Esther's Sling (26 page)

This view was in synch with the opinion of the prime minister. Cohen bypassed Mort Yaguda and Reuben Herzog, both of whom he knew would go along with the consensus. He turned to Avner. “Zvi, your thoughts?”

Avner surprised the group. “I agree with Danny. Attacking the Chinese embassy would bring too many negative repercussions.”

“Okay, I think we have consensus on this. We attack the cyber center. We pass on the Chinese embassy.”

Schechter nodded and bent over to take notes on his printout. He straightened back up. “The next issue is hitting the homes of leading scientists. I know the scientists are legitimate targets, but we want approval to incur collateral damage. We didn’t put in on here, but the same question applies to military commanders.”

Yavi Aitan hated that obtuse phrasing. “You mean, General, a green light to kill the families of these scientists and generals?”

“If you want to phrase it that way, then yes.”

“I prefer stating things directly and openly.” Aitan adjusted his seat. “I hate to see families killed, but this is an opportunity to drive home Dead Lead and from a military perspective, we can’t let it pass. I say yes.” Aitan was referring to Operation Dead Lead, the ongoing assassination of Iranian physicists and scientists who worked on their nuclear program. “The same, of course, applies to the military commanders on the list.”

Cohen was growing impatient with the meeting. He was always eager to move on to the next meeting, the next speech, the next challenge at hand. “I approve these targets unless anyone objects.” He looked at Stein and Yaguda, knowing that Avner would not object. Yaguda nodded his consent. Stein never looked up and never objected. He then looked to his right at Herzog.

“Yes, hit them,” responded the minister of finance.

“It is a consensus then. Targets approved. What else?”

General Schechter turned and looked at the television screen. On the slide there was a single remaining bullet point at the bottom. It had only one word: “Bushehr.” “Finally, there is the issue of Bushehr. This nuclear reactor has always been on our target list and will be attacked via cruise missile from a Dolphin submarine. But …”

“But the calculus has changed,”
Eli Cohen interjected, eager to get to the point. “Yavi, please update everyone on what is happening at Bushehr.”

“Yes,” responded Yavi Aitan, “after decades of stops and starts, Bushehr is actually being commissioned. Over the next several months Iran will begin to power up the reactor, running a series of tests culminating in full power certification. At this point, any destruction of Bushehr will release radioactivity into the air and likely cause a core meltdown. Unfortunately, we have waited too long.
Our destruction of the Iraqi and Syrian nuclear reactors were both accomplished while the reactor buildings were still under construction and before nuclear fuel rods had been placed in the reactor core.”

“What kind of contamination are we talking about?” asked Avner.

“If we attacked today, very little,” responded Aitan. “But every month that goes by, the Iranians will be loading more fuel rods into the reactor core at Bushehr. By the fall, this process will be complete if they keep to their timetable. At that point, we will be highly likely to trigger a core meltdown if we hit the reactor containment building. In a full meltdown, the radiation release will be quite bad. Prevailing winds come consistently out of the northwest year round and will send contamination to the southeast toward the Emirates. Much of the contamination, especially the heavy particles, will settle into the Persian Gulf or areas along the Iranian coastline that are sparsely inhabited. Most of the airborne contamination, given the weather profile of our planned attack and assuming we hit Bushehr the same day as the rest of Block G, will be carried aloft to be picked up by upper altitude winds that will carry the radiation out over the Arabian Sea and toward India. Mid-level fall-out will endanger two cities in particular, Abu Dhabi and Dubai, even though they are each about six hundred kilometers away.”

“Okay, what are we willing to do here?” asked Cohen. The question resulted in fifteen minutes of discussion before Cohen conducted a verbal poll of where everyone in the room stood, including
Fishel, Schechter and Margolis.

After the opinions had been stated, Cohen continued. “I think the concepts just laid out by Mister Margolis make a lot of sense and are obviously supported by Yavi.” He looked at Schechter and Margolis. “Please revise your planning accordin
gly and proceed on that basis.”

“We will,” replied General Schechter.

“Anything else?” asked Cohen.

Danny Stein had a thought. “Do we have the same issue at Arak?” He was asking about the heavy water reactor designed to produce plutonium and under construction in the middle of the country.

