In Mossad's sights: the killers who wait decades

The swiftness and precision with which a Hamas leader was killed in Dubai last month bear the hallmarks of an Israeli hit squad.

Agents of Kidon, the department of Mossad that carries out assassinations, can spend decades waiting for the perfect moment to strike a target on their "wanted list". Mahmoud al Mabhouh was probably watched closely for months. His Damascus home would have been scouted out, phones tapped and the comings and goings of neighbours and visitors meticulously recorded. Although there is no certainty that Mossad was responsible for the killing, both Dubai Police and intelligence analysts say it fits their pattern, and the Israeli government hasn't denied involvement.
The Hamas chief would have known that Israeli agents had him in their sights, patiently waiting for an opportunity, one that came on January 19. It is unclear why al Mabhouh chose to travel without his bodyguards that day; there was no space on the plane for his security contingent but he took it anyway. A surveillance team would have tailed him to the airport but his assassins already had a tip-off as to where he was heading - the hit squad, which according to Dubai police was made up of seven operatives, was lying in wait in Dubai when al Mabhouh touched down on Emirates flight EK912 at 2.55pm.
"For such an operation you need very precise intelligence, and whoever did this had it," said Yossi Melman, a journalist with Haaretz newspaper who has written two books on Israeli intelligence agencies. "They knew when he was coming, where he was staying, the room number, everything." That information may have come from a source inside Hamas. Israeli agents try hard to infiltrate enemy groups. Those based in Palestine are easier to compromise - members are more readily turned when threats can be made on their families.
Just how much groundwork was done before the attack would have depended on how far in advance the tip-off came. Dubai Police have said the suspects were only in the country for 24 hours, but they may have made an earlier reconnaissance mission if they had information in advance. Mossad can spend months scouting out the venue for an attack and reportedly in the past they have returned to a military base in the Negev desert, where the surroundings are modified to resemble the building or street where the attack is planned, and the hit is rehearsed again and again.
However, if necessary, they can act swiftly. "They have teams that are practised in these types of operations and are ready to move on very short notice if they get a tip-off," said Bruce Riedel, a senior fellow at the Saban Centre for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution, who served with the Central Intelligence Agency for 29 years. The team of seven thought to have killed al Mabhouh is "about the right size" for a Kidon hit squad, according to Mr Reidel, who also served as the former director for near east affairs on the US National Security Council.
Two or three would be needed for the hit itself. Other agents would have kept watch in the lobby and hotel corridors. One would have been waiting in a car outside so the group could make a quick escape and another may have acted as a "safety net" ready to provide alternative escape plans or documents if something went wrong. Exact details of how al Mabhouh died are murky. He checked into Al Bustan Rotana Hotel that afternoon, reportedly using a false identity, and asked for a room with no balcony and sealed windows. He was given room 130, on the first floor, where he spent about an hour before leaving at about 5pm.
From the hotel he would have been tailed, with the surveillance team informing their colleagues on his return. According to Dubai Police, al Mabhouh let his assassins into his room. The police have said they believe he was electrocuted with a stun gun before being strangled, but have not ruled out poisoning. The assassins had already left the country when al Mabhouh's body was found the next day, a "Do not disturb" sign hanging from his door.
Mossad is known for elaborate assassination techniques that often sound as though they are plucked straight from a spy novel. In a bungled attempt on Khalid Meshaal in 1997, agents sprayed nerve gas into the Hamas leader's ear as he entered his office in Amman. However, they usually work with lightning efficiency. In his book Gideon's Spies: The Secret History of the Mossad, Gordon Thomas claims that the Mossad assassination squad that took out Khalil al Wazir, Yasser Afrafat's deputy, in Tunis in 1988 took just 13 seconds to enter and leave his villa, shooting dead his driver, two bodyguards and the Palestinian leader, who was also known as Abu Jihad.
Thomas describes the level of preparation that went into the attack. "For two months Mossad agents conducted an exhaustive reconnaissance of Abu Jihad's villa. Access roads, points of entry, fence heights and types, windows, doors, locks, defences, the routing employed by Abu Jihad's guards: everything was monitored, checked and checked again," he said. Israel is suspected in the assassinations of numerous members of enemy organisations and nuclear scientists for regimes hostile to Israel.
