How the Mossad perfected the art of eliminating enemies

Founded in a conflictive context and in disputed territory for thousands of years, Israel has been forced to focus on security since its first day, May 14, 1948. It has built up a powerful army over time. , already famous for resounding victories, but also of secret services always on alert. One of these services is the Mossad or “Institution”, which operates abroad and reports directly to the Prime Minister. Founded on December 13, 1949, as the Central Coordinating Institute, Mossad has become one of the most popular intelligence services in the world.

Giving the impression that he is capable of anything, he always attracted attention. This is how it inspired many urban legends, press materials, literary and film productions. But some of its operations are said to be in the imagination of the directors of the famous fictional spy James Bond, known as code 007, writes journalist Tom Leonard in an article published in the Daily Mail in the context of the assassination of Iranian nuclear scientist Mohsen. Fakhrizadeh. .

The shadow of the Mossad also looms in the case of this murder committed, on November 27, near Tehran. Suspicion has been fueled by both Iran, whose regime sees Fakhrizadeh’s removal as the hand of its deadly “Zionist” enemy, and Israel. Or Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sees Fakhrizadeh as the director of Iran’s nuclear program, which he fiercely opposes. “Remember that name, Fakhrizadeh,” he told a briefing a few years ago that his agents had seized archive material about Iran’s nuclear program in Tehran. In addition, Fakhrizadeh was an officer in the Guardians of the Revolution, the elite armed corps of the Tehran regime designated by the United States as a terrorist organization.

Operation to remove the scientist

“No one in intelligence circles has any doubt that the Mossad is responsible for the assassination of Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, the mastermind behind Iran’s secret nuclear weapons program. Ingenious, bold, and terribly efficient, the Mossad has all the makings of an organization. feared, though its name is as peaceful as can be, “the Institution,” comments Tom Leonard.

As Fakhrizadeh’s car, followed by bodyguards, approached a roundabout about 40 miles from Tehran, an automatic machine gun, hidden in a truck parked nearby, began firing in his direction. The truck, filled with explosives, was then detonated from a distance, knocking over an electrical cable. Then several gunmen jumped out of another car parked nearby, others rushed on motorcycles, and the rest of the team opened fire with sniper rifles.

Aimed at least three times, the scientist collapsed. The rooms on the side of the road were turned off and the nearest hospital had a power outage at the time, probably due to the power line falling out. Evacuated to Tehran, Fakhrizadeh was pronounced dead at the entrance to the hospital. Meanwhile, the assassins had disappeared without a trace. “It was like a Hollywood action movie,” said one witness.

Fakhrizadeh’s assassination could only be the latest of Mossad’s legendary “Hollywood-like” actions. An official confirmation of this operation has not yet been made, although the Israeli press takes extensive photographs from Tehran with messages such as “Thank you Mossad” that appeared in the streets after the removal of the scientist.

The killing machine

Today, the “bad boy” is the Islamic regime of Iran, whose ayatollah, the supreme leader, continues to repeat “the death of Israel, the death of the United States.” But even the people of the Tehran regime, their targets were initially Palestinian extremists and Nazi fugitives. In fact, the Nazi hunt drew them to the attention of the entire world, especially by capturing Adolf Eichmann, the Nazi who led and organized the final solution, the extermination of some six million Jews during World War II.

Captured in 1960 in Argentina by a Mossad command, Eichman was sentenced to death and hanged two years later in Israel. The Nazi hunt was followed by the terrorist hunt. “It was only after the murder of the 11 Israeli athletes by Palestinian terrorists at the 1972 Munich Olympics that the Israeli assassination program became serious,” said Tom Leonard. Over two decades the Mossad has killed 11 suspects across Europe in connection with the bloody act. It also failed, such as the 1973 murder of a Moroccan waiter in Lillehamer, Norway, mistaken for the mastermind behind the attack on Muenchen, Ali Hassan Salameh.

Now, one of Israel’s goals is to end Iran’s nuclear program, which it considers a threat to its existence, and to use all means to achieve it, from diplomatic negotiations and political pressure to sabotage operations. Mossad’s “Bayonet” department has been targeting people involved in Iran’s nuclear program for more than a decade.

The Fakhrizadeh case is only the best known. It has happened that some Iranian researchers in the nuclear field have lost their lives due to a poisonous gas extracted from a device hidden in a motorcycle parked near the house or due to light mines attached to their car by motorcyclists who became invisible in the traffic.

According to Iranian journalist Ronen Bergman, author of a book on the Mossad killings, the Israeli agency has operated 2,700 deportation operations in nearly seven decades. A growing number.

With an annual budget of around 2 billion euros and 7,000 employees, Mossad is considered the second largest intelligence agency in the world after the CIA.

Critics accuse her of dangerous arrogance. But it is also defended by some who say that it simply could not act with other methods since Israel’s existence is constantly threatened.