“No,” responded Aitan. “They continue to slowly build the reactor facility. This is one area where delay is our friend. The further they get before we bomb the facility, the better – so long as they have not fueled the reactor. As of today, I think that is at least a year or more off.”

“Okay, so that’s a positive,” said Cohen. “Now, is that all? Anything more?”

Schechter looked at Margolis, who shook his head. “No, sir.” Cohen waived his hand, indicating to Schechter for him to wrap up. “In that case, thank you, gentlemen. That is it for the presentation and issues around Block G.”

“Thank you General, Amit, Natan.” The prime minister proceeded with the next issue on his agenda. “I want a voice vote for the record. I vote to approve Operation Block G as presented. The timing of the operation will be made by the Olympus command team in consultation with Minister Avner and myself.”

One by one, the members of the Kitchen Cabinet verbally approved the operation as presented.

“Okay, we go.”

The President of the United States won re-election on November 6, 2012. The second term president concentrated on domestic issues until late winter of 2013. A trip to Israel, his first since becoming president, resulted in a renewed relationship with Prime Minister Cohen. Most of the frustration of the prior four years evaporated on the foundation of a new level of agreement over Iran. The two men came to an understanding and Cohen knew that when the time came, American support would be unequivocal.

But the president still wanted time. Time to try diplomacy
again. Time for the latest round of sanctions to bite. In return, a hard deadline was agreed upon.

Amit Margolis was ushered into the office of Mossad Director Amichai Levy late in the afternoon of Friday,
August 2. “Amit, I did not expect a visit from you today,” said the director as he motioned Margolis toward a seat in front of his desk. “This must be important.”

“It is. I have just come from Jerusalem.” Margolis did not sit down. “I met with Cohen this mor
ning. We are going next month.”

“Going?”

“Block G.”

Ami Levy did not smile or get excited. He simply looked at Amit. “I see.”

“You don’t seem too happy.”

Levy turned and looked out his window at the skyline of Tel Aviv. “
I believe in your plan, Amit,” Levy said, even though he still did not know all of the aspects of Esther’s Sling. “I also know the Iranian response. I dread what is coming.”

Margolis started to go into the same debate that had raged in Israel for years, but he checked himself. The time for debate was over. Decisions now superseded. “Operation Arrow is authorized.”

“Timing?”

“
September fifteenth, give or take forty-eight hours.”

Director Levy spun back around and looked at Amit. He smiled. “Now that’s my type of operation.” He stood and shook the hand of the co-commander of Block G. “Okay, we go.”

Amichai Levy had been wrong earlier when he provided the prime minister with Mossad’s official opinion on the uprising in Syria. Of course, the prime minister knew full well that there was no separation between the official opinion of Mossad and the personal opinion of its director. Ami Levy was far too strong-willed to state any viewpoint that wasn’t his at its core. But Bashar al-Assad had failed to crush the Syrian rebellion in its infancy and the result had been a slowly brewing insurgency that erupted into full-fledged civil war in the summer of 2012.

At the root of the rebellion was the age old strife between Shia and Sunni Islam. The Assad family, members of the Alawite Sect of Shia Islam, had ruled Syria since 1971. While originally the
Ba’athist Party of the Assad family was defined by pan-Arab nationalism and cultural awakening, the passing decades and emergence of religious fundamentalism had seen the family become increasingly aligned with the Shiites of Iran. This evolution had fed the traditional schism between the majority Sunnis in Syria and the minority Shiites, who dominated the power nodes of government. Now, the civil war had created clear demarcation lines. Fighting to keep their power under the banner of Bashar al-Assad were the Alawites and their internal Shia allies, supported externally by Iran and its allies Hezbollah, Russia and China. Fighting to overthrow the historic regime were the Sunnis and their allies in most of the Arab world, supported by the Western powers.

But among the Sunni fighters, most of them just simple farmers and shopkeepers yearning for nothing more than basic human freedom,
was a mix of Sunni fundamentalists who fought for a different cause: the creation of a greater Islamic caliphate under Sharia law. And the most feared of this group of Sunni fighters were those affiliated with al Qaeda. Since the early days of the Syrian revolution in the spring of 2011, al Qaeda had been infiltrating the country, recruiting religious Sunnis and plotting to exert influence on the future Syria.

