No Mission Is Impossible

by Michael Bar-Zohar

  “And I don’t fire. Something seems unclear. Why is this MiG flying alone? Why is it here? I came within a distance of four hundred meters, cannon range, and suddenly he breaks off and flies to the side. And then I saw: it’s not a MiG. It’s our Mirage!

  “Several years go by, a short time after we established the Hawk Squadron, and David Ivry, the commander of the IAF, called me. It certainly couldn’t have been easy for him because, during my pilot training, I had struggled a bit, and he barely gave me my wings. He asked me, ‘Think about the reactor in Baghdad. Long range, low altitude: can we do this?’ I went to my navigation officer, Ilan Ramon, and he told me it’s possible.

  “We did it without refueling in the air, and the Americans truly couldn’t believe it. Only afterward, when we returned, did I find out that one of the pilots, Elik Shafir, had discovered a glitch in his fueling system before takeoff. Instead of getting off the runway and handing off his place to someone else, he took off with less fuel and flew, carrying out the bombing and landing on his last drops of fuel. I told him, ‘Elik, that was crazy, but in your place, I would have done the same thing.’”

  Sixteen years later, Israel acted on the Begin Doctrine a second time.

  In mid-2007, according to foreign reports, two Mossad agents sneaked into a Kensington hotel room in London, where they hacked into the laptop of a visiting senior Syrian official and viewed its contents. The laptop contained a trove of top-secret information. The most dramatic discovery of the Mossad was that Syria was secretly building a nuclear reactor.

  The documents and photographs obtained by the Mossad confirmed a strange, dubious report by another source, Iran’s deputy defense minister, Ali Reza Asgari. Asgari had defected a few months before and been debriefed by the Americans. He had revealed that a nuclear reactor was being built in the Syrian Desert as a joint venture of Iran, North Korea and Syria. Iran had financed the reactor, which was built and equipped by North Korea. Satellite images confirmed the information: in Dir al-Zur, in eastern Syria, a nuclear reactor identical to the one in Yongbyon, in North Korea, was being constructed. The Mossad also obtained photographs from the reactor showing North Koreans at the site. Israeli experts determined that the construction had reached an advanced stage, and that the reactor would be fully operational by September 2008.

  The head of the Mossad, Meir Dagan, and Prime Minister Ehud Olmert urgently passed the information on to the United States. Syria was a sworn enemy of Israel, an ally of Iran and the Hezbollah terrorist organization. It could not be allowed to develop a weapon of mass destruction. Yet, when the intelligence was brought to the CIA and the White House, the Americans remained unconvinced and demanded additional evidence. President Bush asked that any operation be delayed until more reliable intelligence could be obtained.

  In July 2007, the IAF carried out several high-altitude sorties and programmed its Ofek-7 spy satellite to photograph the reactor. The detailed photographs established clearly that Syria was building a nuclear facility identical to the North Korean reactor at Yongbyon. The Aman (the IDF intelligence department) listening service, Unit 8200, produced transcripts of intensive exchanges between Damascus and Pyongyang. The Mossad supplied photographs and even a video filmed inside the reactor. All these materials were dispatched to Washington but the White House still hesitated. The Americans wanted definite proof that radioactive materials had actually been placed in Dir al-Zur.

  The IDF was ordered to obtain that definite proof. According to the international media, members of the Sayeret Matkal then flew in two helicopters to Dir al-Zur. The Sayeret commandos risked their lives, flying into one of the most secret and most heavily guarded areas in the most hostile Arab country. After landing, using special equipment brought over from Israel, the commandos collected radioactive soil samples from around the reactor. The samples were handed over to the Americans, proving that the danger was real. Stephen Hadley, George Bush’s national security adviser, dubbed them the “smoking gun.” But when Olmert spoke with Bush by phone and asked that the U.S. bomb the reactor, he received a disappointing answer: Bush responded that the U.S. couldn’t attack a sovereign nation. Olmert, according to the same reports, replied that he was deeply troubled by such a response, and that he intended to act “in Israel’s defense.”

  Indeed, Israel passed into action.

  The Syrian reactor, before and after the visit from the Israeli Air Force.

