Israeli Intelligence Agencies Israeli Intelligence Agencies HaFilosofia shel HaModi'in, by Yitzhak ben Yisrael, Ministry of Defence, Israel, 1999 Secret Israeli database reveals full extent of illegal settlement by Uri Blau, Ha'aretz, February 1, 2009. Top 10 – World’s powerful intelligence agencies | Zee News Top 10 – World’s powerful intelligence agencies GRU, Russia One of the most important players in the world intelligence community, the GRU or Glavnoye Razvedyvatel`noye Upravleniye or Main Intelligence Administration is Russia’s largest secret service. Though not as famous as the erstwhile KGB, the GRU is the backbone of Russian defence intelligence service and concentrates on military espionage, especially away from Russian shores. BND, Germany The Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND), Federal Intelligence Service in English, is Germany’s premiere intelligence agency that acts as an early warning system to alert the German government about threats to its interests. The main weapon in its armoury is electronic surveillance of international communications. BND agents are spread across the world, with one estimate putting the number at 4000.

ASIS, Australia The Australian Secret Intelligence Service (ASIS) is Australia’s intelligence watchdog which keeps a close watch on developments across the world, especially in the Asia-Pacific region. Although Australia is relatively isolated from global terror, still ASIS works 24X7 to protect the country’s political and economic interests. Interestingly, the existence of ASIS, founded in 1952, was a secret even from its own government for over twenty years. RAW, India Founded in 1968, the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW), initially, focused its activities in India’s immediate neighbourhood but with the changing profile of New Delhi’s geo-political interests, it has spread its wings to other regions across the world. The agency is headquartered in New Delhi. Its chief directly reports to the Prime Minister and its operations do not come under the purview of Parliament. Often termed as an effective instrument of India’s national power, the RAW is believed to employ more than eight thousand field agents spread across the world. By Ajith Vijay Kumar ISI, Pakistan Established in 1948, Pakistan’s Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) is one of the most notorious secret service agencies in the world.

Officially, the ISI is responsible for providing security intelligence assessment to the government of Pakistan; however, it is known to be involved in fomenting trouble in India. Currently headed by Zaheer ul-Islam, the ISI is known to command immense power in the Pakistani establishment. MI6, United Kingdom The Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), popularly referred to as the Directorate of Military Intelligence Section 6 (MI6), is known as the "the secret front line" of Britain`s national security. A century old organisation, the MI6’s presence was not officially acknowledged till 1994. The agency is tasked with gathering foreign intelligence from across the globe that could impact political and economic interests in the UK. Mossad, Israel One of the most powerful secret service agencies in the world, the Mossad, meaning Institute for Intelligence and Special Operations, is the national intelligence agency of Israel. Mossad, like the CIA, has active agents spread across the world and are involved in intelligence gathering, covert operations and ‘protecting Jews and Jewish interests’. Famous operations: In 1960, Mossad discovered that Nazi leader Adolf Eichmann was in Argentina. He was smuggled into Israel, tried and executed.

Mossad had played a major role in Operation Entebbe, the counter-terrorist hostage-rescue mission carried out by commandos of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) at Entebbe Airport in Uganda in 1976 to rescue kidnapped Israelis. CIA, USA If not the best, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) of the United States of America is indeed the largest secret service with the maximum reach. The CIA is known to play a pivotal role in helping the US maintain its status as the world’s sole super power. More importantly, CIA has been playing a central role in exchange of intelligence between countries to combat global terrorism. MSS, China The Ministry of State Security (MSS) is one of the most powerful and most active Chinese intelligence agencies. Its main objective is to keep track and neutralise “enemies” of the Communist Party of China. Patterned after the former Soviet Union’s KGB political police, the MSS aims “to control the Chinese people to maintain the rule of the Communist Party”. The modus operandi of MSS is unique too - its most successful spies are agents stationed throughout the world posing as ordinary citizens.

DGSE, France The General Directorate for External Security (DGSE) of France was founded in 1982 to gather intelligence from foreign sources to assist in military and strategic decisions. Not as famous as CIA or Mossad, DGSE claims to have prevented more than 15 terrorist attacks in France since 9/11, reports said. The agency has a network of around 5000 agents spread across France and the world. Also, DGSE is said to have a huge force of voluntary correspondents (spies), who are not on the rolls but play a vital role in gathering intelligence. Israel Intelligence Agencies | Jewish Virtual Library Tweet AmanMilitary Intelligence Aman, or Agaf Hamodein in Hebrew, produces comprehensive national intelligence briefings for the prime minister and the cabinet, daily intelligence reports, risk-of-war estimates, target studies on nearby Arab countries, and communications intercepts. It also handles cross-border operations. The organization uses reconnaissance commando teams behind enemy lines, aerial reconnaissance and military attaches stationed in overseas embassies to gather intelligence.

The Shin Bet Sherut Habitachon Haklali (Shabak), better known as the Shin Bet, is Israels internal counterespionage and counterterrorist agency. It’s motto, inscribed on the organization seal, is “Defends and Shall Not Be Seen.” It is responsible for the security and protection of Israels prime minister and other governmental leaders as well as of defense industries, sensitive economic locations and Israeli installations abroad. The Shin Bet, which is sometimes compared to the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), also handles overall security for Israels national airline, El Al. In August 2014 following Operation Protective Edge, the Shin Bet announced that it had foiled a major Hamas plot to carry out massive terror attacks in Israel and overthrow the Palestinian Authority in hopes of starting a third intifada. Shin Bet arrested around 90 Hamas operatives in the search for the three kidnapped teens that sparked Operation Protective Edge, and also seized dozens of weapons and over $170,000 cash that was earmarked for funding terrorist attacks.

During the questioning of these arrested Hamas members the Shin Bet was able to get confessions that Hamas had been planning a large scale attack on Israeli sites including the Temple Mount and the Western Wall. They stated that Hamas planned on staging a wide string of attacks against Israel, overthrowing Abbas's Palestinian Authority government, and then turning to Israel as a third intifada erupted. The leader of this operation was reportedly going to be Hamas operative Riad Nasser. The Mossad One of the worlds best known intelligence agencies, the Mossad (short for Hamossad Lemode’in Ule’tafkidim Meyuchadim) uses agents to collect intelligence, conduct covert operations and counterterrorism. Its primary focus is on the Arab nations and pro-Arab organizations. According to published accounts, the Mossad has eight departments; the largest of these is the Collections Department, which is responsible for espionage operations and has offices abroad under both diplomatic and unofficial cover. A clandestine operations branch, Metzada, executes delicate actions (including assassinations and sabotage) against foreign targets that are considered a significant threat to Israeli national security. The Political Action and Liaison Department conducts political activities and relations with friendly foreign intelligence services and nations with which Israel has no diplomatic relations.

Lechima Psichologit, the department known as LAP, covers the ever-growing sphere of psychological warfare and propaganda. ISIS = ISRAELI SECRET INTELLIGENCE SERVICE | The Millennium Report ISIS = ISRAELI SECRET INTELLIGENCE SERVICE ISIS = ISRAELI SECRET INTELLIGENCE SERVICE ISIS = ISRAELI SECRET INTELLIGENCE SERVICE by John Bovay “…And now a new legendary terrorist leader of the Islamic State has emerged: Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi, who allegedly ordered the kidnapping and murder of the 3 Israeli teenagers (which served as a pretext to bomb Gaza) was trained by Mossad: “[He] took intensive military training for a whole year in the hands of Mossad, besides courses in theology and the art of speech.” (Gulf News, July 15, 2014) The former employee at US National Security Agency (NSA), Edward Snowden, has revealed that the British and American intelligence and the Mossad worked together to create the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS).

