress.” The affair had been a major intelligence victory, and after suffering from a lot of negative publicity over the years, the agency was only too happy to show off a success. The CIA included a picture of General Suleiman with the head of the North Korean nuclear program. The Mossad and AMAN fumed, fearing that the photo would be leaked and alert Suleiman that he was a marked man. It didn’t happen. “Background Briefing with Senior U.S. Officials on Syria’s Covert Nuclear Reactor and North Korea’s Involvement,” April 24, 2008. Interviews with Dagan, July 20, 2013, and Hayden, July 20, 2016. Hayden, Playing to the Edge, 267–68.
the Mossad would need assistance There were some in the Mossad who were adamantly opposed to killing Suleiman. A very high-ranking Mossad source said, “This is the execution of a uniformed officer of a sovereign state. Suleiman serves his country to the best of his ability, by his own lights. He is not a terrorist. Indeed, he is involved in very dark deeds, but we also have officers who are involved in acts that the other side deems problematic.” Interviews with “Iftach,” March 2017, and “Dominick,” April 2013.
His skull was split open This description of the assassination is based on a video taken by Flotilla 13 commandos and interviews with “Shimshon,” November 2012, and “Dominick,” May 2011.
“the first known instance of Israel targeting a legitimate government official” According to documents delivered by Edward Snowden and published on the First Look website, American intelligence intercepted Flotilla 13’s communications prior to the attack and knew exactly who was behind it. Matthew Cole, “Israeli Special Forces Assassinated Senior Syrian Official,” First Look, July 15, 2015.
“total mutual striptease” Interview with “Oscar,” May 2014.
launched a comprehensive campaign of economic measures Interviews with Dagan, June 19, 2013, and “the Prince,” March 2012.
computer viruses, one of which became known as Stuxnet Even in the conservative estimate of the German BND, Stuxnet alone delayed the Iranian nuclear project by at least two years. Interview, together with Holger Stark, with “Alfred,” a high-ranking German intelligence official, February 2012.
the targeted killing of scientists Interviews with Dagan, May 29, 2013, “Iftach,” March 2017, “Eldy,” September 2014, and “Luka,” November 2016.
On January 12, 2010, at 8:10 A.M., Masoud Alimohammadi left his home Interview with “Leila,” December 2015.
did not go without an internal debate in the Mossad Interview with “Iftach,” March 2017.
realized that someone was killing their scientists Interviews with “Iftach,” March 2017, “Leila,” December 2015, and “Advantage,” March 2017.
These efforts greatly slowed down other aspects of the nuclear project Interview with Dagan, January 8, 2011.
CHAPTER 35: IMPRESSIVE TACTICAL SUCCESS, DISASTROUS STRATEGIC FAILURE
Al-Mabhouh was by nature an extremely cautious man Interview with “Ethan,” November 2011.
“Plasma Screen—authorized for execution” Interview with “Eldy,” April 2014.
All were genuine, but none actually belonged to the person using it Ronen Bergman, “The Dubai Job,” GQ, January 4, 2011.
Folliard ordered a light meal from room service The receipts the two received when paying for the meal and drinks are in the author’s archive, received from “Junior.”
“It’s the kind of hit…where the target dictates” Interview with “Loacker,” February 2015.
“A little more respect for the other side” Interview with “Ilay,” June 2010.
Whole sections of the Mossad’s operations were shut down Interview with “Iftach,” March 2017.
from Dagan’s point of view, nothing had happened Netanyahu initially ordered Dagan to set up an internal inquiry team, and Dagan agreed but later told Netanyahu that the man he wanted to head the panel, a high-ranking recent retiree from the Mossad, had refused to take the job. According to a source close to Netanyahu, the prime minister subsequently heard a different story from that man. Either way, an inquiry panel was not set up. Interview with “Nietzsche,” May 2017.
Only in 2013…would Dagan admit, for the first time Interview with Dagan, June 19, 2013.
the Mossad had assured him it could go into a “soft target” country Interview with “Nietzsche,” May 2017.
