The secret war continues
Op-ed: Iran investing great efforts in attempts to penetrate Israel’s intelligence community
We can assume that only many years from now, if and when the Iranian regime falls or when Israel’s secret archives are opened, we’ll know whether the Iranian defense minister’s recent declaration that the Ayatollah regime managed to penetrate Mossad, the holy of holies of Israel’s intelligence community, is indeed true.
On the one hand, the guys in Tehran are known as avid liars. On the other hand, as we learned with Nasrallah – the commander of Iran’s southern division – sometimes even what sounds like Middle Eastern imagination turns out to be a true story. For example, Nasrallah’s declaration about the advanced information that led to the Flotilla 13 disaster – only recently, it was verified by the IDF as well as the cause of death of our 12 commandoes.
Israelis who are interested in visiting their relatives in Iran must first arrive in Turkey. Some three years ago, the Shin Bet gravely warned these people about Iranian intelligence activity at the Istanbul consulate. The Shin Bet discovered that the Iranians exploit the reliance of Jews of Iranian descent on visa permits in order to try to enlist them as agents and gather information about the Zionist enemy.
The few cases uncovered by the Shin Bet at the time usually did not justify an indictment, as was the case in the early 1970s, when many Soviet agents were not indicated because they did not cause any damage. Instead, the Shin Bet made do with a warning.
An unusual case did take place about two and a half years ago, known in intelligence lingo as a walk-in: That is, a person who walks into the diplomatic mission of a foreign state and offers his services as a spy. In most cases, such people are suspected of being a deliberate initiative to provide disinformation, yet it appears that Iranian intelligence officials rightfully felt they had nothing to lose and listened to what the man had to say (his identity is still under a gag order.)
The golden rule of intelligence
The damage caused by that person is marginal, if at all, yet this brief affair, as well as others that were exposed, continued the trend: Iran continues its effort to gather intelligence information in Israel. Tehran does it via Hezbollah or directly, as was the case in the above example, and does not fear being identified as the operator of spies in Israel.
As opposed to the activity of Hezbollah’s Unit 1800, which aims to recruit and utilize terrorists in order to fan the flames of violence within Israel, the purpose of espionage is to gather information on potential targets – as was the case before the Second Lebanon War. Iran invests great efforts in gathering this information and does not shy away from using agents who will obviously not bring much benefit.
The harsh secret war between Israel and Iran continues. Tehran continues to prepare for the next confrontation with Israel while gathering information on potential targets for attacks and assassinations to avenge the killing of Imad Mugniyah and the Iranian scientists, as well as the attack on the Syrian reactor, among other things.
In addition to gathering information about Israeli targets, another important objective had been added to the Iranian list in the past three years: Penetrating Israel’s intelligence community. Iran, the senior member of the “radical” front that includes Syria, Hezbollah, and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, is greatly disturbed by what it views as repeated Israeli success in infiltrating Iran and carrying out operations that cause damage in respect to terror activity and mostly to the Iranian nuclear project. Tehran is undertaking immense efforts to understand where it’s been breached.
In this secret war, most Iranian success stories pertained to the recruitment of people with very low access to true secrets. On the other hand, when it comes to intelligence the golden rule always applies: You only know what you know. That is, it’s possible that despite the Shin Bet’s counter-intelligence success, the Iranians managed to recruit and use agents that have access to the most sensitive secrets.
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