Snowden said intelligence services of three countries created a terrorist organisation that is able to attract all extremists of the world to one place, using a strategy called “the hornet’s nest”. NSA documents refer to recent implementation of the hornet’s nest to protect the Zionist entity by creating religious and Islamic slogans. According to documents released by Snowden, “The only solution for the protection of the Jewish state “is to create an enemy near its borders”. (Gulf News, July 15, 2014) Let us be under no illusions, the Islamic State is a CIA-Mossad creation. It is an intelligence asset. The incursion of IS brigades into Iraq in June was part of a carefully planned military-intelligence operation supported covertly by the US, NATO and Israel. In Syria, the ISIL is said to be part of “opposition” fighting government forces. The Israeli military is directly supporting the ISIL out of bases in the occupied Golan Heights…” Who is Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi?

From Al-Zarqawi to Al-Bagdahdi: “The Islamic State” is a CIA-Mossad-MI6 “Intelligence Asset” | Global Research The following link includes a microsofttranslator.com (Bing Translator) link to a source article posted on GOING GLOBAL EAST MEETS WEST : Snowden: ISIS leader, Al-Baghdadi, is the product of three intelligence cooperation; U.S., Britain, and Israel “Alsumaria is an independent Iraqi satellite TV network that transmits on Nilesat, Hotbird, and Noorsat/Eurobird. Established by a group of professional businessmen in 2004, it has 700 employees across Iraq, Lebanon, the United Arab Emirates and Jordan…” Al Sumaria – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia ISIS = Israeli Secret Intelligence Service? ISIS is a Creation of the Israeli Mossad | NODISINFO “…The irony here, is that by launching airstrikes against the Syrian government in response to an attack that was most likely carried out by the Syrian rebels, Israel is actually encouraging future attacks like this. It’s easy for the rebels to launch missiles across into Israel, and Israel’s response is essentially free air support.

So clearly it is in the rebel’s interest to shoot over into the Israeli side as often as possible…” Ironic – Israel Helps ISIS with Airstrikes Against the Syrian Government | SCG News “…Since 2003, Anglo-American power has secretly and openly coordinated direct and indirect support for Islamist terrorist groups linked to al-Qaeda across the Middle East and North Africa. This ill-conceived patchwork geostrategy is a legacy of the persistent influence of neoconservative ideology, motivated by longstanding but often contradictory ambitions to dominate regional oil resources, defend an expansionist Israel, and in pursuit of these, re-draw the map of the Middle East…” How the west created the Islamic State — Nafeez Ahmed August 08, 2014 US allies cultivated Islamic State. Now IS plans to ‘raise flag of Allah in White House’ — RT USA August 13, 2014 The Roots of the Iraq and Syria Wars Go Back More than 60 Years Washington’s Blog “…It is no coincidence that virtually all Arab nations which the West considers allies embrace Islamic fundamentalism, a repressive belief system which is quite congruent with global monopoly capitalism.

Both are based on a return to rule by feudalistic monarchy and a diminished role for government and thus democracy. Most US Arab enemies embrace secular socialism, which aims to stop the exploitation of oil resources by the Four Horsemen and their Rockefeller/Rothschild owners. Great Arab leaders including the Egyptian Nasser, the Algerian Boumedienne, the Libyan Qaddafi, the Syrian Assad and the Iraqi al-Bakr support(ed) a secular socialism (though Qaddafi proclaims himself precisely to be anarcho-syndicalist), which poses a very real threat to the neo-liberal globalization agenda.

Interventions in Libya and Syria follow the same counter-revolutionary template employed by the City of London banksters in Afghanistan.” Afghan History Suppressed: Islamists, Heroin & The CIA | Left Hook by Dean Henderson — ISIS’ WESTERN GROUPIES So far IS’ media-savvy ‘show reels’, YouTube videos of mass shootings of fellow brown-skinned Muslims, beheadings and burying kids alive etc, have failed to sufficiently incite the predominantly white-skinned, largely TV-brainwashed Western public’s outrage in support of a boots-on-the-ground war against ISIS on behalf of the war-profiteering, Rothschild Zionist International Bankers. Perhaps some vids of teenage White girls screaming for their mommies in plain english as they’re being stoned to death for ‘adultery’ etc will do the trick? If this comes to pass (and why ELSE would Western interests who are orchestrating IS / this back door invasion of Syria / an eventual attack upon Iran, leading to WW III with Russia and China, be luring these girls) then any parents involved only have THEMSELVES to blame for not helping their kids to grow a brain by teaching them to verify the veracity of Establishment assertions.

08.06.14 Mossad | Israeli intelligence agency | Britannica.com Israeli intelligence agency Alternative Titles: Central Institute for Intelligence and Security, Mosad, Mossad Merkazi le-Modiin u-letafkidim Meyuhadim Similar Topics National Security Agency (NSA) Mossad, Mossad also spelled Mosad, in full Mossad Merkazi Le-modiin U-letafkidim Meyuhadim, (Hebrew: “Central Institute for Intelligence and Security”), one of the five major intelligence organizations of Israel , being concerned with espionage , intelligence gathering, and covert political operations in foreign countries. Mossad is the most important Israeli intelligence agency, and its head reports directly to Israel’s prime minister. The Mossad maintains numerous Israeli secret agents in Arab and other nations, and its operatives are believed to have carried out undercover operations against enemies of Israel and former Nazi war criminals living abroad. In 1960, for instance, Mossad agents kidnapped the former Nazi Adolf Eichmann from Argentina and brought him to Israel to stand trial for war crimes.

Mossad agents are thought to have tracked down and assassinated the Arab guerrilla leaders responsible for the massacre of Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympic Games. In 1976 Mossad agents rescued the hostages of a skyjacked Israeli airliner that was being held at Entebbe , Uganda. Mossad has also been linked with several assassinations of Palestinian leaders in Europe, the Middle East , and North Africa . Isser Harel , who founded the Mossad in 1951 and served as its director until 1963, is credited with building the Mossad into a professional organization. Learn More in these related articles: 10 Best Intelligence Agencies in the World 10 Best Intelligence Agencies in the World An Intelligence Agency is an effective instrument of a national power. Aggressive intelligence is its primary weapon to destabilize the target. Indeed, no one knows what the intelligence agencies actually do so figuring out who the best intelligence service is can be difficult. The very nature of intelligence often means that the successes will not be public knowledge for years, whereas failures or controversial operations will be taken to the press. It’s a thankless situation.

Still, from what little has emerged, one can have an idea of some of the better intelligence services out there, with the understanding that this is based on incomplete data. Canberra, Australian Capital Territory, Australia Annual budget The Hon. Stephen Smith MP, Minister for Foreign Affairs Nick Warner, Director-General Australian Secret Intelligence Service is the Australian government intelligence agency responsible for collecting foreign intelligence, undertaking counter-intelligence activities and cooperation with other intelligence agencies overseas. For more than twenty years, the existence of the agency was a secret even from its own government. Its primary responsibility is gathering intelligence from mainly Asian and Pacific interests using agents stationed in a wide variety of areas. Its main purpose, as with most agencies, is to protect the country’s political and economic interests while ensuring safety for the people of Australia against national threats. K. C. Verma, Secretary (R) Parent agency Prime Minister’s Office, GoI Research and Analysis Wing is India’s external intelligence agency.

