Spies Against Armageddon (4 page)

The true beauty of this computer worm was that the operators of the system had no idea that anything was going wrong. Everything at first seemed normal, and when they noticed the problem it was too late. Nearly 1,000 centrifuges—about one-fifth of those operating at Natanz—were knocked out of commission.

Iranian intelligence and computer experts were shocked. The nuclear program was slowing down, barely advancing, and falling way behind schedule. Stuxnet, more than anything else, made the Iranians realize they were under attack in a shadow war, with hardly any capability to respond.

In late 2011, they announced two more cyber-attacks. One virus, which computer analysts called Duqu, showed signs of being created by the same high-level, sophisticated hackers who authored Stuxnet: U.S. and Israeli intelligence.

If that were not enough, like the Ten Plagues that befell ancient Egypt, the Iranians were hit by yet another blow—this time, a lethal one. Between 2007 and 2011, five top Iranian scientists were assassinated by a variety of methods. One supposedly was felled by carbon monoxide from a heater in his home. Four others were killed by bombs.

Three of the four bombings were accomplished by powerful magnets that held a uniquely shaped charge—a small but powerful bomb that directed all its lethal energy in one direction—when stuck onto a car door. The explosives were placed by fast-moving attackers riding on motorcycles, and motorcycles were practically a trademark of the Mossad’s assassination unit.

There was a sixth attempt, using the magnetic method of sticking a bomb on a car door, but almost miraculously that target survived. Fereydoon Abbas-Divani, perhaps because of instincts developed as a Revolutionary Guard, sensed the danger and jumped out of his car. The Iranian regime, to show its defiance—after publicly blaming “the Zionists and America” for the string of attacks—promoted Abbas-Divani to be head of the Iran Atomic Energy Organization.

The common thread was that all the targets were key figures in Iran’s nuclear program, at least some of them in the weaponization area. They also were lecturers or researchers in the science departments of top Iranian universities.

All the assassinations took place in the morning, when the targets were on their way to work. The attackers riding motorcycles showed cool-headed steadiness of the highest order. Clearly, these killings were the work of professionals, who had precise information about the home addresses and daily routines of the targeted scientists.

In the midst of all those killings, there was another incident—different, but very large. A massive explosion destroyed much of a missile-testing base near Tehran in December 2011. Dozens of people were killed, including a Revolutionary Guards general in charge of developing long-range missiles that could hit Israel and beyond. Major General Hassan Moghadam was also responsible for liaison with Syria and Hezbollah, and decided what missiles would be shipped by Iran to militants in Lebanon.

As with the assassinations of the scientists, there was no claim of responsibility for the death of the general and the others at the missile development facility. Iran denied that this blast was the result of sabotage, but that contention was probably out of reluctance to admit that a major military base had been infiltrated.

As for wishful thinking on the other side, some anti-ayatollah Iranian exiles claimed that their freedom-seeking brethren inside the country were carrying out these acts of violence. The exiles, frustrated by the endurance of the Islamic regime, wanted to believe that political dissidents had formed an active underground group that could strike the nuclear and missile programs with both courage and accuracy.

The truth, although Israel intended never to confirm it, was that these attacks were the handiwork of the Mossad’s long arm. As difficult as the missions were, Israeli intelligence already had a long history of sabotage and targeted bloodshed. The name of the game, as the Book of Proverbs and the agency’s motto suggested, was to disrupt the plans of enemy countries.

It was noteworthy, too, that the United States flatly denied any involvement. American officials even went so far as to publicly criticize the unknown killers for spoiling diplomatic hopes, because the chances of negotiations with Iran became slimmer after every attack. The Americans, in private, said that they were chiding Israel.

As for other suspects, while German intelligence was concerned about Iran, this era’s set of spies in Berlin thankfully exhibited no taste for murder. And Britain’s MI6 got out of the assassination business after the negotiated, if fragile, end of the conflict in Northern Ireland in 1998.

