Spies Against Armageddon (36 page)

The man’s name was not familiar to the Mossad, but the fact that he was in touch with Hezbollah was enough to set off a sense of alarm. Knowing that the Lebanese Shi’ite militants were making major efforts to extend their global reach, the Israelis chose to be safe, rather than sorry. Bitter experience, notably the Buenos Aires bombs, had taught them not to ignore clues in unexpected countries.

The identity of the suspect was passed to Mossad officers in charge of foreign liaison, who arranged for the man—native of another Asian nation—to be arrested and interrogated. The questioning, accompanied by strong local police pressure, was highly effective. The man said that he was a Muslim student who recently had been to Qom, the spiritual center in Iran. He spent time there with a Lebanese colleague who turned out to be a recruiter for Hezbollah. He was offered a training program in Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley and agreed.

He also told interrogators that his mission, in the country where he had been caught, had been to purchase forged passports.

Pressed further, the man revealed that he had been in Thailand, just a few days before, with a senior Hezbollah operative on a highly murderous mission. They stole a fuel tanker truck, killed the driver, stuffed his corpse inside the fuel tank, and then took the truck to a workshop in Bangkok that they had leased earlier.

They installed two tons of explosives in the truck—enough to destroy whole city blocks. The plan was to fly in a suicide bomber from Lebanon and destroy Israel’s embassy in Bangkok. But, judging by the lack of any headlines about it in the news, the truck obviously never exploded. The detainee who was questioned did not know why.

It turned out—luckily for the Israelis and thousands of Thai innocents—that the vehicle had gotten stuck in an awful traffic jam in Bangkok on the appointed morning, caused by a car accident that attracted a lot of police. The Lebanese bomber saw the officers, panicked, parked the tanker truck on the side of the road, and ran away.

Thai police towed away the truck—unaware that it had explosives and a dead driver in the huge tank—and left it at a police station. They discovered that the truck had been stolen, and the driver was listed as a missing person, but they believed it was merely a local crime.

After a few days, a senior police officer asked his subordinates why the truck was still there. He insisted that they check the truck more carefully. They opened the fuel tank and found the corpse and the explosives.

After the capture of the terrorist who was compelled to be talkative, it was clear that Israel’s embassy in Bangkok was the intended target. Hezbollah was truly showing that it had worldwide ambitions, and defensive measures would increasingly require better international cooperation. Israel intelligence would have plenty to do.

Sometime later, Israel was informed that Jordan had captured a Hezbollah man—apparently plotting to fire rockets into Israel. Israeli liaison operatives quickly realized that the suspect was the same Hezbollah commander who had run the fuel tanker truck plot in Bangkok.

One of the heads of Jordan’s main security agency promised that the Lebanese suspect would never be released. But within three weeks, he was set free. Israeli officials naturally complained; but the Jordanians said they felt they had no choice, because Hezbollah had threatened to attack Jordan.

The takeaway lesson for the Mossad was that liaison relationships are a fine thing, but ultimately every country acts on its own self-interests. No one, even longtime colleagues for decades, can fully be relied upon. Israelis had to do many things on their own.

The Mossad continued—almost by rote—to play the game according to the rules it understood. Ron Arad was still missing, and the Mossad intended to squeeze someone in Lebanon for information.

True, the kidnapping plan aimed at Musawi had produced a killing field and then twin Buenos Aires massacres. The Israelis would still, however, make an effort to obtain a new bargaining chip: this time, a man they also hoped could provide new information.

A case officer in Aman’s Unit 504 managed to recruit a young Lebanese woman, a university graduate from Beirut who worked as a housekeeper for a prominent family in southern Lebanon. It was Mustafa Dirani’s household.

He was the security chief for Amal and was the last official of that Shi’ite organization to hold Arad. Israeli intelligence believed that Dirani sold Arad for $300,000 to Iran’s Revolutionary Guards.

It was decided to kidnap Dirani and bring him to Israel. The young woman who was spying for Aman provided information about his daily routine and habits—even a sketch of the Dirani home—so that the kidnap squad could make specific plans. Based on the details she provided, the technological unit of Aman built a mock-up of the house; and Sayeret Matkal commandos practiced snatching their target.