There is no doubt that al Mabhouh would have been a prime target. He was involved in the kidnap and killing of two Israeli soldiers 20 years ago and is alleged to have been directly involved in providing arms to the Gaza Strip. "They do have a most-wanted list of people they believe are responsible for acts of terror in the past and they try to follow their movements," said Mr Riedel. "They're prepared to follow people for years. They followed Imad Mughniyah, the Hizbollah operative killed in Damascus, for decades until they had opportunity to get him. The fact that this person has been on their wanted list for a long time would only further point the finger at Mossad." Kidon, Hebrew for bayonet, was thought to have about 48 agents in 1998, six of whom were women. They are largely in their 20s, extremely fit and meticulously trained. Due to the highly secret nature of their operations, information on Israeli hit squads often comes from just one source and is difficult to verify.
Nonetheless, some details have trickled out over the years from former operatives, although accounts are often fiercely rebutted by officials and dismissed as fantastical. Victor Ostrovsky, a former Mossad operative, explained Kidon's tactics to Gordon Thomas. "They are taught how to use the weapon appropriate for the target. Strangulation with a cheese-cutter if the victim is to be killed at night. A handgun fitted with a silencer. A nerve agent delivered by an aerosol or injection."
Kidon's most famous mission, Operation Wrath of God, which the unit was created for, was to take out those directly responsible for the massacre of 11 Israeli athletes during the 1972 Munich Olympics. The account of Yuval Aviv, who claims to have headed the death squad, was published in 1984 book Vengeance: The True Story of an Israeli Counter-Terrorist Team by George Jonas, on which the Stephen Spielberg film Munich was based.
Israeli agents did not lack the ability to assassinate al Mabhouh in Damascus, where he lived, as the killing of Mughniyah in the city two years ago shows. But they would have jumped at the chance to take out al Mabhouh while he visited Dubai. "Dubai is much easier environment for an operation like this," Mr Reidel said. "You can come in and leave posing as a European or Canadian tourist and never be detected. In Damascus, you're operating in a police state."
Targets are always at their most vulnerable when they travel, according to Dr Mustafa Alani, the senior adviser in security and terrorism at the Dubai-based Gulf Research Centre. "When they are travelling, they usually only have two or three people protecting them, rather than a whole system," he said. "They have to travel through public places, hotels and airports, and it all leaves them more open to an attack. The fact that he was travelling alone just made it more of an opportunity."
Claims by Mahmoud Zahar, a senior Hamas official in the Gaza Strip, that Israeli agents may have entered the Emirates as part of the delegation of Uzi Landau, the Israeli national infrastructures minister, for the World Future Energy Summit earlier in the month, have been rubbished by analysts. "It's preposterous," said Dr Alani. "You don't bring people in to do this kind of thing with a minister taking part in an international conference."
Israel's past assassinations on foreign soil have sometimes had serious diplomatic repercussions. In the attempt on Meshaal in Amman, the two men who tried to carry out the hit travelled on Canadian passports, which sparked a row in which Canada withdrew its ambassador to Israel. Jordan also reacted with anger. It had captured two of the agents involved and refused to release them until Benjamin Netanyahu handed over an antidote to the nerve agent sprayed into Meshaal's ear.
But with such a minimal level of relations between Israel and the UAE, there is unlikely to be significant diplomatic fallout from the Dubai attack. "The pattern of Israeli behaviour over many years, and particularly under prime minister Netanyahu, is that they are prepared to run the diplomatic risks and take the political damage in return for accomplishing this kind of missions," said Mr Riedel. He said there was no question that the prime minister would be involved in the decision-making process.
Just how many killings Mossad is responsible for is not clear. Some say the agency has assassinated 530 Iraqi scientists alone. However, many say these estimates are inflated. Mr Yossi argues that no more than 50 terrorists or scientists working to create weapons of mass destruction have been killed by the organisation since its inception, although this figure does not include "targeted killings" in the West Bank and Gaza, which are undertaken by the IDF and Shin Bet, the domestic security service. Whatever the numbers, there is no doubt that Kidon is capable of working with deadly efficiency.
"These kind of spy wars are something that the Israelis have excelled at for a long, long time," said Mr Riedel.
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