Munich To Exploding Pagers: Why Mossad Is Respected, And Feared

NDTV

17-06-2025

Ask any expert or even a layman, which they think the world's premier and most effective spy agency is and the odds are that Israel's Mossad will be in their top three.
Formed in 1949 as the Institute for Co-Ordination, the Central Institute for Intelligence and Special Operations, or Mossad, is known for its global reach, the commitment of its officers, the precision with which it carries out its operations, and the large amounts of time - often years - it spends planning them. The intrigue, spycraft and tools used in the operations have all the ingredients of a movie and it is, thus, no surprise, that several blockbusters - including 'Munich', 'The Impossible Spy' and 'The Angel' - have been made on them.
The image has been bolstered with Israel's operations this month in Iran in which several top military officials and scientists were killed and nuclear sites were targeted.
The success, however, has not been without some very big failures, notably Operation Sussanah or the Lavon Affair of 1954, under which the agency planned to conduct false-flag bombings in Egypt to destabilise the regime of President Gamal Abdel Nasser and stop the British from withdrawing their troops from the Suez Canal zone. The agency recruited a group of Egyptian jews to carry out bombings and planned to blame it on the Muslim Brotherhood and other elements within the country, but the group got caught when a bomb exploded prematurely. The fallout was so massive that Defence Minister Pinhas Livon had to resign.
Here are some of the agency's key successes:
Syrian Infiltration - The Eli Cohen Story
Between 1961 and 1965, Mossad agent Eli Cohen posed as a Syrian businessman and embedded himself in Damascus' elite circles. Cohen worked for the Israel Defense Forces as a counter-intelligence analyst and he tried to join the Mossad, but was upset when he was rejected.
Cohen began working as a clerk in an insurance company and did so for two years until Mossad began looking for an officer who could infiltrate the Syrian government. The then director general came across his file, and he was recruited.
Posing as a Syrian businessman under the name Kamel Amin Thabet, based in Argentina, Cohen moved to Damascus in 1962 and started building relationships with politicians and military officials. He also threw parties to which the elites were invited, gathering information by pretending to be drunk while conversations flowed around him.
Cohen gathered a large amount of intelligence data, travelled to Israel secretly, managed to scout Syrian installations in the Golan Heights and even became an adviser to the Syrian defence ministry. All the intelligence he gathered helped Israel defeat Arab nations during the Six-Day War in 1967.
Syrian intelligence officials arrested Cohen when he was sending a transmission in January 1965 and he was publicly hanged in May the same year. He remains a national hero in Israel.
Wrath Of God
A terrorist attack during the 1972 Summer Olympics in West Germany's Munich saw two members of the Israeli Olympic team being killed and nine others being held hostage. The nine hostages were also killed by the militants during a failed rescue attempt and the group behind the attack was the Palestinian militant organisation Black September.
To avenge the attack, the Israeli government asked Mossad to begin a covert operation, 'Wrath of God' to take out members of the organisation as well as the Palestine Liberation Organisation or PLO. The idea was to send a message and deter any such incidents directed at Israeli citizens in the future.
The operation, spanning years, saw Palestinian Wael Zwaiter being shot 12 times in Rome in 1972, followed quickly by a PLO representative in France, Mahmour Hamshari, being killed after a bomb was planted at his home in Paris and detonated through a telephone call. Both men, Israel said, were linked to the Munich attack, claims that were denied by Palestine.
In 1973, speedboats landed on the coast of Lebanon and military commandos were driven by Mossad agents to Beirut, where they killed the operations leader of Black September, Muhammad Youssef al-Najjar, and two key PLO members. Two Lebanese officers and an Italian citizen were also killed.
Operations went on for many years and several others, who Israel claimed were linked to the Munich massacre or other terror attacks, were killed.
Mossad was, however, heavily criticised for killing a Moroccan waiter in Lillehammer, Norway, in 1973 after mistaking him for Ali Hassan Salameh, the chief of operations for Black September. Six Mossad team members were captured and convicted by Norwegian authorities.
Entebbe
Under Operation Entebbe or Operation Thunderbolt, Mossad provided intelligence to rescue hostages held by Palestinian and German hijackers, given cover by Ugandan dictator Idi Amin, from Entebbe Airport in Uganda in 1976.
Four terrorists, from the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and the German Revolutionary Cells hijacked Air France Flight 139 - from Tel Aviv to Paris - with 248 passengers and 12 crew members. 105 Jewish and Israeli passengers were separated and held hostage, demanding the release of 53 Palestinian and pro-Palestinian prisoners. The others were freed.
The hijacking occurred on June 27, 1976, and, on the intervening night of July 3 and 4, Israeli teams stormed the terminal and rescued 102 of 105 hostages in a 53-minute operation.
Stuxnet Cyberattack
While never confirmed, the Stuxnet cyberattack, which caused damage to Iran's nuclear programme, is believed to be a joint operation by Israel's Mossad and the United States' National Security Agency (NSA).
To delay Ira's uranium enrichment capabilities, which are critical to develop a nuclear weapon, the Natanz Fuel Enrichment Plant - one of the targets of this month's strikes - was targeted. The Stuxnet 'worm' was developed around 2005 and deployed from 2007 onwards to target controlling programmable logic controllers (PLCs) in Natanz's centrifuges.
The rotor speeds of a specific type of centrifuge were altered but sensor data was manipulated to give the impression that it was functioning normally.
Between 1,000 and 2,000 of Natanz's 9,000 centrifuges were destroyed and the Stuxnet attack is estimated to have turned back the clock on Iran's nuclear programme by about two years.
The worm was finally discovered in 2010.
Pager Bombs
One of Mossad's most audacious operations was revealed when thousands of pagers and walkie-talkies used by the Iran-backed Lebanon-based group Hezbollah exploded in September last year.
Thousands of pagers exploded simultaneously on September 17 and, when Hezbollah was still recovering from the first-of-its-kind attack, walkie-talkies went off the next day.
At least 42 people were killed in the attack and more than 3,500 people were injured, including Iran's ambassador to Lebanon, Mojtaba Amani.
Explosives were fitted with explosives in Taiwan. Gold Apollo, a Taiwanese firm, had placed the order and the pagers were tampered by Israeli agents before they arrived in Lebanon. Gold Apollo founder Hsu Ching-Kuang denied making the tampered pagers and said a Hungarian firm named BAC, which had the right to use his company's brand name, manufactured them.
Mossad also infiltrated the supply chain for the walkie-talkies used by Hezbollah, using a web of shell companies to hide its involvement.
The entire planning reportedly took over a decade.
The use of everyday electronic items as bombs sparked fears, however, and Israel was criticised for the civilian casualties, including the death of two children. Human rights bodies and experts pointed out that there was no way for Israel to know who was around its targets, even if it managed to target only Hezbollah members in the first place.