By: Pritam Sarbabidya

The recent calculated action against Hezbollah operating across Lebanon, involving the application of explosive-laden pagers and other electronic devices, has brought out one of the world’s most daring intelligence agency back in the headlines over again. Mossad, Israel’s national intelligence agency, has been regarded as one of the most formidable and secretive intelligence agencies in the world. Its prominence has increased significantly over the decades on the strength of its successful espionage operations, covert potency, and considerable counter-terrorism tactics. Its time for a flashback of the story of Israel’s elite spy agency.

West Asia, which has been a relatively unstable region for years, the existence of Mossad has been worthy of attention for its bold and secretive missions. The source of Mossad, can easily be traced back to the ‘Haganah’, or the pre-state Zionist paramilitary organisation operated in the British mandate for Palestine. Haganah, was formed back in the year 1920, with the objective of defending the Yishuv’s presence in the region.

Mossad as an intelligence agency officially established on December 13, 1949, under the name “Institute for Coordination” by then Prime Minister of Israel, David Ben-Gurion, keeping in mind the need for a sophisticated intelligence apparatus for ensuring the security interests of Israel, a country residing in a conflicting geographical location. Back in the year, 1951, it was restructured and given its current name, “HaMossad leModi’in uleTafkidim Meyuchadim” which can be translated as ‘The Institute for Intelligence and Special Operations’, commonly known as Mossad.

The first notable victory came in the year, 1960, when the agents of the agency captured Adolf Eichmann, a high-ranking Nazi official accused of having a role in the holocaust. The Israeli intelligence agency’s operatives with its planned and calculated moves tracked him down, and brought him to Israel, later where he was executed after trails. Subsequently, after few years, the Summer Olympics of 1972, organised in Munich, West Germany shocked the entire world, with the terrorist attack carried out on 11 Israeli athletes by eight members of the Palestinian militant organisation ‘Black September’. What followed next was a hard retaliation by the Israeli forces with members of Mossad and the Israeli Defense Force (IDF), who spent years tracking down, and killing those suspected of planning or participating in the massacre.

In the year, 1996, Yahya Ayyash, a Hamas bomb maker, who was famously identified as ‘The Engineer’ was killed in the Gaza Strip, using a cellular device that had explosives within it. Later on, in the year 2004, Syria blamed Mossad for the death of a senior member of the military wing of Hamas, Izz El-Deen Sobhi Sheikh Khalil. It was later discovered that he was killed by setting up an automobile booby trap. There are few more notable operations carried out by Mossad over the years, some of which even inspired filmmakers worldwide, bringing these operations to the screen. Operation Entebbe (1976), Operation Orchard (2007), in which Israeli Air Force jets destroyed a Syrian nuclear reactor that was under construction, or the 2018 event in which Mossad agents carried out theft of documents related to Iranian nuclear secrets from a warehouse in Tehran, are few that have made headlines.

What sets Mossad apart from other intelligence agencies is its willingness to take calculated risks and operate beyond the confines of traditional espionage. Mossad’s emphasis on human intelligence (HUMINT), signal intelligence (SIGNIT) and its extensive network of assets worldwide give it a unique advantage in gathering actionable intelligence. Also, it doesn’t just rely upon single-thread of information, instead they plan for multiple routes like tapping of phones, messaging devices, adversary’s communication channels, manipulations, etc. On the front of tactics, its mainly relies on tactical methods like ‘strategic navigation’, ‘escape and evasions’, surveillance, ‘counter-surveillance’ and so on that have also inspired the working of other such agencies around the world.

Over the years, Mossad has developed an excellent profile in neutralising threats to national security. Its operations have scaled across borders, often carried out deep inside enemy’s safe heavens. However, the deadliest attack of October 7, 2023 on Israel, in which few thousand militants breached the Gaza-Israel barrier, followed by brutal attacks on Israeli citizens, and military bases. After this attack, various strategic thinkers and experts around the world, questioned “Whether Israel’s intelligence agency issued warnings of such attacks?”, Emily Harding, an intelligence security expert made a significant statement “An intelligence failure is like a plane crash: it is never just one thing that goes wrong, it is instead a series of things that add up to a disaster.” Many also argued that, how can such a specialised agency mishear security inputs?

However, to elucidate the working of an intelligence agency is often challenging due to its secretive way of working, sometime things may not go well calculated, yet there are instances where they outperformed in securing the interest of the country. For instance, in a span of two days, waves of explosions erupted across Lebanon targeting members of Hezbollah. Though, Israeli officials have not commented on the blasts, but security sources across the globe, believes that Israel’s spy agency Mossad is behind the attacks. One Hezbollah official said ‘the episode was the biggest security breach in the group’s history’. The psychological impact of this attacks may lead to a pervasive sense of paranoia within the organisation.

This operation also signals a prominent shift in Mossad’s focus on cyber and electronic warfare. In an information age, where the entire world is connected through electronic networks, digital communication, employing such tactics as an approach to track down adversaries, hindering their operational capabilities, ability to coordinate attacks, proves their constructed way of carrying out major operations.

The operation against Hezbollah is the perfect example of its continued relevance and adaptability. Operating within a playing field that is equally complex and unstable. Mossad continues to be one of the most needed entities in a country like Israel for security preservation. With years of experience in daring missions and the creativity to come up with solutions in most circumstances, the organization remains at the top of the list of world’s finest intelligence agencies.