  (US Government)

  According to Britain’s Sunday Times, at 11:00 P.M. on September 4, 2007, fighters from the Air Force Shaldag (“Kingfisher”) commando unit were sent on a crucial mission. They secretly penetrated into Syria and took positions around the reactor. Their mission was to “paint” the reactor’s walls with laser beams in preparation for the anticipated attack, and in doing so, to signal its location for the air force. They spent the following night and day in hiding, On the evening of September 5 at eleven o’clock, ten F-15 planes took off from the Ramat David airbase, flying northwest to the Mediterranean Sea. On their way, three broke off from the pack and returned to the base. It’s reasonable to assume that, at this stage, the IDF had activated electronic efforts to misdirect Syrian radar operators, who would have been left with the impression that all the Israeli planes had returned home. In fact, seven of them continued flying, moving eastward along the length of the Turkish–Syrian border and penetrating Syrian territory from the north. They reached their target and, from a distance, fired air-to-ground Maverick missiles and half-ton smart bombs toward the laser-painted walls of the reactor. The strike was precise, and the reactor was completely demolished. Planes and commandos safely returned to base.

  According to reports published later, Israeli leaders following the mission from the Pit—the air force bunker and command post—feared a ferocious Syrian response; Syria was armed with thousands of missiles capable of causing major casualties in Israel. Olmert urgently spoke by phone with Prime Minister Erdog˘an of Turkey—during a high point in relations between the two countries—and requested that he inform the Syrians that Israel wasn’t interested in war.

  The stunned Syrian government initially maintained complete silence about the attack; eventually, the Syrian state news agency released a statement that Israeli fighter planes had penetrated Syrian territory at night and “had dropped munitions above desert territory” without causing any damage; Syrian planes “had driven them away.”

  In contrast to the bombing of the Iraqi reactor, Israel kept silent this time. To this day, it hasn’t admitted to wiping out the Syrian facility. But one of the clues left from the mission was the discovery of a discarded fuel tank from an Israeli plane, bearing a Hebrew inscription, in Turkish territory. Israel denied any violation of Turkish airspace, and Turkey accepted its claims at face value.

  Officially, Israel did not admit its forces had carried out the strike at Dir al-Zur. But a confirmation came from then opposition leader Benyamin Netanyahu, who had been fully briefed about the mission by Prime Minister Olmert. Interviewed on a live newscast on the Israeli television, Netanyahu declared: “When the cabinet takes action for Israel’s security, I give it my full backing . . . and here, too, I was a partner in this affair from the first moment and I gave it my full support.”

  The Syrian operation would have a strange epilogue the following year, on the evening of August 2, 2008. That night a festive party was held at a seaside mansion in Rimal al-Zahabiya, in northern Syria, close to the port of Tartus. It was the home of General Muhammad Suleiman, a close advisor to President Assad and a major figure behind the scenes of the Syrian security establishment. His office was in the presidential palace, adjacent to that of Assad, yet he was discreet and a man of the shadows; only a select few in the political and military establishment knew he existed.

  Suleiman was among the initiators of the Syrian nuclear project. He had supervised the building of the reactor and managed (apparently not very successfully) its security. The Israelis had good reasons to believe that Sul
eiman would initiate the construction of a new reactor; he was also responsible for transferring missiles and other weaponry from Iran to Hezbollah, in Lebanon. As a result, Suleiman had placed himself in the IDF’s crosshairs.

  During the Rimal al-Zahabiya dinner, guests sat around a long table on the house’s veranda. In front of them, the waves of the Mediterranean lazily rolled toward the beach. The image was peaceful and relaxing. The merry guests, however, didn’t notice the sudden emergence, from the black Mediterranean waves, of two figures in divers’ gear pulling out sniper rifles from waterproof cases and, after being given the signal, firing two bullets into Suleiman’s head. The general collapsed forward on the food-laden table; only when some partygoers saw blood on his forehead did they realize that he had been shot. In the ensuing chaos, no one saw the shooters, who dived back underwater and returned to their mother ship, which took them—according to foreign media—to the base of Shayetet 13. British newspapers reported that the snipers had arrived at Suleiman’s home on the deck of an Israeli-owned yacht, shot Suleiman, and disappeared.