It was formed in September 1968, after the newly independent Republic of India was faced with 2 consecutive wars, the Sino-Indian war of 1962 and the India-Pakistani war of 1965, as it was evident that a credible intelligence gathering setup was lacking. Its primary function is collection of external intelligence, counter-terrorism and covert operations. In addition, it is responsible for obtaining and analyzing information about foreign governments, corporations, and persons, in order to advise Indian foreign policymakers. Until the creation of R&AW, the Intelligence Bureau handled both internal and external intelligence. External Documentation and Counter-Espionage Service Minister responsible Hervé Morin, Minister of Defence Agency executive Erard Corbin de Mangoux, Director Directorate General for External Security is France’s external intelligence agency. Operating under the direction of the French ministry of defence, the agency works alongside the DCRI (the Central Directorate of Interior Intelligence) in providing intelligence and national security, notably by performing paramilitary and counterintelligence operations abroad. The General Directorate for External Security (DGSE) of France has a rather short history compared to other intelligence agencies in the region.

It was officially founded in 1982 from a multitude of prior intelligence agencies in the country. Its primary focus is to gather intelligence from foreign sources to assist in military and strategic decisions for the country. The agency employs more than five thousand people. Preceding agency KGB The Federal Security Service of Russian Federation (FSD) is the main domestic security agency of the Russian Federation and the main successor agency of the Soviet-era Cheka, NKVD and KGB. The FSB is involved in counter-intelligence, internal and border security, counter-terrorism, and surveillance. Its headquarters are on Lubyanka Square, downtown Moscow, the same location as the former headquarters of the KGB. All law enforcement and intelligence agencies in Russia work under the guidance of FSB, if needed. For example, the GRU, spetsnaz and Internal Troops detachments of Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs work together with the FSB in Chechnya. The FSB is responsible for internal security of the Russian state, counterespionage, and the fight against organized crime, terrorism, and drug smuggling. The number of FSB personnel and its budget remain state secrets, although the budget was reported to jump nearly 40% in 2006.

Parent agency Central Intelligence Group The Bundesnachrichtendienst is the foreign intelligence agency of the German government, under the control of the Chancellor’s Office. The BND acts as an early warning system to alert the German government to threats to German interests from abroad. It depends heavily on wiretapping and electronic surveillance of international communications. It collects and evaluates information on a variety of areas such as international terrorism, WMD proliferation and illegal transfer of technology, organized crime, weapons and drug trafficking, money laundering, illegal migration and information warfare. As Germany’s only overseas intelligence service, the BND gathers both military and civil intelligence. People’s Republic of China Headquarters Geng Huichang, Minister of State Security Parent agency State Council Ministry of State Security is the security agency of the People’s Republic of China. It is also probably the Chinese government’s largest and most active foreign intelligence agency, though it is also involved in domestic security matters. Article 4 of the Criminal Procedure Law gives the MSS the same authority to arrest or detain people as regular police for crimes involving state security with identical supervision by the procuratorates and the courts. It is headquartered near the Ministry of Public Security of the People’s Republic of China in Beijing.

According to Liu Fuzhi, Secretary-General of the Commission for Politics and Law under the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and Minister of Public Security, the mission of the MSS is to ensure “the security of the state through effective measures against enemy agents, spies, and counter-revolutionary activities designed to sabotage or overthrow China’s socialist system.” One of the primary missions of the MSS is undoubtedly to gather foreign intelligence from targets in various countries overseas. Many MSS agents are said to have operated in the Greater China region (Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan) and to have integrated themselves into the world’s numerous overseas Chinese communities. At one point, nearly 120 agents who had been operating under non-official cover in the U.S., Canada, Western and Northern Europe, and Japan as businessmen, bankers, scholars, and journalists were recalled to China, a fact that demonstrates the broad geographical scope of MSS agent coverage. Parent agency Office of the Prime Minister The Mossad is responsible for intelligence collection and covert operations including paramilitary activities. It is one of the main entities in the Israeli Intelligence Community, along with Aman (military intelligence) and Shin Bet (internal security), but its director reports directly to the Prime Minister.

The list of its successes is long. Israel’s intelligence agency is most famous for having taken out a number of PLO operatives in retaliation for the attack that killed eleven Israeli athletes at the 1972 Olympic games in Munich. However, this agency has other success to its name, including the acquisition of a MiG-21 prior to the Six-Day war of 1967 and the theft of the plans for the Mirage 5 after the deal with France went sour. Mossad also assisted the United States in supporting Solidarity in Poland during the 1980s. Agency executive Lieutenant General Ahmad Shuja Pasha, PA Director General With the lengthiest track record of success, the best know Intelligence so far on the scale of records is ISI. The Inter-Services Intelligence was created as an independent unit in 1948 in order to strengthen the performance of Pakistan’s Military Intelligence during the Indo-Pakistani War of 1947. Its success in achieving its goal without leading to a full scale invasion of Pakistan by the Soviets is a feat unmatched by any other through out the intelligence world. KGB, The best of its time, failed to counter ISI and protect Soviet interests in Central Asia.

It has had 0 double agents or Defectors through out its history, considering that in light of the whole war campaign it carried out from money earned by selling drugs bought from the very people it was bleeding, The Soviets. It has protected its Nuclear Weapons since formed and it has foiled Indian attempts to attain ultimate supremacy in the South-Asian theatres through internal destabilization of India. It is above All laws in its host country Pakistan ‘A State, with in a State’. Its policies are made ‘outside’ of all other institutions with the exception of The Army. Its personnel have never been caught on camera. Its is believed to have the highest number of agents worldwide, close to 10,000. The most striking thing is that its one of the least funded Intelligence agency out of the top 10. Sir John Sawers KCMG, Director General Parent agency Foreign and Commonwealth Office The British have had a long public perception of an effective intelligence agency (due to the success of the unrealistic, yet entertaining, James Bond movies). This perception matches reality.

MI6, the British equivalent to the CIA, has had two big advantages in staying effective: The British Official Secrets Act and D notices can often prevent leaks (which have been the bane of the CIA’s existence). Some stories have emerged. In the Cold War, MI6 recruited Oleg Penkovsky, who played a key part in the favorable resolution of the Cuban Missile Crisis, and Oleg Gordievski, who operated for a decade before MI6 extracted him via Finland. The British were even aware of Norwood’s activities, but made the decision not to tip their hand. MI6 also is rumored to have sabotaged the Tu-144 supersonic airliner program by altering documents and making sure they fell into the hands of the KGB. ✡✡ Israeli Secret Intelligence Service THE MOSSAD | המוסד ✡✡ - YouTube ✡✡ Israeli Secret Intelligence Service THE MOSSAD | המוסד ✡✡ Want to watch this again later? Sign in to add this video to a playlist. Need to report the video? Sign in to report inappropriate content. Rating is available when the video has been rented. This feature is not available right now. Please try again later.