T
he growing al Qaeda cadre included a rising star within the organization named Abu Muhjid. Muhjid was a 33-year-old Palestinian Arab who had volunteered for the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades at the age of 21 over the objections of his father, who dreamed of his only son becoming a professional. But Abu was full of a hatred that his father could not control or contain, and the Martyrs Brigades were on the front line in the death struggle against Israel. They were always on the lookout for young jihadists willing to die for Allah. However, Muhjid’s intelligence and outgoing personality made him stand out from the sullen group of recruits that would show up at the homes of recruiters scattered around the West Bank. He was soon earmarked as a gunman for the Brigades and found himself at a training base in the Bekaa valley in Lebanon. He would be given the chance to prove his courage and, if so proven, to subsequently rise through the ranks.

He justified the faith his recruiters had in him, leading a successful attack into the heart of the occupied capital of Palestine in January 2004. But luck did no
t accompany him the entire trip. He was stopped by Shin Bet agents as he tried to slip back into the West Bank. What followed for Muhjid was weeks of on-again, off-again interrogation inside Ktzi’ot Prison, some of it following days of sleep deprivation. He was then tried in a civilian court by Israelis, a court that he would not honor by speaking. So he stayed silent through the proceedings, even as he received nine life sentences from the judge. His hatred for Israel at that moment was complete. He was transferred to Ofer Prison in the West Bank to spend out the remainder of his natural life.

Like the many Palestinians inside
Ofer, Muhjid was caught by surprise when the tensions between Fatah, the traditional political party of Yasser Arafat and generally secular in nature, and Hamas, the more Islamist party of the Palestinian people, erupted into open violence late in 2006. The tension inside the prison increased as battles between Palestinians grew on the outside. Men discussed politics and the role of Islam even more than they had before. The Israeli jailers grew increasingly concerned about the possibility of major violence within the prison. But Muhjid stayed out of the politics of the prison. He was too busy taking advantage of the classes available that were run by highly educated men. For the young Martyrs Brigades veteran, this included courses in English, mathematics and, of course, the Koran.

Abu Muhjid was happy to let the outside world determine its own course. His world was now confined by tall concrete walls topped with barbed wire and defined by a tempo set by Jewish masters. He did what he could to define his own world within this prison, certain that he would be locked inside
Ofer until the day the Jewish state was toppled.

But news came one day that obliterated the world he was trying to create. His
47-year-old father, a Fatah policeman, had been killed by Hamas gunmen in Nablus in January 2007. Abu’s parents had been very young when they married and he was born when his mother was only 16 years old. Now his mother was a widow at the age of 42 and this was not a good situation. Abu could not support her from prison, despite sending her most of the modest “salary” he received from Fatah as a jailed fighter. His younger sister had married a drunkard who could not keep a job. As a widow, his mother would also receive a small pension from Fatah, but the financial footing of the Palestinian Authority was precarious at best.

Abu Muhjid had one other major concern for his mother – one that was serious before but
could potentially kill her now. She suffered from a rare condition known as Chronic Granulomatous Disease, or GCD, an immune system disorder. To survive, she needed a constant supply of low-dose antibiotics and anti-fungal drugs. His father’s income, combined with his Martyrs Brigades salary and the charity of Western aid agencies, had been barely sufficient to pay the bills. But now Abu knew she would start to face the choice between her drug therapy and eating enough to stay healthy. Cutting back on either would weaken her immune system and leave her open to a fatal infection. Suddenly Abu Muhjid was eager to get out of prison, a complete change in his prior resigned indifference to his fate.

Muhjid now began to write to charities like
Médicins sans Frontiéres to plead for help for his mother. Of course, his letters were read by his Israeli jailers, a fact which he had no choice but to accept. The letters had continued for several months when Muhjid was informed that he was being relocated to a different prison, this one inside Israel. The tensions between Hamas and Fatah, he was told, made him a marked man. His life was in danger at Ofer at the hands of Hamas inmates. In early May 2007, Abu gathered what little he possessed and was processed out of Ofer prison, being remanded into the authority of the transport division of the Israeli Prison Service.