“Netanyahu doesn’t rely on anyone” Interview with Uzi Arad, December 20, 2011.
fearful of being seen as hesitant In order to intensify Netanyahu’s fear of appearing hesitant or weak, Dagan increased the size of the delegations that he took to see the prime minister about operations, sometimes appearing on Netanyahu’s doorstep with as many as fifteen Mossad officials. He reckoned the prime minister would not refuse approval because with so many witnesses there, the danger that his hesitancy would leak out was much greater. When he came out of such meetings, Dagan says, he would think, “Now his balls will shrink and he’ll regret having given the okay.” Dagan added, “I love falafel, very much. Because I knew he would soon call me back, I’d drive to the Mahaneh Yehuda market [a few minutes away from the prime minister’s office] to have a falafel, and wait for the phone call, and not start the trip back to Tel Aviv. When I was not so sure, I’d go to the Kurds’ restaurant in Mevaseret Zion [ten minutes away] or a hummus place in Abu Ghosh [fifteen minutes] and wait there. The main thing was not to be too far from Jerusalem. Believe me, I’m telling you, looking back, I was never wrong. He always called me back.” Interview with Dagan, June 19, 2013.
The program “reached a point far beyond what I had hoped for” Interview with Barak, January 13, 2012.
Dagan was stunned by the recklessness Interview with Dagan, June 19, 2013.
only examining the feasibility of an attack Commenting on Dagan’s remarks about him, Barak wrote to me, “Despite what Dagan said, there’s never been any person in the Israeli leadership who didn’t realize that it was not possible to completely stop the Iranian nuclear program in a surgical strike. At most, it was a matter of delaying it for a number of years. Both the opponents and the supporters of the need to weigh it were united in an awareness that [military] action was feasible only as a last resort. And only if and when operational capability, international legitimacy, and supreme necessity were present.” Barak’s email to the author, March 30, 2016.
“the truth is that I was sick of him” Interview with Dagan, June 19, 2013.
especially not those aimed at the Iranian nuclear project Interview with “Iftach,” November 2011.
“we would recommend attacking Hamas” Interview with “Terminal,” September 2014.
The skies over Khartoum were illuminated by the explosions Interview with “Iftach,” May 2017.
“to coerce a scientist to work on a project” Interview with Dagan, June 19, 2013.
In order to intensify the fears of the scientists It appears that following the operations against Moghaddam and Ahmadi-Roshan, Israel departed from its policy of silence. Ehud Barak stated, regarding the deaths of these scientists, “May there be many more to come.” The chief of the IDF General Staff, Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz, remarked, “In Iran some things happen in an unnatural way,” while the IDF spokesman said he “wouldn’t shed a tear” for Ahmadi-Roshan. The daily newspaper Haaretz ran a jubilant cartoon showing Ahmadi-Roshan in heaven with a somewhat irritated God grumbling, “Another one,” while a little cherub next to him quips, “We already have enough to open a nuclear reactor.”
would cause as much apprehension as possible among the greatest numbers of their colleagues The assassinations continued, against others in the Radical Front as well. The highest-ranking target, whom the Mossad had been hunting since 1996, was Hassan Laqqis, who headed Hezbollah’s weapons
development department. He was taken out on December 3, 2013, when hit men armed with pistols fitted with silencers pumped bullets into him in the parking lot of his residence in a Beirut suburb. Hassan Laqqis was working intensively with Mohammad al-Zawahri, a Tunisian-born aviation engineer who joined the opposition in his country and was obliged to live in exile for a number of years, joining forces with Hezbollah and Hamas. Upon returning to his country, al-Zawahri worked to establish a fleet of unmanned aircraft and submarines for Hamas, to be used to strike at the oil and gas rigs Israel was building in the Mediterranean. The Mossad, now under the command of Yossi Cohen, intercepted communications between al-Zawahri and his cohorts in Gaza and Lebanon, and killed him on December 16. Interviews with “Charles,” April 2012, “Advantage,” December 2016, and “Iftach,” May 2017.
“the death of those human beings had a great impact on their nuclear program” Interview with Hayden, July 20, 2016.
if he could persuade the United States to take just a few more economic measures Interview with “the Prince,” March 2012.
“if it depended on me, Israel would have attacked” At a certain stage, Netanyahu and Barak stopped concealing their intentions, and in a New York Times Magazine cover story in January 2012, Barak implied that the attack would take place soon. In light of the harsh criticism from defense and intelligence personnel, Barak said, “We, Bibi and myself, are responsible, in a very direct and concrete way, for the existence of the State of Israel—indeed, for the future of the Jewish people….[A]t the end of the day, when the military and intelligence command looks up, it sees us—the minister of defense and the prime minister. When we look up, we see nothing but the sky above us.” Ronen Bergman, “Israel vs. Iran: When Will It Erupt?” New York Times Magazine, January 29, 2012.
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