The End of Terror

by Howitt, Bruce

  Directing four of his men to slowly crawl under each of the armoured cars, he had them attach satchel explosives to the drive tracks and the latches of the bottom hatches. Scrambling back and away from the cars, the men made their way back to Mayer, who had deployed his small group to locations enabling them to provide cover fire in turn throughout the manoeuvre. When the explosives detonated, the Jordanian survivors who thrashed their way out of the burning cars came face-to-face with Mayer and his team. One of the Jordanian commanders attempted to draw his revolver as Mayer ran at him. Without missing a beat, Mayer wrapped his huge arms around the Jordanian’s torso and threw him to the ground. He then grabbed the man’s neck and broke it in one swift, powerful twist.

  The other occupants who escaped the two burning vehicles tried to surrender to the formerly beleaguered Israelis, but once they saw the armoured cars neutralized, they killed all the Arab soldiers who tried to run away. As the day’s fighting continued, the story of the Eimlaq’s brutality reverberated among the troops, and more importantly, among the Jordanians. They were terrified to confront any Israeli posts where he was rumoured to be. Their British-trained officers, try as they might, could not exhort the infantry to advance or engage the Jewish forces, so frightening was Eimlaq’s reputation.

  CHAPTER 22

  Once the War of Independence was over, Mayer and Ruth settled into a normal life. Mayer stayed on as a training officer in the burgeoning IDF; and he and Ruth were able to live in Tel Aviv in a nice apartment close to the beach. Ruth, whose education had been in economics before WWII, decided that she could start a home-based business to supplement Mayer’s military income. She had met some other survivors and realized that they shared an impressive combined talent base. She started a small company buying art from some of her new artist friends. Through her social connections, she began advertising the art in Jewish publications around the Diaspora, and soon she was receiving orders from as far away as Canada, the United States, Australia, and South Africa.

  Mayer and Ruth had two sons and a daughter: Avraham, Max, and Sarah. Avraham grew up and became a career army officer in the IDF logistics division. His brother, Max, moved to the United States after marrying an American girl, Gail Abrahams, whom he had met while she was at Bar-Ilan University on a year exchange program.

  Sarah, Mayer and Ruth’s third child and only daughter, married an Australian who had been on an Ulpan. They met at a social gathering in Haifa. She and her husband, David Greenfeld, now lived in Melbourne, where they ran a successful national chain of electronics stores.

  In 1980, Avraham married his childhood sweetheart, Rivka Solomon, much to the delight of Mayer and Ruth. Dov was born in 1981 and grew up to be a huge man just like his grandfather. When he completed high school and two years studying engineering at Technion, he was accepted at Ohio State in the United States, courtesy of his uncle Max’s connections and, needless to say, the donations Max made to the school. There Dov studied a variety of engineering and science programs, and during his time at Ohio State he completed his bachelor of mechanical engineering degree while playing fullback for the college football team. He gained a sterling reputation as a hardnosed player and was scouted by several NFL clubs.

  Two years after graduation, Dov returned to Israel and immediately signed up with the IDF, where on completion of his basic training he was assigned to the Sayeret Matkal commandos. Because of his leadership skills and direct, no-nonsense style, he quickly rose through the ranks to a senior command position. He also came to the attention of 9, and Macha had on several occasions reached out to Major Horowitz and his Sayeret command when reinforcements were required for 9 operations.

  CHAPTER 23

  Tehran, July 7, 2011

  Dov Horowitz arrived at Tehran’s international airport from Germany. His papers and passport described him as Stefan Reisloh, a metallurgical engineer working for Mettalsgeschaft GMBH, Munich. He spoke fluent German.

  Lining up at customs and immigration, he stood out because of his size and bearing. He had let his dark curly hair grow, and his casual clothes — expensive jeans and an Italian leather jacket — helped him portray a successful sales executive.

  The immigration officer — a slight, bearded, surly Iranian with an officious attitude — questioned Dov about his intended stay.