In May 1994, the soldiers grabbed him in his house in the middle of the night, and they spirited him away to Israel. Dirani joined Sheik Obeid as the second bargaining chip for the Israelis.

The Lebanese woman, by then, was dead. Israeli intelligence learned later that she had been sleeping with both Dirani and his brother, whether for information-gathering purposes or just because such things happen. When the brothers discovered that they were sharing her affections, instead of being angry at each other, they killed her.

Israeli interrogators found that Dirani was a very tough nut to crack. He claimed that he did not sell Arad—that Lebanese guards had lost Arad during an Israeli air raid on a nearby village. Unit 504’s interrogators were not convinced by Dirani’s version, and Israeli newspapers would eventually publish details of how the questioners tortured him.

In a court affidavit filed by his Israeli lawyer, Dirani would claim that one of the torturers—a 504 officer codenamed “George”—put a stick up his rectum. He also would claim that an Israeli soldier pulled down his own trousers and threatened to rape Dirani. Israel’s Supreme Court refused to believe the allegations, but they proved to be correct.

It turned out that the rough methods of Unit 504’s interrogators had been used for a long time in questioning terrorism suspects and enemy soldiers. Shin Bet’s interrogation experts were aware of what the 504 men were doing and rejected those tactics out of hand. “Those guys think they are a law unto themselves,” said a senior Shin Bet official. “When the public finds out, they will disgrace all of us.”

It might seem strange that a security operative from an enemy state, kidnapped by Israel’s army and held in an Israeli prison, would be permitted to file legal complaints with Israel’s highest court and to demand millions of dollars in compensation. Yet that is the eternal paradox facing Israeli intelligence. It operates as though on a constant war footing, yet it often has to dance to the tune of democratic law and human rights.

Dirani proved to be almost worthless. He and Sheik Obeid were not valuable, light bargaining chips. They both became heavy millstones for Israel. The two Lebanese men were released in 2004, part of a prisoner swap. The deal was mediated by the German intelligence service BND, which proved again to be friendly, useful, and ready to assist Israel.

Frustrated by Hezbollah and not yet fully grasping its wide and dangerous scope, the Mossad stepped up efforts aimed at cracking the militant Shi’ite enemy. In an increasingly dirty war, particularly after the embassy and the Jewish center in Argentina were bombed, no tactics seemed out of bounds.

By the early 1990s, Israeli intelligence identified the mastermind of the two bombings in South America as Imad Mughniyeh. He had become much more than the TWA hijacker who thrust himself in 1985 into the infamy of the FBI’s most-wanted list—with a bounty of $5 million offered on his head at age 22. In his 30s, he was the major figure in the construction of Hezbollah as a military force—and the point man with Iran’s MOIS and al-Quds Force.

Aman and the Mossad—having learned bitter lessons after assassinating Musawi—were not going to repeat the mistake by targeting Nasrallah. The two agencies realized that killing the top figure of this particular organization would not achieve the desired goal of disrupting its operational capabilities.

However, “targeted prevention” was still considered a powerful option if aimed at the right person: the one in charge of planning and executing the terrorist actions against Israel. That person was Mughniyeh—and he understood very well that he would be a prime target.

After the killing of Musawi, Mughniyeh fled to Iran and found shelter with the Revolutionary Guards. He underwent plastic surgery to change his facial appearance, hoping to fool his pursuers, who had only the one famous photograph of him –taken when he was waving his pistol in the TWA cockpit window.

Losing sight of Mughniyeh, the Mossad deliberated how to lure him back to terra cognita, a known land such as Lebanon. The Mossad needed a lead.

The Israelis spotted his brother Fuad, who was also a Hezbollah activist. He owned a car-repair facility in a Shi’ite neighborhood of southern Beirut. The Mossad reportedly tried to recruit Fuad, but then concocted another plan. If he would not cooperate, he would become bait at the end of a fishing line—dead bait.

In December 1994, the Mossad activated a team of Lebanese agents led by a man named Ahmed Halek. A powerful car bomb was planted in front of Fuad’s garage, and the notorious Mughniyeh’s lesser known brother was killed. It was not revenge for his refusing to work for Israel. In his death, he became a tool in a dirty war becoming ever dirtier.

