Israel’s espionage machine – cyber intelligence, moles and money

Israel pulled off two stunning espionage coups in recent months – the killing of Hamas’s top political leader Ismail Haniye in the Iranian capital Tehran, followed by the killing of Hassan Nasrallah, head of Hezbollah militant organisation in Lebanon.

This was followed by the killing of Nasrallah’s successor when his house was destroyed in an aerial attack in Beirut, the Lebanese capital.

Israel has a formidable espionage machine. Mossad is its best known component, and has an annual budget of US$2 billion. But this highly efficient network consists of several other bodies, all working seamlessly to destroy Israel’s enemies. 

Unit 8200 is a vital part of this espionage network, specialising in cyber espionage, collecting signal intelligence and code decryption, cyberwarfare and surveillance. Unit 8200 is also known as the Central Collection Unit of the Intelligence Corps. Its operatives are mostly very young, usually from 18 to 21, and they are skilled in hacking. 

Hacking into phones and planting explosives in them has paid off handsomely in this clandestine war which Israel has waged for years. 

In 1996, Yahya Ayyash, Hamas’ chief bomb-maker known as “the engineer,” responsible for killing dozens of Israelis, was killed in Gaza after his cell phone,  packed with 50 grams  of explosives, blew up  as he answered a call.

After Israeli successes with this tactic, Hezbollah began using pagers. Anticipating this move, Israeli intelligence services created a pager company, resulting in explosive laden pagers which killed a number of Hezbollah operatives.

Apart from hacking and cyber espionage, Israel uses traditional methods such as moles, double agents and honeytraps. It looks likely now that the killings of Haniyeh and Nasrallah were carried out with the help of a mole.

There was a sensational development last week when rumours that Esmail Qaani, chief of Iran’s top unconventional warfare unit, known as Quds, has been arrested as an Israeli spy after he suddenly disappeared from public view. 

Quds is part of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps (RGC), but specialises in unconventional warfare and military intelligence.

After weeks of speculation, it emerged that he had indeed been arrested and was being interrogated. Then came the news that he had suffered a heart attack during interrogation.

His present condition and whereabouts are unknown. 

Some Iranian politicians, including former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, have been saying for some time now that Israel has a mole at the highest levels of Iranian counter-espionage. Apparently, Qaani came under suspicion after the killing of Yaniyeh in a guesthouse in the outskirts of Tehran.

He was killed by a bomb planted under his bed. Security of the guesthouse and the surrounding area was Qaani’s responsibility.

He was also in Beirut and met Nasrallah the day the latter was killed. 

Bizarre development 

In another bizarre development, Israeli police and the Shin Bet domestic intelligence agency say they have arrested a network of Israeli citizens spying for Iran who allegedly provided information on military bases and conducted surveillance of individuals.

The investigators claimed the network had been active for about two years. According to reports in the Israeli press, the suspects are accused of photographing and collecting information about Israeli bases and facilities, including the defence headquarters in Tel Aviv, known as the Kirya, and the Nevatim and Ramat David airbases.

The Nevatim base was targeted by Iran’s two missile attacks this year, and Ramat David has been targeted by Hezbollah. Investigators call this a serious security breach, and say the group had carried out 600 spying missions for Iran over two years. 

An Israeli businessman accused of spying for Iran was arrested in September. According to investigators’ allegations  he had travelled twice to Iran to discuss the possibility of assassinating Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu,  Defence Minister, Yoav Gallant, and others key figures.

This shows that Israel is not having its way all the time, though it seems to be on the top of this espionage game right now.

It pays its spies very well, dishing out $50,000 to $100,000 each time, plus bonuses and gifts. Its spies from the Arab world and other third world countries are officials, civilian or military, earning meagre salaries; hence, the kind of money Israel can pay is very lucrative.

In the 1960s, Israel’s star spy was Eli Cohen, an Egyptian-born Jew who posed as a Syrian businessman and passed on vital information to Israel. He was discovered by the Syrians in 1965 and executed.

Cohen was Jewish, but Ashraf Marwan, an Egyptian who tipped off Israel about the 1973 Yom Kippur War, wasn’t. Neither is Ismail Qaani.

Money can be a greater motivator than race or religion.

Israel’s way 

But things haven’t always gone Israel’s way. Mossad killed Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in 2010 in a Dubai hotel room, but the operation was an international embarrassment to Tel Aviv because Israeli agents tracking Al-Mabhouh used fake passports.

Al-Mabhouh was wanted for killing two Israeli soldiers. He was also a key Hamas figure and procured arms from Iran. 

His assassination attracted international attention in part due to allegations that it was ordered by the Israeli government and carried out by Mossad agents holding fake or fraudulently obtained passports from France, Germany  and Australia. Dubai police, working with Interpol, established that many belonged to  people holding dual citizenship who had no idea that their passports were being used for an assassination.

Mossad tried many times to assassinate Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO) leader Yasser Arafat, and failed. They even sent a hypnotized Palestinian into Jordan to kill him. But this is a story for my next column.