Published on May 30, 2012 New video I've just made about the Mossad! Israeli Mossad - the strongest and most qualitative secret intelligence service in the world. **Credit to Speedy (media) for all the info on the Mossad ops. Category Israel's Quest for Satellite Intelligence — Central Intelligence Agency E. L. Zorn In the spring of 1995, the successful orbiting of Ofeq-3 (the name is the Hebrew word for "horizon") represented the initial satisfaction of a longstanding Israeli desire: an independent space reconnaissance capability. For more than 20 years before they began receiving imagery from the satellite, Israeli defense officials had recognized that spacecraft offered unique capabilities to intensify information gathering in adjacent countries while extending their intelligence reach to more distant lands. After the nation was almost overwhelmed in 1973, Israeli intelligence officers further focused their efforts on preventing future surprise attacks. Satellite photography was seen as a vital tool, able to provide unprecedented warning about the movement of enemy troops and equipment in preparation for war, as well as the movement of enemy forces once hostilities were underway. The value of satellite imagery was not unknown to the Israelis before the Yom Kippur war.

Faced with invading armies on two fronts in October 1973, Israeli military attachés in Washington urgently requested satellite information from the United States about the disposition of the Egyptian and Syrian forces. According to former Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) Chief of Staff Gen. Mordecai Gur, who had been one of those attachés, US authorities responded that the information was unavailable due to "damage" to the satellite. 1 An unnamed CIA analyst subsequently recalled that the United States had acquired "wonderful coverage, but…didn't get the pictures until the war was over." 2 Even those photos showed the positions of invading forces only during the earliest part of the war. 3 The findings of the House Select Committee on Intelligence (the "Pike Committee") in its recommendations to the Final Report in 1976 also indicate that the United States was unable to obtain adequate imagery and other information about the conflict while it was underway. As part of its criticism of US intelligence activities, the committee concluded that the United States had gone "to the brink of war" with the Soviet Union during the 1973 war because it lacked timely intelligence.

4 Israeli Dissatisfaction If the United States was unable to obtain the satellite photography necessary to satisfy its own intelligence needs during the conflict, then it logically follows that it was likewise unable to provide any information derived from satellite intelligence to Israel. Faced with the possibility of imminent military defeat at the hands of enemies whose avowed purpose in past conflicts had been the total annihilation of the so-called Zionist entity, however, the Israelis were distrustful of US statements that it was unable to respond with desperately needed intelligence assistance. As Gur noted in 1992, "How could I know if [the satellite] was really damaged? The bottom line was that we didn't get the information." 5 The general had expressed himself far less ambiguously as Israeli technicians were completing the final preparations for the launch of Ofeq-1, an experimental satellite, in September 1988: "The United States did not give us enough information [during the October 1973 war].

6 When I say not enough, I mean less [than] what we got before the war." 7 Exactly how long "before the war" Gur meant is unclear, because he is also said to have asserted that the United States had actually withheld satellite data from Israel immediately before the war. 8 Presumably, the information which Gur believes had been held back by the United States would have revealed the true scope of Egyptian and Syrian preparations for war, thus providing adequate warning for the Israelis to prepare properly for the Arab attack. Instead, the Israelis found themselves in such a desperate situation that they deployed long-range missiles capable of delivering nuclear warheads on Cairo and Damascus after then-Minister of Defense Moshe Dayan warned that the nation might be on the verge of destruction at the hands of the Egyptians and Syrians. 9 In their examination in 1991 of US and Soviet high-altitude aerial and space reconnaissance during the October 1973 war, Michael Russell Rip and Joseph F. Fontanella dismissed Gur's statements as "specious" and "probably made to help justify the Israeli space venture." 10 In fact, Gur's sentiments merit far more serious consideration.

Just as the war itself marked a defining moment for Israelis, so too did Gur's experiences in trying to obtain satellite intelligence from the United States clearly leave a deep and lasting impression on him. From Gur's perspective, the United States had kept critical satellite warning data from the Israelis before the two-front attack. Shortly thereafter, when Israel was threatened with imminent annihilation by the invading Arab armies, the United States had demonstrated to the Israelis that it could not be relied on to provide information vital to Israel's survival. Given Gur's assignment at that time and his later positions of influence, there seems little question that he would have been able to share his views with other Israeli security officials and decisionmakers. Going It Alone For the Israelis, the lesson was immediate and unmistakable: they would have to acquire an independent space reconnaissance capability. Details about the earliest Israeli investigations into an indigenous satellite program are extremely limited, but the little information available unambiguously indicates that it was at this time that Israeli scientists and engineers first seriously explored the possibility of launching a satellite.

In little-noticed remarks following the launch of Ofeq-1 in 1988, Israel Space Agency (ISA) chairman Yuval Ne'eman disclosed that Israel had been working on the satellite since the early 1970s. 11 Even more telling, as part of a legal action against a former employee, Israel Aircraft Industries (IAI) revealed in March 1995 that it had in 1973 examined its capability to launch an Ofeq-style satellite using a Shavit-type (the name is the Hebrew word for "comet") launcher, and that it had determined that such a project was feasible. 12 The documentary evidence thus indicates that the Israeli desire for a photoreconnaissance satellite did indeed originate with the October 1973 war. Further, the information supports the view that the Israeli need was not a consequence of having received timely satellite photography from the United States, but rather the result of the failure of the United States to provide satellite intelligence to Israel just when it was required most. Unfortunately for the Israelis, however, desire and theoretical capability were not in and of themselves sufficient basis for a space program.

The large scale and expense of the project kept a reconnaissance spacecraft beyond their reach as they continued to rely on the United States for their satellite intelligence needs. The Postwar Years Israel efforts to gain access to United States satellite imagery after the October 1973 Yom Kippur War proved more successful than they had during the conflict, although perhaps only marginally so in the Israeli view. As part of an ongoing intelligence exchange with Israel, the United States supplied Israel with intelligence information based on satellite collection following the war, and has continued to do so in one form or another ever since. 13 Israel began seeking greater access to US satellite intelligence to augment its early warning capabilities immediately after the 1973 war. Ne'eman, then Israel's chief defense scientist, included a request for intelligence satellite "services" in Israeli demands to be presented to the United States following the negotiation of the interim agreement at the conclusion of the 1973 war. 14 According to late Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, then-Minister of Defense Shimon Peres formally presented the United States with the Israeli request for a $1 billion satellite system in December 1975.

Some months later, while testifying before members of Congress who were concerned that such a measure would hurt prospects for peace in the Middle East, Rabin indicated that Israel really did not require the satellite, after all. 15 United States policy with regard to providing satellite intelligence to Israel was uneven throughout the remainder of the 1970s, and seemed to the Israelis to vary with each Director of Central Intelligence (DCI). George Bush was said to have approved providing actual satellite photographs to Israel while he was the DCI in 1976 and 1977. 16 When Stansfield Turner replaced Bush in 1977, he allowed the Israelis to receive only information based on satellite imagery, but not the images themselves. 17 The Israelis would grow increasingly concerned over these and other inconsistencies in United States policy. William Casey's arrival as the DCI in 1981 proved a positive experience for the Israelis, at least initially. Casey permitted them to requisition actual satellite photography once again. The imagery to be provided, however, was to be limited to that depicting potential direct threats to Israel's security.

18 Having regained entrée to the imagery, Israel then asked the United States in early April 1981 for direct access to a US reconnaissance satellite. Israeli officials justified the request as "compensation" for the planned sale by the United States of airborne warning and control system (AWACS) surveillance aircraft to Saudi Arabia. Israel also voiced its increased need for real-time intelligence data and improved surveillance and warning capabilities due to its scheduled withdrawal from the Sinai peninsula in April 1982. 19 The precise details of the Israeli requirement are not clear. A contemporary account, citing unnamed US and Israeli sources, notes that the Israelis had indicated that they would be satisfied with either a new satellite and ground station to be provided by the United States for Israel's exclusive use or with "full and equal access" to an existing US satellite. 20 A later report asserts that Israel had "demanded" exclusive access to a United States satellite already in orbit as the alternative to receiving its own new satellite. 21 In either case, United States officials considered the Israeli request seriously. The Israelis, however, soon damaged their own cause. Setting Limits In early June 1981, Israeli Air Force aircraft successfully bombed an Iraqi nuclear facility near Baghdad.

