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Israel
Mossad
Mossad, with a staff of 1,500 to 2,000 personnel, had responsibility
for human intelligence collection, covert action, and counterterrorism.
Its focus was on Arab nations and organizations throughout the
world. Mossad also was responsible for the clandestine movement
of Jewish refugees out of Syria, Iran, and Ethiopia. Mossad agents
were active in the communist countries, in the West, and at the
UN. Mossad had eight departments, the largest of which, the Collections
Department, had responsibility for espionage operations, with
offices abroad under both diplomatic and unofficial cover. The
Political Action and Liaison Department conducted political activities
and relations with friendly foreign intelligence services and
with nations with which Israel did not have normal diplomatic
relations. In larger stations, such as Paris, Mossad customarily
had under embassy cover two regional controllers: one to serve
the Collections Department and the other the Political Action
and Liaison Department. A Special Operations Division, believed
to be subordinate to the latter department, conducted highly sensitive
sabotage, paramilitary, and psychological warfare projects.
Israel's most celebrated spy, Eli Cohen, was recruited by Mossad
during the 1960s to infiltrate the top echelons of the Syrian
government. Cohen radioed information to Israel for two years
before he was discovered and publicly hanged in Damascus Square.
Another Mossad agent, Wolfgang Lotz, established himself in Cairo,
became acquainted with high-ranking Egyptian military and police
officers, and obtained information on missile sites and on German
scientists working on the Egyptian rocket program. In 1962 and
1963, in a successful effort to intimidate the Germans, several
key scientists in that program were targets of assassination attempts.
Mossad also succeeded in seizing eight missile boats under construction
for Israel in France, but which had been embargoed by French president
Charles de Gaulle in December 1968. In 1960, Mossad carried out
one of its most celebrated operations, the kidnapping of Nazi
war criminal Adolph Eichmann from Argentina. Another kidnapping,
in 1986, brought to Israel for prosecution the nuclear technician,
Mordechai Vanunu, who had revealed details of the Israeli nuclear
weapons program to a London newspaper. During the 1970s, Mossad
assassinated several Arabs connected with the Black September
terrorist group. Mossad inflicted a severe blow on the PLO in
April 1988, when an assassination team invaded a well-guarded
residence in Tunis to murder Arafat's deputy, Abu Jihad, considered
to be the principal PLO planner of military and terrorist operations
against Israel.
Data as of December 1988
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