Several journalists suggested that the Mossad was only acting as an assassination contractor in Iran. They guessed that killers were recruited by the Israelis from such Iranian opposition groups as Mujahideen e-Khalq (MEK) or a Sunni Muslim group, Jundallah (Soldiers of God), also known as the People’s Resistance Movement of Iran—in that country’s Baluchistan province.

It is true that Dagan had drawn up a battle plan that included the use of disaffected minority groups. In a State Department cable from 2007 obtained and released by Wikileaks, the Mossad chief was quoted as telling a senior American official that disaffection among Baluchi, Azeri, and Kurdish minorities could be exploited by the United States and Israel. Dagan also suggested supporting student pro-democracy activists, if only to cause unrest inside Iran.

The official message also said that Dagan felt sure that the U.S. and Israel could “change the ruling regime in Iran and its attitude toward backing terror regimes,” and that “we could also get them to delay their nuclear project.”

According to the cable, Dagan said, “The economy is hurting, and this is provoking a real crisis among Iran’s leaders.” The minority groups that the Mossad and CIA could support or exploit are “raising their heads and are tempted to resort to violence.”

High unemployment among Iran’s young males could be—from a Mossad perspective—extremely useful in recruiting allies, agents who could be trained, or even mercenary or rebel armies.

In the years that followed, clues emerged, indicating that activists in MEK, Jundallah, and a few other dissident groups in Iran served as sources of information for Israel. In addition, when the Mossad wished to plant a tip about Iran in the international media, it frequently fed stories to MEK or another rebel group, which then trumpeted the news. That, in a way, was “laundering” information in order to protect sources and methods of collection.

The Mossad also enjoyed fairly safe passage in and out of Iran by going through nations where the security services were cooperative—including the Kurdish autonomous zone of northern Iraq. Israeli spies had developed excellent relationships with senior Kurds in several countries for decades, traceable back to the minority group appreciating Israel’s help against Arabs who kept oppressing them. In the Middle East, the enemy of my enemy is my friend.

But for such a sensitive, dangerous, and daring mission as a series of assassinations in Iran’s capital, the Mossad would not depend on hired-gun mercenaries. They would be considered far less trustworthy, and there was hardly any chance that the Mossad would reveal to non-Israelis some of its assassination unit’s best methods.

These, in fact, were “blue and white” operations—Israeli intelligence’s term for a fully Israeli project, referring to the colors of its nation’s flag. From the little that was made public, it was obvious that they were nearly perfect in their execution: daring, innovative, and right out of the office of the Ramsad’s playbook.

The Mossad was showing—more than any other Western intelligence organization—its willingness to take drastic measures and risk the lives of its best operatives. In turn, those men and a very few women were displaying their readiness to sacrifice. Clearly, if caught, they would be hanged in a public square in Iran. Israeli spies had come to such tortured ends in the past, sometimes after maintaining double lives in enemy countries for years.

Naturally, no one in Tel Aviv was talking about any operational details of how Israelis entered and left Iran—or where they stayed while inside the Islamic Republic.

There were many possibilities. Obviously, Israeli operatives traveled using the passports of other countries, including both bogus and genuine documents. That fact had been inadvertently revealed several times, over many years. In addition, the Mossad continuously maintained safe houses in Iran, dating back to the pre-1979 years under the Shah. That was an investment in the future, typical for Israeli intelligence.

The Mossad also had a human treasury: Tens of thousands of ex-Iranians now lived in Israel. Iranian Jews had fled, especially just after the 1979 revolution, and many of their children also were well acquainted with the Persian language and customs. Individuals who were brave enough—and then selected and trained by the Mossad—could move back to Iran and secretly serve Israel.

Israeli operatives inside Iran were available for all kinds of espionage and even, if and when the time came, for pinpointing targets for air strikes. The Mossad knew, after all, that the entire Iranian weapons program would not be demolished by assassinations of nuclear scientists and military officers. Those individuals would be replaced.

Yet, any delay at all represented an achievement. Israeli strategic thinking—exercised in Egypt, Iraq, and elsewhere—held that temporary disruptions to an enemy’s dangerous projects were sufficient cause for taking significant risks.