Curious about how the Israelis had obtained the necessary targeting information to carry out the dramatic long-range strike, Deputy Director of Central Intelligence (DDCI) Bobby Inman asked for a review of imagery and other materials that had been provided to Israeli intelligence officials. As previously noted, policies in effect at the time called for limiting Israeli access to satellite imagery to those photos showing potential direct threats to Israel. Inman quickly found that the Israeli and United States concepts of what constituted such threats differed substantially. During their nearly six months of renewed access to US satellite imagery, the Israelis had obtained "a lot" of information not only about Iraq, but also about Libya, Pakistan, and other countries lying at considerable distances from Israel. 22 The DDCI immediately restricted future distribution of satellite photography. The Israelis were to be allowed to receive imagery only of areas within 250 miles of Israel's borders. They could, however, make specific requests for any other coverage desired, to be approved or denied by the DCI on a case-by-case basis.

23 Israel's then-Minister of Defense Ariel Sharon, according to Inman, was "furious," and immediately protested the decision directly to Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger, 24 who backed the DDCI. DCI Casey, who had been traveling abroad, disagreed with his deputy's decision, but did not reverse it on his return. Instead, he effectively ignored it. Retired Israeli Maj. Gen. Yehoshua Saguy, who served as the head of Israeli military intelligence from 1979 to 1983, confirmed that "Casey [said] ‘yes' all the time" to Israeli requests for satellite photography of areas lying farther than 250 miles from Israel's borders. 25 An unnamed Israeli official has been quoted as saying that the level of support in furnishing satellite intelligence provided by DCI Casey was considered extremely valuable by the Israelis, and that they referred to it among themselves as "Casey's gift." 26 The Israeli attack on the Iraqi nuclear facility became a significant factor in the continuing debate among United States officials over whether to grant Israel's earlier request for a reconnaissance satellite. Advocates on both sides of the argument cited the raid to justify their positions.

Proponents argued that satisfying the desire would reduce the likelihood of future preemptive strikes by helping to soothe Israel's insecurities about its ability to detect Arab preparations for a surprise attack. Opponents noted that Israeli officials might use unhampered access to satellite intelligence to plan and execute even more attacks throughout the region. They also raised the matters of expense and the transfer of sensitive technologies. Finally, they pointed out that Arab concerns about the advantages that a satellite afforded Israel might prompt the Soviet Union to provide similar capabilities for Syria, Libya, or other nations in the region. 27 Israel and the United States were expected to discuss the Israeli request and other facets of satellite intelligence during talks in September 1981 aimed at strengthening strategic ties between the two countries. 28 The sessions reportedly included discussions about sharing intelligence as part of a broader joint effort to counter Soviet expansion and influence in the Middle East. 29 According to US defense officials, however, there was no specific mention of satellites during the conference. 30 As a result, the Israelis did not receive their own reconnaissance satellite system from the United States, nor were they given direct access to a US spacecraft already in orbit.

In November, Weinberger and Sharon signed a memorandum of understanding for "strategic cooperation" between the two countries. The agreement proved extremely short-lived. President Ronald Reagan ordered it suspended in December 1981 after the Israelis formally annexed the Golan Heights. Israel's invasion of Lebanon in mid-1982 even further provoked the ire of US officials. It would be November 1983 before the United States, trying to make headway with its Middle East peace initiatives, offered to renew "strategic cooperation" with Israel. 31 Continuing Complaints Israeli officials grew increasingly impatient with the manner in which the United States responded to their needs for satellite intelligence. When the Israelis took actions that they considered to be in the best interests of maintaining their own security and protecting the Israeli people, the United States replied by further restricting access to the information or by abrogating existing agreements. The Israelis apparently perceived themselves as victims of the vagaries of United States policy. They could not depend on the United States to provide satellite intelligence. Indeed, some Israeli officials, most notably Sharon, concluded that the United States was not a reliable ally, period.

32 Even in the best of times, the Israelis had found fault with the arrangements for their access to US satellite intelligence. They complained that their requests for information based on satellite photography were often delayed or denied outright, or that the information that they did receive was frequently incomplete or dated. 33 They objected that when actual satellite photos were provided to them, the image quality was intentionally degraded, sometimes rendering them useless for the purposes desired 34 . Finally, they protested that US intelligence authorities frequently refused their requests for specific collection against targets of special interest to the Israelis. 35 Immediately after the September 1988 launch of Ofeq-1, retired General Saguy, head of military intelligence from 1979 to 1983, compared Israel's limited access to United States satellite information to the relationship between "a patron and his dependent." 36 On the same occasion, another former head of military intelligence--who had also served as the head of Mossad, the Israeli secret service--described the situation in even less flattering terms: Meir Amit told Israeli radio that, "If you are fed from the crumbs of others according to their whim, this is very inconvenient and very difficult.

If you have your own independent capability, you climb one level higher." 37 Clearly, Israeli authorities would have preferred to have bypassed these difficulties altogether with an independent space intelligence capability. Twice, in 1975 and again in 1981, they had tried to obtain from the United States either a complete photoreconnaissance satellite system of their own or unfettered access to an existing system. In both instances, their requests were refused. An Independent Capability Intelligence officials continued to press for an indigenous Israeli photoreconnaissance satellite. Then-Chief of the Israeli Military Intelligence Branch Shlomo Gazit in 1979 included a "spy satellite" on a list of military intelligence needs for the following decade. Gazit later noted that his request had been met by "a mixture of astonishment and scorn" by other Israeli officials. 38 There could have been no other reaction. The Israelis had made little substantive progress toward developing a satellite, a launcher, or any of the infrastructure necessary to support a space program in the years following IAI's 1973 study.

Alon Ganei, a senior Israeli researcher in rocket propulsion, indicated in 1998 that even "in the [early] 1980s there was still considerable debate over whether to enter the aerospace field at all." 39 Those favoring an Israeli space capability finally triumphed in November 1982, when Ne'eman, then Israeli Minister of Science and Technology, announced that Israel was establishing a space agency to build and launch satellites, including reconnaissance satellites. 40 Later statements by ISA officials, including ISA Chairman Ne'eman, emphasized the commercial and scientific nature of the Israeli space program, denying outright that Israel intended to field a "spy" satellite. 41 There was little question, however, that Israeli officials had reached their own conclusions about how best to satisfy Israel's satellite intelligence needs.

A recent ISA description of the Ofeq satellite program indicates that the project began in 1982, with "parallel efforts [in] research and development, construction of the necessary infrastructure, training [of] hundreds of engineers and technicians, and then designing, building, testing, and finally launching the satellites." 42 It goes on to describe briefly the characteristics of each of the satellites successfully orbited so far, and accompanying materials provide an informative overview of the Israeli space program and the sophisticated products and technologies supporting it. From a distance, Israel's expectations for United States satellite intelligence support may seem excessive, even preposterous. For the Israelis, however, the enhanced warning capabilities provided by satellites meant survival. Where the preservation of the state and the people were concerned, there could be no compromise. Unfortunately, the United States could not be trusted to furnish all of the satellite intelligence that Israel needed to meet its security requirements. In November 1982, Israeli officials committed to the development of a space program and a reconnaissance satellite. The Israeli decision came nine years after Egyptian and Syrian forces attacked on separate fronts while Israeli citizens observed their most holy day. Not quite another six years later, Israel launched its first satellite.

