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WEEKLY NEWSLETTER
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Israel
Index
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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