  “How many days do you plan on being in the Islamic Republic, Herr Reisloh?”

  “My return ticket calls for me to leave in five days.”

  “Why five days?”

  “I have two full days of appointments starting tomorrow morning, and I need to leave some time for follow-up meetings.”

  The bureaucratic little Iranian appraised Dov up and down for several seconds, then waved him through.

  As soon as Dov exited the customs and immigration hall, the officer gave a sign to a secret service VEVAK agent who was standing off to one side of the booths. Dov had been identified as a person of interest.

  Once he left the terminal building, he waited in line for a taxi to take him to the Hotel Homa in Tehran, aware that the immigration officer had alerted VEVAK. Dov was sure they now had him under surveillance. Any Iranian background check on his company would find him listed at the company’s offices in Munich. Any calls to him would be received and a message taken by a youthful and vibrant receptionist. He was in Iran to develop high tensile steel sales and also evaluating opportunities for a new aluminum casting division his company had just purchased. His cover story rang true and any effort by the VEVAK to verify his credentials would prove him to be who he said he was. Even if they tailed him, they would only find him visiting bona fide clients.

  Dov spent two days making calls on potential clients in Tehran. Each evening, he went back to the Homa Hotel. Three days after he arrived, two more German businessmen, from Siemens and Deutsche Bank, checked into the same hotel. Ulrich Meinster and Andreas Goetke were, in reality, fellow Sayeret Matkal operatives. Meinster was Uri Golman and Goetke was Avi Schiff. Golman and Schiff were veterans of the Yom Kippur War and of several highly classified Sayeryet operations in the Middle East. The three German businessmen met casually over breakfast on two occasions and one evening they met in the coffee bar of the hotel.

  Dov had rented a Toyota Land Cruiser and Uri was using taxis. Avi had rented a small Mercedes B series. During the day, each of them would pass by, at different times, the home of Darioush Rezaeinejad, a senior Iranian nuclear scientist believed to be a key player in the development of Iran’s nuclear bomb. Macha had coordinated with the Mossad and they sent three agents posing as Greek businessmen to Tehran two days after Dov’s arrival. They deliberately gave the Iranians some cause for suspicion and then split up in three different directions, checking out municipal infrastructure and construction. This they did in a calculated, clumsy fashion to draw surveillance on to them and away from Dov and his business colleagues, careful not to give the Iranians any warning signs to apprehend them.

  On July 11, the operators had gathered enough information about their customer. They left their rentals in the hotel parking lot and with relative ease, liberated two motorcycles from a street near the hotel. Uri rode one bike alone as a decoy. Avi rode the second bike with Dov riding pillion. Just before 5 p.m., as Rezaeinejad arrived, Avi and Dov rode by on their bike. As Rezaeinejad exited his SUV, Dov shot him five times. The wife, who had been waiting by the gate after she walked back from visiting a neighbour, chased the attackers, but they raced away. Uri rode at high speed in the opposite direction from his two partners, so it all happened quickly and there was much confusion as to what had initially happened. There were several witnesses, including Rezaeinejad’s driver and bodyguard, but by the time they realized what had just taken place, both motorbikes had screamed out of sight, leaving a hysterical Mrs. Rezaeinejad keening over her husband’s corpse and the bodyguard talking excitedly into a cell phone. Even the few bystanders present were unable to describe the killers. The SUV driver was wandering around in shock, surprised he was s
till alive, as two of the bullets fired had narrowly missed his head before they connected with the nuclear scientist.

  During this time, the three supposed Greek businessmen were at the airport under surveillance by VEVAK and clearly could not have been implicated. Avi, Dov, and Uri rode the bikes to a quiet part of town and left them, walking to public transit and then taking separate taxis to the hotel.