That the launch of Ofeq-1 occurred just two days before Yom Kippur was almost certainly no coincidence. This article is unclassified in its entirety. Notes (1) Interview in Ha'aretz (Tel Aviv), 3 September 1992, quoted in Dan Raviv and Yossi Melman, Friends in Deed: The U.S.-Israel Alliance (New York: Hyperion, 1994), p. 161. (2) Quoted in Representative George E. Brown, Jr. (D-CA),"‘The Spies in Space'--(By Jeffrey T. Richelson) (Extension of Remarks--November 26, 1991)," Congressional Record (26 November 1991): E4120. URL: < richelson.htm>, accessed 14 February 1999. (3) Jeffrey T. Richelson, America's Secret Eyes in Space: The U.S. Keyhole Spy Satellite Program (New York: Harper & Row, 1990), p. 117. (4) Brown, Jr. (D-CA), "‘The Spies in Space'--(By Jeffrey T.

Richelson) (Extension of Remarks--November 26, 1991)." (5) Interview in Ha'aretz (Tel Aviv), 3 September 1992, quoted in Dan Raviv and Yossi Melman, Friends in Deed: the U.S.-Israel Alliance (New York: Hyperion, 1994), p. 161. (6) John Kifner, "Israel Launches Space Program and a Satellite," The New York Times, 20 September 1988, p. A1. (24) Ibid. (25) Woodward, "CIA Sought 3rd-Country Contra Aid." (26) Bob Woodward, "Probes of Iran Deals Extend to Roles of CIA, Director," The Washington Post, 28 November 1986, p. A33. (27) Bill Roeder, "A U.S. Spy Satellite for Israel?" Newsweek, 7 September 1981, p. 17.

(28) Bernard Gwertzman, "U.S.-Israeli Talks on Military Links Are Reported Set," The New York Times, 6 September 1981, p. 1. (29) John Brecher, with Milan J. Kubic and John Walcott, "Begin Wins Round One," Newsweek, 21 September 1981, p. 61. (30) John M. Goshko, "Reagan, Begin Hold ‘Warm' Meeting; No Decisions Reached on Closer Ties," The Washington Post, 10 September 1981, p. A13. (31) Bernard Gwertzman, "Reagan Turns to Israel," The New York Times Magazine, 27 November 1983, p. 84. (32) Seymour M. Hersh, The Samson Option: Israel's Nuclear Arsenal and American Foreign Policy (New York: Random House, 1991), p. 16. (33) "Israeli Spy Satellite Suspected," p. 46. (34) Gerald M. Steinberg, "Middle East Space Race Gathers Pace," p. 20.

(35) "Military Eye-in-the-Sky Over Syria, Iraq, Iran, and Libya," Mideast Mirror, 6 April 1995 (NEXIS, 7 April 1995). (36) Yehoshua Saguy in Hadashot (Tel Aviv), n.d., quoted in Masha Hamilton, "Israel Launches Test Satellite," Associate Press, International Section, 19 September 1988 (LEXIS-NEXIS, n.d.). (37) Glenn Frankel, "Israel Puts Its First Satellite Into Orbit," The Washington Post, 20 September 1988, p. A16. (38) Shlomo Gazit, "Gaps in Satellite Intelligence Collection," 95P50108B in Tel Aviv Yedi'ot Aharonot (10 April 1995), p. 5. FBIS Reston VA, 260345Z April 1995.

(39) Amnon Barzilai, "Outer Space--Clean Up Your Act," Ha'aretz (Tel Aviv), 28 July 1998, B3. URL: < accessed 11 August 1998. (40) (No title), UPI, International Section, 26 November 1982. (41) "Israel: A Communications Satellite" (text), ME/W1230/B1 Israel Home Service, 1500 GMT (22 March 1983). BBC Summary of World Broadcasts: The Middle East, Africa, and Latin America, 5 April 1983 (LEXIS-NEXIS, n.d.); and Dan Fisher, "Israeli Space Program Sets Lofty Goals; Security, Industrial Development Are Prime Concerns," The Los Angeles Times, 10 June 1985, Home Ed., Section 4, 1 (LEXIS-NEXIS, n.d.). (42) Israel Space Agency, "The Ofeq Satellites Program," 16 March 1999.

URL: < il/isa/OFEK.html>, accessed 18 March 1999. Mossad - The World's Most Efficient Killing Machine By Gordon Thomas 12-9-2 Standing on a canteen table in down-town Tel Aviv, Israel's spymaster studied the men and women of Mossad. In the few weeks since taking over Mossad, Meir Dagan knew he already commanded something his recent predecessors never managed. Respect. Barely raising his voice he spoke. "When I was fighting in Lebanon, I witnessed the aftermath of a family feud. The patriarch's head had been split open, his brain on the floor. Around him lay his wife and some of his children. All dead. Before I could do anything, one of the murderers scooped up a handful of brain and swallowed it. This is how you will all now operate. Otherwise someone will eat your brain." His every word held them in thrall - even if they sent a shudder through some of his listeners, hardened as they were. In the canteen were those who had killed many times already. Killing enemies who could not be brought to trial because they were hidden deep inside Israel's Arab neighbours.

Only Mossad could find and kill them. Rafi Eitan, the legendary former Operations Chief of Mossad told me when we sat together in his living room in a north Tel Aviv suburb: "I always tried to kill when I could see the whites of a person's eyes. So I could see the fear. Smell it on his breath. Sometimes I used my hands. A knife, or a silenced gun. I never felt a moment's regret over a killing." Meir Amit, when he had been director of Mossad, later insisted "we are like the official hangman or the doctor on Death Row who administers the lethal injection. Our actions are all endorsed by the State of Israel. When Mossad kills it is not breaking the law. It is fulfilling a sentence sanctioned by the prime minister of the day". We spoke as he walked me through Mossad's own unique memorial in Tel Aviv to the dead - a concrete maze shaped in the form of a brain. Each name engraved on the concrete was of an agent who had been killed while trying to destroy Israel's enemies. Some of those agents had one thing in common. Amit had sent them to their deaths. "We did all we could to protect them.

We trained them better than any other secret service. Sometimes, out on a mission, the dice is against you. But there will always be brave men ready to roll the dice," he said. Dagan, his listeners in the canteen knew, was cast in the same mould. He would protect them with every means he knew - legal or illegal. He would allow them to use proscribed nerve toxins. Dum-dum bullets. Ways of killing that not even the Mafia, the former KGB or China's secret service use. But he would not hesitate to expose them to death - if it was for the greater good of Israel. That was the deal those in the canteen had accepted when they were recruited. They, too, were ready to roll the dice. Dagan, only the tenth man to head Mossad and bear the title of memune - "first among equals in Hebrew" - reminded his listeners sat on their plastic-form chairs what Meir Amit had once said. Then Dagan added: "I am here to tell you those days are back. The dice is ready to roll." Dagan jumped down from the table and walked out of the canteen in total silence. Only then did the applause start.

