PM reveals: South Africa attack against Israelis thwarted
Following meeting with senior intelligence officials PM discloses that over 20 terror attacks abroad have been thwarted
In the past year Israel successfully prevented numerous terror attacks against Israeli targets abroad – most of which were not reported.
Yedioth ahronoth reported Friday that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday revealed never before published information about one of the foiled attacks. He said that an attack against Israelis was prevented in South Africa, but did not disclose any further details.
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Netanyahu held a situation assessment attended by the IDF chief of staff, and heads of the Mossad and Shin Bet. The discussions dealt with the attack in Bulgaria and the situation in Syria.
A very senior defense official said that since May 2011 more than 20 terror attacks have been prevented, including in Azerbaijan (twice), Kenya, Turkey, Thailand Cyprus and Bulgaria (prevented at the beginning of the year) and in Turkey (an attempt to attack the Israeli Consul in Istanbul).
"Iranians and Hezbollah members are incarcerated in jails throughout the world, the senior security official said. “We don’t know how long the wave of terrorism will continue – it's global.”
The official said that when a terror state that supports and organizes terror such as Iran joins forces with with an organization that is prepared to take the risks like Hezbollah, no country is safe from possible attacks.
“It is clear to us that this is not an isolated case,” he added. The official noted that Israel has intelligence information that ties the attack in Bulgaria to the attack that was prevented in Cyprus. In both cases the modus operandi was the same.
The official explained the reason why no travel advisory was issued for Burgas: “When we have information we announce it and when we don’t have information we don’t announce it,” he said.
“We felt that something was in the works but we could not connect it with a time or place. Therefore we did not issue an advisory.”
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