It was hoped that Imad could not resist the Shi’ite fraternal duty of attending Fuad’s funeral. Israeli intelligence hoped that Imad would be there. But the elusive and super-cautious Hezbollah military chief did not show up, at least not in a way they could recognize.

He did, however, launch a vengeance plan. Mughniyeh ordered an investigation to find his brother’s murderers, and a number of Lebanese agents working for the Mossad were arrested by Hezbollah.

Halek and his wife, Hanan, managed to escape to Israeli-controlled southern Lebanon. Their security was provided by Israel’s Christian ally, the South Lebanon Army (SLA). After a while, the couple was persuaded that they would be much more secure if they were resettled abroad.

They agreed, and they moved to a foreign country. But after a few months, they returned to southern Lebanon and complained that they had been unable to adjust to a new nation. Once again they were provided with around-the-clock security guards and were warned to keep a low profile.

Mughniyeh and his security teams kept searching and they spotted the weak link in Ahmed Halek’s chain: his love for women and alcohol. They sent a southern Lebanese agent—Ramzi Nahara, the drug dealer who for many years had been an informer for Israeli intelligence but then was imprisoned.

Nahara was grateful to Hezbollah leaders for his freedom. They believed that he had changed to their side, so they put his name on a list of prisoners to be released in a swap with Israel. So now it was time to pay his debt to Hezbollah.

Nahara and a few helpers invited Halek to a drinking party where he was promised a chance to meet beautiful women. Halek left his security guards behind and went to the party. Nahara put a drug in his drink. Halek fell asleep, was thrown into the trunk of a car, and driven northward to Beirut. There, he was interrogated by Hezbollah and Syrian intelligence. Mughniyeh personally took part in torturing Halek by cutting off a few of his fingers.

Halek admitted that he had spied for Israel for many years. His wife was also arrested.

Halek provided detailed descriptions of his spycraft training in Cyprus and in Israel itself. He was put on trial by Lebanon in 1996, sentenced to death, and executed by a firing squad. His last request was that his wife—who was also convicted and sentenced to 15 years—be allowed to travel to Israel to collect $100,000, which he had been promised by the Mossad. Obviously, the Lebanese refused to let her go.

As for Nahara’s role as a double agent now working for Hezbollah, Israeli intelligence was not about to forgive and forget. It took a few years, but a cleverly disguised roadside bomb in southern Lebanon destroyed Nahara’s Mercedes and killed him.

The tit-for-tat war between Israel and Hezbollah continued at a high intensity until the Israelis decided to leave Lebanon in May 2000. The Shi’ite fighters kept spilling the blood of Israelis and the SLA. The sacrifice, in exchange for little or no gain, had become intolerable.

Similar to the American public when considering Vietnam in the 1970s, the Israeli public was asking, “What are we doing there?”

Ehud Barak—the former Sayeret Matkal commando who now held the posts of prime minister and defense minister—made up his mind. Israeli troops would be withdrawn from Lebanon, and 18 years of occupation would come to an end.

To avoid casualties, the Israelis pulled out in the middle of the night: a hasty departure that left behind some of their Lebanese agents. Many were resettled in Israel, including people on the Mossad payroll and SLA soldiers with their families.

Hezbollah portrayed the evacuation as its historic victory: It had pushed the Zionists out of Lebanon. Some of the Shi’ite factions vowed to keep battling to eject the Jews from Palestine, as well.

There was, at last, a ceasefire agreement. The tranquility promised in 1982 by Prime Minister Menachem Begin returned, at least for a while, to both sides of the Israel-Lebanon border. Yet Hezbollah remained a sworn enemy of Israel. Nasrallah promised that the battle against Israel would resume—sooner or later.

Israel’s intelligence and the military, while licking their wounds, knew that they had scores of scores still to settle. Imad Mughniyeh remained at the top of the Mossad’s most-wanted list.

The Israelis did not have to wait long for an opportunity. In June 2000, top commanders of Hezbollah—dubbed the Fabulous Five by Israeli analysts—visited Shi’ite border installations at the frontier with Israel. Among the five was Mughniyeh.

An IDF observer spotted the visiting group, and on-line cameras transmitted their images back to Aman’s center in the Kirya. An intelligence officer there identified all of them—most importantly, Mughniyeh, despite his new facial features.