This was even truer when it came to killing Iranian specialists, who worked on unique tasks that required years of study. These men were not available in abundant supply, despite Iran’s relatively large and advanced technological infrastructure.

The assassinations also had a strong psychological objective: sending a loud and clear message to Iranians and scientists of other nations that working for the nuclear program was dangerous. The Mossad was telling them, in effect: Stay in your classrooms. Do your academic work. Get your research published. Enjoy the university life. But do not help Iran go nuclear. Otherwise, your career could be cut short by a bullet or a bomb.

Indeed, Israeli intelligence noticed that the assassination campaign was paying off, with what it called “white defections”: Scientists were worried, many contemplated leaving the program, and some actually did. They did not depart Iran and defect to the other side, but they dissociated themselves from the nuclear program. There were also signs of scientists being reluctant to join the program, despite lucrative terms offered by the regime.

The intimidation campaign definitely showed an impact on foreigners. While in the past, Chinese, Russians, Pakistanis and some others were happily accepting invitations—and high pay—to work in Iran, the only ones who still seemed attracted were North Koreans.

Dagan was pleased by the missions and the “cleanliness” of their execution: no clues, no fingerprints, not even motorcycles left behind. Iranian authorities could only guess who was attacking, in broad daylight, in their capital.

The Israeli intelligence chief’s mode of warfare was unusually bold. In addition to the operations inside Iran, he had sent assassins to eliminate Palestinian radicals and the elusive operations chief of the Lebanese Hezbollah party. The new element in the assassinations attributed to the Mossad under Dagan’s leadership was that more killings occurred in “target” countries—Lebanon, Syria, Iran, and the United Arab Emirates—than ever before.

Dagan was proud of that change. This was the “dagger between its teeth” that his patron, Sharon, had wanted. In the previous 40 years, with few exceptions, lethal operations had been conducted in safer “base” countries. The Mossad, for instance, had fought a “war of the spooks” against Palestinian militants in the 1970s. Shootings and bombings had turned parts of Europe into a battlefield for Middle Easterners, and the Israelis had a continental headquarters in Paris that moved later to Brussels. Only rarely were murderous incursions made into Arab nations.

As far as Dagan and the Mossad were concerned, assassinations were a legitimate tactic, but not an objective in and of themselves. They had to be considered part of a comprehensive strategy, one of many tools in the multi-pronged battle against Iran.

In a meeting in 2007 with a U.S. official, Dagan did not give details of any acts of violence. But he did urge America to join immediately in a “five-pillar” plan to destabilize the ayatollahs’ regime. The pillars were listed as “political approach,” “covert measures,” “counterproliferation,” “sanctions,” and “force regime change.”

Encouraging the Mossad’s research department not to leave high-level analysis to Aman—so that he could hear from what the Bible called a “multitude of counselors”—Dagan engaged his staff in discussion of all the factors to consider.

Dagan was a great believer in the potency of international pressure, especially sanctions. He told Mossad staff members, during analytic discussions, that economic factors in the modern world were powerful. He explained that he carefully studied the motivations of American presidents in formulating foreign policy and realized that the United States went to war in Iraq—twice—because of its energy interests.

Dagan thus reached the conclusion that the U.S. would not allow Iran to have nuclear weapons—not only out of concern that a messianic Shi’ite regime might use the bomb or intimidate Israel—but mainly because Iran would become the most powerful nation among energy producers.

He figured that a nuclear Iran would vastly expand its sphere of influence to the south and west, to envelop Gulf nations such as Saudi Arabia, Iraq, and the United Arab Emirates; and also to the north and east to such secular Muslim countries as Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan.

According to this scenario, Iran could then control 60 percent of the global energy market. The United States, in the world according to Dagan, would not permit that to happen.

In any event, U.S. military capabilities were many times more powerful than Israel’s. Dagan favored, and even predicted, a situation where Israel would not need to stand alone. If there was no other way to stop—or keep delaying—the Iranians, then the best solution to him would be for the huge American military to strike at the nuclear facilities.