  The operation stunned the Syrian government. Was there nowhere in the country where Syria’s leaders could feel safe? In their embarrassment, authorities announced that “Syria is conducting an investigation to locate those responsible.” Meanwhile, in Israel, several months later, citations were awarded to Shayetet 13 without details, causing some to wonder if, perchance, one of the unnamed operations had happened to take place in the calm waters off Rimal al-Zahabiya.

  PART SEVEN

  The Lebanon War

  In 1982, Begin and Defense Minister Ariel Sharon launch the controversial operation Peace for Galilee against the terrorist organizations in Lebanon. It is carried out by the IDF under Chief of Staff Rafael Eitan. The war ends in an Israeli victory, but it is marred by the massacre of hundreds of Palestinian civilians by the Christian Lebanese Phalanges organization at the refugee camps Sabra and Shatila, in Beirut. An Israeli board of inquiry relieves Sharon of his duties and harshly blames Eitan, even though they were not personally involved.

  CHAPTER 20

  “DID THEY HAVE MACHINE GUNS?” 1982

  “The morning after the night of fighting, when Beaufort was already in our hands and we knew the heavy price we’d paid, I looked from up close at the antenna—the antenna that, from every vantage point on Beaufort, I could see stick sticking out, threatening. I suddenly had a tremendous desire to knock it over, because, in my eyes, it symbolized all the evil possible. I asked Roni to hang a flag off the side. Roni took the flag from my armored personnel carrier and hung it on the tip of the antenna. This, for me, was a moment of enormous satisfaction, excitement, breathlessness . . . seeing the Israeli flag waving on the antenna that I had hated so much,” recounted Lieutenant Colonel Zvika Barkai, who commanded the Golani Brigade’s engineering company.

  The battle for Beaufort took place during the first Lebanon War, which broke out on June 6, 1982. During the battle, Golani soldiers fought PLO terrorists at a fortress that had, over the years, become a symbol of the threat against Israel’s northern towns and kibbutzim. Terrorists had fired every weapon at their disposal, including rockets, from the fortress toward the Galilee Panhandle, and especially at Metula, on the Lebanese border. On numerous occasions, Israel’s air force had bombed the fortress but had never managed to dislodge the terrorists, who continued to embitter the lives of residents in northern Israel. It was with good reason that the fortress had earned the name “the Monster.”

  Built in the twelfth century on a mountain next to the Litani River, Beaufort had been a Crusaders fortress. Its strategic importance is tremendous: at just under four hundred feet in length and 2,350 feet above sea level, it overlooks southern Lebanon and the Galilee, as well as the routes leading to the Lebanese city of Sidon and the coastal plain.

  Beaufort wasn’t just a target to be captured; it was, for both sides, a symbol of power, control and strength. Everyone looked in fear at the fortress, which had taken on the image of a fire-breathing monster or volcano—except that, instead of lava and ash, it spewed smoke from missiles and cannons. As a consequence, the battles there were cruel and bloody, each side understanding that victory meant extending control over the entire region.

  The task of capturing Beaufort and the fortified combat trench next to it had been assigned to Sayeret Golani, the brigade’s commando unit. For a year and a half, it had trained and rehearsed for various conquest scenarios at different times of day, and using various methods: a raid with helicopters, armored personnel carriers or on foot. Another unit sent to the fortress was the brigade’s engineering company, whose role was to seize the antenna post south of Beaufort.

  At noon, IDF forces, including Golani troops, crossed the border fence and made their way into Lebanon to carry out the government’s decision “to take all northern Israeli towns out of the range of terrorist fire from Lebanon.” Menachem Begin and his ministers had made that decision after a prolonged period of restraint by Israel in the face of numerous terrorist attacks and unceasing shooting on northern towns by terrorist organizations, mainly Fatah, which numbered 23,000 terrorists under the leadership of Yasser Arafat. The terrorists were arrayed across the “Fatah Land,” which included the western slopes of Mount Hermon, the area south of Mount Lebanon on the Nabatieh plateau, and in the region between Tyre and Beirut.