  They ate dinner in their hotel rooms and watched the news reports filtering in across the country. They checked out the next morning and had the concierge arrange transportation for them on the hotel airport shuttle. They left separately, at intervals. Dov flew on Air Berlin to Munich, then back to Tel Aviv via Rome. Uri flew to Frankfurt on Lufthansa and then to Heathrow from where he took a BA flight to Tel Aviv a day later. Avi left Tehran for Madrid on Iberia and stayed in a hotel near the airport for two days then flew back to Frankfurt and on to Tel Aviv.

  CHAPTER 24

  When they were in the passenger lounges, they followed the news networks, which were giving major coverage to the assassination. The American networks were running ticker tapes exclaiming how shocked and angry the American president was that a prominent and well-respected scientist should be so brutally murdered. He was vociferously denying any involvement by the United States while secretly he was aware that the Israelis were probably responsible, and from then on, he applied enormous pressure on the Israeli government to curb any further such missions.

  At one point, the secretary of state, on orders from the president, had strongly admonished the Israeli prime minister. Some accounts of the phone discussion reported that it was extremely heated, with the PM loudly advising the secretary that it wasn’t the States being threatened with annihilation, but tiny Israel. He also told the secretary that he didn’t appreciate lectures from him or his boss.

  “Mr. Secretary, you and the sycophant bastards that run your State Department are world renowned for their vicious anti-Semitism. It’s been that way for a hundred years. We in Israel will never bow down to your distorted view of the Middle East.”

  The secretary was aghast. “Mr. Prime Minister, this is no way to conduct a diplomatic discussion. I am unable to even think about conveying this conversation to the president; he — ”

  Prime Minister Gershon Mendelsohn interrupted him, “You can convey to your boss, Mr. Secretary, that the State of Israel will never allow Jews anywhere to be threatened with annihilation, such as your fucking Iranian friends are proposing every chance they get. We will defend ourselves, up and to using physical force, to prevent that from ever happening again. Tell your boss from me, never again!” These last two words were shouted.

  Backpedalling from the verbal assault, the secretary attempted to close off the discussion. “My dear Gershon, you need to cool down and understand that these negotiations are always more successful when they are conducted in a polite and cordial fashion.”

  The PM responded, “Israel will never again allow any regime or country to threaten its citizens — or Jews anywhere — with destruction. You need to clearly understand this, Mr. Secretary. We will hunt down and eliminate all those who incite the murder of Israelis or plan or carry out terrorist attacks. Iran is on a path to build a bomb. Who do you think they intend to use it on? Eh! Who, Mr. Secretary? Fiji? We both know, as does your boss, that Israel is the target. Trust me, we will not let it happen. We will remove any participating player. That includes any North Koreans and Russians. Tell your president that if he does not like it then he had better turn up the pressure on Iran with the sanctions we both know are not working. We will not have this discussion again, Mr. Secretary. Good night.”

  Later, it would be revealed that the US president and his close advisers didn’t want their secret nuclear negotiations with Iran to be derailed. The assassination of Rezaeinejad had resulted in a series of furious phone calls and secret meetings between the US administration and the Iranians, who were essentially blackmailing the US president to have the Israelis halt the elimination program, or any negotiations around the future nuclear treaty would be abruptly cancelled.

  CHAPTER 25

  9 Headquarters, Netanya, Israel, August 2015

  Ari and Dov were seated in the basement of 9, surrounded by dozens of maps and flip charts. Their plan was now condensed into a briefing book of 52 pages. It had been given a name: Operation Begin, in recognition of the famous Begin doctrine.

  Macha introduced them to a third man, whom Ari instantly recognized; Colonel Eli Naftalin (Ret.). Naftalin was the newly appointed director of Mossad, known for being both ruthless and brilliant.

  Prior to the meeting with Eli Naftalin, Dov and Ari had proposed to Macha that if the objective were to end terror once and for all, then the North Korean threats would also have to be removed.

  Colonel Naftalin, before he was appointed head of Mossad, had already achieved an outstanding military career. He had joined the IDF immediately after graduating from Bar-Ilan University, where he had majored in Middle Eastern and Arabic studies. Naftalin was a superb linguist, fluent in Russian, Arabic, Mandarin, Farsi, and English. He had acquired these languages from an early age.