Shortly afterwards came the Mombasa massacre of eleven days ago. An explosive-laden land-cruiser drove into the reception area of the island's Israeli-owned Paradise Hotel. Fifteen people died and 80 were seriously injured. Two shoulder-fired missiles nearly downed an Israeli passenger plane bringing tourists back to Tel Aviv from Kenya. Two hundred and seventy-five barely missed a Lockerbie-style death. Meir Dagan immediately suspected it was the work of Osama bin-Laden's al-Quaeda and that the missiles had come from Iraq's arsenal. But to suspect and prove would be the greatest challenge Mossad had faced since the War on Terrorism was launched by President Bush. "Mossad would not be operating in its own backyard against suicide bombers. It would be working 1,500 miles away in a hostile environment. There would only be lip-service support from the authorities on the ground. Other intelligence services would be trawling through the evidence looking for clues that would fit their agendas. The CIA for a fix on bin-Laden. MI6 for a lead back to a threat to Britain. The same for the Germans," a senior intelligence man in Tel Aviv told me. But for Meir Dagan it was time to roll the dice.

Every person with proven field experience was on a plane to Kenya within an hour of the massacre. They would sift and search the wreckage, using sophisticated equipment to do so. Detectors that could detect a sliver of metal deep inside a corpse - metal that would show where the explosives came from. And much else. The team who would "roll the dice" travelled separately - as they always did. They had their own aircraft, their own pilots. They were the men and women of kidon, Mossad's ultra-secret assassination unit. Their sole job in Mombasa was to find and kill the perpetrators of the massacre: those behind the three bombers who had gone to their deaths laughing. The kidon would kill the planners of the massacre after they had traced them to their lair - wherever it was. It might take months - as it had with avenging the murder of the Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics. But the kidon would find the men behind the Mombasa outrage and kill them. They would use a small laboratory of poisons, sealed in vials until the moment came to strike. They had long and short-blade knives. Piano wire to strangle.

Explosives no bigger than a throat lozenge capable fo blowing off a person's head. An arsenal of guns: short-barrel pistols, sniper rifles with a mile killing range. The team chosen to go to Mombasa had local language skills. They could pass for Arabs or for Indian traders. Between them, they spoke Swahili and other dialects. They dressed the part; they looked the part. They also understood the closed language of their world. They had learned how to memorise fibres - precise physical descriptions of people. Neviof , how to break into an office, a bedroom, or any other given target and plant listening bugs - or a bomb. Masluh, the skill of shaking off a tail. The women had learned how to use their sex. To be ever ready to sleep with someone to obtain vital information. The link between intelligence work and sexual entrapment is as old as spying itself. Meir Amit had said when he was Mossad's chief: "Sex is a woman's weapon. Pillow talk is not a problem for her. But it takes a special kind of courage. It is not just sleeping with an enemy.

It is to obtain information." The kidon team had passed the two years course at the Mossad training school at Henzelia, near Tel Aviv. They had been sent to a special camp in the Negev desert. There they had learned to kill. "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," explained Victor Ostrovsky, a former member of kidon. Ostrovsky, who today lives in Arizona, will not say who he has killed. But he quit Mossad - saying he could not "stomach the way they did things". My sources in Mossad say he is "long past his sell-by date. We do things differently now". And, by all accounts, more ruthlessly. The man known to Mossad as "The Engineer" was a top Hamas bomb-maker. He lived on the West Bank, protected by gunmen. One day he received a visitor - a distant cousin from Gaza. The young man spoke like so many from that hotbed of Islamic fanaticism.

Over mint tea, the two men spoke far into the evening. Finally, The Engineer invited his guest to stay over. The offer was accepted. The youth asked if he could use The Engineer's mobile phone to call his own family to say they should not worry. He asked if he could make the call from outside the house to improve reception. The Engineer nodded. The call over, the two men fell asleep on the floor. Next day, the youth left to return to Gaza. That morning, The Engineer received a call on the mobile. As he put the phone to his mouth and started to speak, his head was blown off. The youth had been recruited by Mossad to plant a powerful explosive inside the phone. The detonation signal had come from a kidon half a mile away. No one had seen him arrive. No one saw him go. Over the past years, Mossad have killed scores of Israel's enemies by such methods. "We try to never use the same method twice. Our technicians spend all their time devising new ways to kill," a Mossad source told me last week.

Their roll-call of Mission Successful includes; Fathi Shkaki, the leader of Islamic Jihad, and Gerald Bull, the rogue Canadian investor of Saddam's supergun. The usual composition of a hit team is four. One is the "target locator". His task is to keep tabs on the victim's movements. Another is the "transporter", to get the team safely away from the killing area. The remaining two men perform the execution. In the case of Gerald Bull they knocked on his front door late in the evening. The ballistic expert had just moved in. He had been assured he was safe by his Iraqi minders. But they had been lured away by some of the kidon back-up team. These are known as sayanim - the Hebrew word for helpers. Throughout the world there are tens of thousands. Each has been carefully recruited to provide the kind of help that the kidon unit required to kill Bull. The assassination was simple. Both kidon wore FedEx courier uniforms. One carried a package. The other knocked on the door. When Bull opened it, the package was thrust at him. As he stepped back he was shot - once in the forehead and once in the throat. He flew backwards into the hall.

The package was retrieved, the door closed behind the dead Bull. Both men calmly walked away to where the "transporter" was waiting. In hours, the team was back in Tel Aviv. Preparation for an assassination can take weeks, even months. The hit team, once selected, is moved to a Mossad safe house, one of many in Israel. Eli Cohen, a former Mossad agent, told me that "a safe house looks like it was furnished from a car boot sale". It was in one such safe house that the plan to assassinate Saddam Hussein was prepared. It was elaborate even by Mossad standards. It revolved around killing Saddam during a visit to one of his mistresses. Mossad agents in Baghdad had discovered that the woman, the widow of a serving Iraqi officer who had died mysteriously, would be driven from the palace to keep a tryst with Saddam in a desert villa outside the city. Heavily guarded, the villa would be a hard target to hit. But Mossad believed there was a window of opportunity between the time Saddam would land in his helicopter near the villa and enter its well-protected compound. The plan to kill Saddam has long been on Mossad's agenda.

But previous attempts had failed due to Saddam's obsession with changing his movements at the last moment. Mossad believed he would not do so this time. "The woman is irresistible," said a report from one of its Baghdad undercover agents. Mossad had scouted an air corridor through which it believed a kidon could be flown in below Iraqi radar. A final rehearsal was held in the Negev desert. Israeli commandos doubled as Saddam and his bodyguards - a party of five. As they landed close to a replica of the villa, the kidon were in position. They were equipped with specially adapted shoulder-firing missiles. But their weapons were to only fire blanks for the rehearsal. In a tragic mistake, one of the missiles had been replaced with a live one. It killed the make-believe Saddam and his bodyguards. The operation was cancelled. But last week Meir Dagan was said to be considering adapting it to once more try and kill Saddam. After eleven days investigation, his teams in Mombasa confirmed the massacre had all the hallmarks of being an Iraqi-sponsored act carried out by al-Quaeda. How and when Mossad will strike against Saddam is, understandably, a closely guarded secret.