  In 1978, Israel had launched Operation Litani. The IDF had pushed the terrorists to the northern shore of the Litani River; a UN force of peacekeepers had been created but had kept anything but the peace. The terrorists had recovered and reverted to their wicked ways. Their activity had reached its peak in July 1981, when they attacked Israel’s northern towns with artillery and missile salvos. A cease-fire had been finally reached, but Israel knew well that this wouldn’t last long, and the power of the terrorists in south Lebanon had to be eliminated; that’s why the plans for Operation Oranim (“Cedars”) were born in the operations centers of the IDF. Israeli agents and officers had secretly visited Lebanon and established close relations with the Christian community and its armed units, the Phalanges. Some Israeli leaders planned to join forces with the Christians, carry out the military operation together and later establish a “new order” in Lebanon.

  What had brought about the end of Israeli restraint and the decision to go to war was an attempt on the life of Israel’s ambassador to Great Britain, Shlomo Argov, by a gang of terrorists, which had left Argov critically wounded. Prime Minister Menachem Begin chose to ignore the fact that these terrorists belonged to a splinter group and not to Arafat’s PLO. Begin and Defense Minister Ariel Sharon were determined to hit the PLO terrorists and to put an end to the terrorist attacks originating in Lebanon. Thus started Israel’s military campaign, based on the Oranim blueprints, now dubbed Operation Peace for Galilee.

  Long convoys of armored personnel carriers moved along the road to the Litani, creating long traffic jams and a delay in the timetable. Only at five in the afternoon did a Golani force cross the Litani en route to Beaufort. The fighters understood that the battle would take place in darkness. “During the trip, we started preparing the teams for nighttime combat. This fact didn’t especially bother us, because our familiarity with the objective was total,” Barkai said.

  But a Sayeret junior officer, Nadav Palti, remembered it differently. “After a year of preparations and near-attacks on Beaufort, at the moment of truth, we weren’t ready. The equipment hadn’t come in; the soldiers weren’t sufficiently awake following forty-eight hours without sleep. The tanks were causing problems, and Giora [“Goni”] Harnik, who had been the Sayeret commander for a year and a half and was considered ‘the Beaufort expert,’ had been discharged just a day before the war started.”

  In the early evening, while the Sayeret approached the Beaufort, its new commander, Moshe Kaplinski, was struck by a bullet in the chest in a sudden outburst of gunfire.

  Goni Harnik immediately arrived in the area. Handsome and slim, with to
usled hair, the son of a musician and a poetess, he was a charismatic leader, worshiped by his soldiers. He was a close friend of Gabi Eshkenazi, the deputy commander of the Golani Brigade; four years before, when Ashkenazi had been severely wounded during Operation Litani in Lebanon, young Harnik—a company commander in his battalion—had assumed command and successfully carried the mission to its end.

  Tonight, hearing that Goni had returned to the battlefield, Ashkenazi urgently called him to take over the Golani Sayeret. As he sped toward his soldiers in an armored personnel carrier, in the dark and without lights, the vehicle hit the low stone fence of a mountain terrace and flipped over. Harnik, injured, ran the rest of the way.

  When the soldiers and officers heard his voice on the communications network saying, “The Avenging Officer [Harnik’s code name] reporting,” they all breathed a sigh of relief. They believed in him and admired him, and felt calmer. He began by imposing order and coordinating the operation’s next steps. Harnik and Barkai agreed that Barkai’s soldiers would lead and Harnik would follow in their footsteps. Barkai’s men set out on foot for their destination. “Going first on the ascent to Beaufort with an advance group of five people was an unpleasant feeling. It was obvious that, if they opened fire, I would be the first to get hit,” he said. “I looked through my binoculars and could make out a terrorist lying in the central bunker, his weapon pointed at me. I gave the order to charge; at the same time, a heavy burst of fire came in our direction, the results of which I saw only later—it hit the Sayeret soldiers who were in the rear.”

  Barkai and his soldiers crossed a minefield and infiltrated the antenna station. In the trenches surrounding it, they fought face-to-face with the terrorists. The company’s doctor and the patrol-team commander were wounded. Israel’s fighters killed several terrorists at close range, and the engineering company eventually seized the antenna position.