  Eli’s father, Alexander, was originally a refugee from Russia, and his mother, Nancy, was from Brisbane, Australia. Nancy’s father had been born in Taiwan. Alexander’s parents had escaped from Russia and the Shoah, landed originally in Shanghai, then moved to Taiwan ahead of the Mao-led Chinese communists.

  Alexander Naftalin subscribed to the theory that one man speaking one language was just one man, but a man who could speak six languages had the value of six men. As a result, his son, Eli, learned six different languages as soon as he was able to speak and understand. Both parents encouraged him from an early age to not only speak all six languages, but to read and write in them also. Once he was in school, he delved deeply into his studies. His real loves were and remain Chinese and English.

  On joining the IDF, Eli’s talents were quickly recognized, and he was appointed to a secret department of intelligence within the Defense Department. There he was responsible for monitoring terrorists or governments who intended to murder Israelis or destroy Israel — many of them in Iran, Syria, and Gaza. As he determined to stay on as a professional soldier within the IDF, Eli Naftalin later became responsible for planning covert missions to protect Israel.

  Before he retired in 2015, he was recognized by the prime minister for being responsible for setting up the under-the-radar relationship with Russia. Prime Minister Mendelsohn, because of Eli Naftalin’s efforts, had a close and respectful relationship with President Vladimir Putin. This was proving invaluable during the Syrian Civil War, where Russia was fighting to rescue the Assad government.

  Many people in the West were supremely critical of the friendship between Israel and President Putin. Nevertheless, both the Russians and the Israelis had ancient cultures and knew how to play the Great Game of global politics and power struggles. They easily and readily determined that for there to be any chance of stability in the Middle East, the two countries would have to work together to avoid a violent and uncontrollable conflagration which ultimately would lead to a military confrontation between NATO and the Russians. Many in the US State Department could not comprehend this.

  It was soon after this that Col. Naftalin was appointed head of the Mossad. Immediately on taking office, he purged the organization of a number of senior bureaucrats who in his evaluation were not loyal to the government. They were being political in their decision-making, failing to understand that the role of Mossad was to protect Israel from invasion and terrorism. The housecleaning was considered vicious and ruthless by the liberal Israeli press, who for a number of years had been critical of many operations taken on by Mossad. Naftalin brooked no deviation from his directive; Mossad was a secret intelligence organization and all of its operations would remain so. Those who broke ranks were immediately dismissed and he made sure that offenders were disgraced, making it impossible for them to find employmen
t of any worth following their exit.

  CHAPTER 26

  After their initial meeting, Macha convened another with Ari and Dov.

  “The PM has green-lighted our program to move ahead immediately. Col. Naftalin has also been charged with setting up a similar operation against North Korea. Mossad and the Defence Intelligence Department have a great deal of information that clearly indicates the two rogue nations of Iran and North Korea are working closely, way too closely, with each other. They are sharing technology and materials as well as exchanging personnel.”

  Ari and Dov listened intently as Macha expanded the scope of the mission. While they would be taking out the Iranian nuclear facilities and the Iranian seat of government, Col. Naftalin and the Mossad would be on a similar errand against the threat from North Korea.

  For a decade or more, the Mossad had recognized North Korea as an existential threat to not only Israel, but also the world. In the past, the Mossad had been nurturing and developing long-term surveillance and espionage plans specific to the Kim regime. The Mossad had worked in close cooperation with the South Korean Intelligence Service, NIS. The NIS had a department exclusively focused on North Korea. As the Mossad/NIS relationship developed, the two agencies shared intelligence of mutual benefit between them.

  The Mossad kept a wary eye on the many Iranians and North Koreans circulating in Germany, France, and the UK. These individuals had attempted to influence radical movements and to purchase restricted materials and equipment for missile and nuclear weapons development. Iran and North Korea furthermore had roaming assassination squads travelling around Europe who were tasked with killing dissidents and politicians who opposed their ugly regimes.