But an intelligence sources suggested to me that a successful assassination of Saddam could see the looming threat of war recede. "With Saddam out of the way there is no reason to invade Iraq. The people themselves will rise," said the source. Dagan, the Mossad chief who could possible achieve that was born on a train between Russia and Poland. He speaks several languages. He is an action man, working 18 hour days. His private life is simple: he eschews the trappings of power that goes with the job of running MI6 or the CIA. His salary is a fraction of what their directors get. Three months into the job, he is adored by his staff. In the past years, Mossad has experienced many publicised failures, a loss of morale and, worst of all, growing public criticism among its own people. All that Meir Dagan is determined to change. In his open neck shirt and chain store pants and sneakers, Dagan is no James Bond. The only spy fiction he is known to read is John Le Carre - because, he has told friends, he can at least empathise with its hero, Smiley. Meir Dagan is also an avid reader of history of other intelligence services.

It is said he knows more about the CIA and MI6 than many of its current employees. He constantly reminds his staff that action cannot wait for certainty. That motive and deception are at the centre of their endeavours. That they must create situations which seek to draw fact out of darkness. For him the art of informed conjecture is an essential weapon. Since Mombasa, Dagan has virtually worked and slept in his office. Its windows look eastwards to the Judean Hills. Beyond are the tribal badlands of Pakistan - where Dagan is convinced Osama bin-Laden is hiding - and the desert of Iraq through which Dagan believes Saddam will try and escape if war starts. The Mossad chief will be waiting. Meantime, he is preoccupied with the latest news from Mombasa - and all those points east where his kidon team are tracking the planners of the outrage. Some have gone to the Philippines. Others to Pakistan and Afghanistan. Mossad's scientists and pathologists, as well as field agents, katsas, have combed and bagged the clues from the Paradise hotel disaster area.

Every day an El Al plane has flown northwards to Israel with the evidence despite behind-the-scene protests by the Kenyan intelligence service. Mossad agents in Nigeria have provided important details on al-Quaeda in that country. Katsas in South Africa have joined colleagues in Mombasa. From Rome, Malta and Cyprus, other Mossad agents sped down through Africa into the country's fierce heat. Dagan's men are polite to the counter-intelligence officers from the CIA, MI6 and European services. "But these are Israelis who are dead or injured. This is Mossad's job. And everybody had better remember that," said one Mossad source. Mossad has made no friends on the ground. They rarely do. That is their style: go it alone. They believe they know more than anyone else in fighting terrorism. And they may be right. In Tel Aviv, having done all he could for the moment, Meir Dagan waits. The 57 years-old, battle-hardened hero of past wars in Lebanon, in all those places in the Middle East where the alleys have no names, has earned his reputation as a no-holds barred leader.

In those days, with a handgun in his pocket and his dog at his heel, he had led from the front. Twice he had been wounded, so that nowadays he sometimes uses a walking stick. He dislikes doing so. He detests any sign of weakness in himself or in others. Dagan is a blunt man, proud and imperious and prepared to stand on his record. He crushed the first Intifada in Gaza in 1971. Two years later he fought in the Yom Kippur War. For him, Mossad, and ultimately Israel, the Mombasa massacre is a test - to show that Mossad is back on centre stage with a vengeance. No other intelligence service has a better history of operations in Central Africa. In the 1960s Mossad drove out the vaunted Chinese Secret Intelligence Service. It stopped Cuba's Fidel Castro exporting his revolution into Africa. It beat the KGB at its own plans to turn the Congo into its playground. It was a dirty and deadly war. A terrorist group ambushed a Mossad katsa in the Congo and fed him to the crocodiles.

They filmed his last, threshing moments in the water - and sent the footage to the local Mossad station chief. He retaliated by placing a two-pound bomb under the toilet seat of the terrorist leader. It blew the villa apart. Twelve terrorists died. Mossad built up a relationship with BOSS, the security service of the South African apartheid government. It sent a team to Pretoria to teach BOSS the art of sophisticated methods of interrogation. Israeli instructors showed them the black art of sleep deprivation, hooding, forcing a suspect to stand facing a wall for long hours, and mental tortures such as mock tortures. "The one certainty is that if the Mombasa killers are caught Mossad won't bother with mock executions," said a Mossad source. The methods Mossad uses are often outside the law. They have a unit that specialises in burglary - using far more sophisticated means than those employed by the infamous Watergate burglars. Their ineptitude led to the downfall of President Nixon. They have a special team of scientists working at the Institute for Biological Research in Tel Aviv. They prepare the deadly toxins for the kidon. Where other intelligence agencies no longer allow their agents to kill, kidon have no such restraint.

They remain fully licensed to assassinate in the name of Israel once they have routinely convinced the incumbent prime minister of the need to do so. Ariel Sharon needs little convincing. Mossad's assassins routinely witness some of Israel's leading forensic pathologists at work so as to better understand how to make an assassination look like an accident. They learn how a pinprick or small blemish left on a victim's skin can be a give away. They are shown how to ensure against this. It makes them probably the most sophisticated lawfully-approved killers in the world. This morning (Sunday) Meir Dagan, as he has done every day since the Mombasa attack, will awaken from a combat veteran's light sleep. This squat, barrel-chested man will take his customary cold water shower and eat his daily breakfast of natural yogurt, toast spread with honey washed down with several cups of strong black coffee. Next he will study the latest reports from not only East Africa - but from all those areas where his team of hunters have now moved.

After briefing the prime minister on the scrambler phone that links Dagan to Ariel Sharon, the memune may spend an hour at an easel in the corner of his office - touching up one of the watercolour paintings which are the only known passion in his life. But like everything else about him, they will remain under lock and key. Just as with his plan to assassinate Saddam Hussein, the first the world will know, if Mossad is successful, will be after it has happened. SENSATIONAL NEW EBOOK NOW AVAILABLE FROM GORDON THOMAS Documents and details illegal mind control and germ warfare experiments carried out by the CIA on US citizens. It is a shattering account of how the dark side of science collaborated with sheer lunacy to create a chilling tour de force of terror. Based upon impeccable research, it shows how our elected governments lied to the people for over fifty years - and continues to obscure the truth. It is a story of murder, inhuman experiments and torture. It is supported by a wealth of never before published evidence; personal interviews with those doctors involved in the work that mocks their oath to do no harm to their patients.

It is also the story of a brave man, William Buckley, the longest serving agent in the CIA, until his own terrible death at the hands of a doctor trained in the techniques the CIA pioneered. Buckley was a close personal friend of the author. · Never-seen-before documents from inside the White House, CIA and other agencies. · Reveals the documentary evidence that links US Vice-President Dick Cheney and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld to the cover-up of the death of top CIA scientist, Frank Olson. · Explains how the CIA financed a ruthless and systematic assault of the human psyche - using a British-born psychiatrist to spearhead the assault. · Names other world renowned physicians who were involved in the most sinister research programme ever created by any United States government - and its secret partner - the British government. · Reveals how a woman was programmed to become a CIA assassin. · Describes how a CIA chemist was murdered by his own colleagues after he had turned to the one man he thought he could trust - a London psychiatrist engaged in similar work. · Reveals how "expendables" - the CIA generic name for those selected for killing - were secretly murdered after they had been experimented on in Europe.

· Describes how the CIA used prostitutes and mental patients in other experiments. · Explains how the CIA deliberately pioneered the drug culture whose effects are still with us. · Reveals how the CIA agent selected to monitor the experiments eventually died at the hands of a physician steeped in the methods perfected by the CIA. · Identifies how the CIA experiments are still carried on in secret establishments in Israel and China. · Uncovers CIA terminal experiments on Vietcong prisoners in Vietnam. · Publishes the CIA Manual of Assassination - a shocking document describing how to commit state-approved murder. For further information and download instructions visit

Question: What is the name of Israel's secret intelligence agency?
Answer: Mossad