Muhjid was shackled and placed in a windowless van for transport. A panel divided his cage from the drivers, making
it impossible for him to see where he was going. After an hour and a half, the van came to a stop and the back door was opened. He was helped out and his shackles were replaced with a simple pair of handcuffs. He was in an enclosed courtyard but this was unlike any place he had been as a prisoner. His gut told him that he was not in a prison. He was escorted into a room that was neither a cell nor an interrogation chamber. It felt to Abu like the waiting lobby for a doctor’s office. He sat down. A man entered and sat down across from him. The man was wearing a hat, sunglasses and what was obviously a false beard and mustache.

The next two hours of discussion were the most surreal in the short life of Abu Muhjid. The man across from him spoke perfect Arabic with an educated Saudi accent. The discussion started with current events and the state of disharmony between the two main factions of the Palestinian people. The topic migrated to
Muhjid’s family and the precarious position that his mother and sister found themselves in. Finally the man revealed his real intentions. He had a proposition for the convicted Palestinian terrorist. If Abu Muhjid would work for Mossad, then Israel would arrange for his mother and sister to relocate to France where they would receive a lifetime pension that included all of the free medical care his mother would need to live a long life.

The initial reaction of Abu Muhjid was negative, but he had yet to hear the best part of the deal. Mossad would make sure he was released from prison and they wanted him to continue in his struggle on behalf of the Islamic people. They wanted him to volunteer for al Qaeda and they wanted him to wage jihad. All they asked was that he communicate with them regularly. When Abu Muhjid asked the man across from him how he could possibly communicate successfully with Mossad over a long period of time, the men from Mossad who were filming this encounter in the room next door knew that they had hooked their man.

At that moment, the career of Mossad’s most valuable asset began. His codename inside Mossad became “Archer”, or “ramy alsham” in Arabic. The existence and activities of Archer were known only to a very small group within Mossad. That group reported directly to Director Levy. The only person outside of Mossad who was aware of Archer was the prime minister.

Abu Muhjid received several weeks of training and was transferred to
Ktzi’ot Prison where he continued his correspondence with aid agencies on behalf of his mother. As instructed by his new Mossad handlers, he immersed himself in Islamic studies, introducing himself to the most fervent Islamic jihadists being held at Ktzi’ot. In September, he received a reply from Médicins sans Frontiéres informing him that they had agreed to take up the cause of his mother. They believed that they would be able to arrange for her to immigrate to France where she would be able to receive the medical care she required. His sister and her husband would be allowed to immigrate as well. The process would take time, they told him, but in the meantime they would ensure that his mother received adequate medical supplies.

In March 2008, Muhjid received a letter from his mother. She was
on her way to France and expected to leave from Amman, Jordan, by the end of April. Her visa had arrived and they were only awaiting a visa for his sister and her husband. In late April he received a postcard with the Eiffel Tower on the front. His mother, sister and her husband were living in a flat on the outskirts of Paris paid by the generosity of a French charity. His mother had already seen a leading French medical specialist on GCD.

On August 25, 2008, Israel released 198 Palestinian prisoners as a gesture of goodwill and support for Palestinian leader Mahmoud
Abbas. Among the prisoners released was Abu Muhjid. Within six months, Muhjid was at a training camp in the Waziristan region of Pakistan. When Israel asked the CIA to refrain from any Predator strikes against that specific training camp for a two month period, the CIA was happy to comply as long as they were told why. Mossad was happy to inform them that a unit of Sayeret Matkal was conducting an intelligence gathering operation around the camp and that anything of value would be shared with the Americans. The CIA analysts were highly impressed that they could find no trace of the Sayeret Matkal operatives in Pakistan – the legend of Israeli special operations growing on the basis of sleight of hand.

Five months later, Abu Muhjid was operating inside the
Anbar Province of Iraq and making a name for himself as a planner of effective operations against the American occupation forces. When the pressure became too great, he would slip into Syria, where he found a safe haven and developed contacts. The value of Archer to Mossad was growing by the month.