The End of Terror

by Howitt, Bruce

  The ELINT aircraft pioneered the Israeli use of the electronic warfare techniques being developed by the IAF. These were able to take over control of Syrian air defence systems, providing false feeds during the period of time the Israeli jets were in Syrian airspace.

  Since the early part of the 21st century, Israeli military and security forces were convinced that the Iranians and North Koreans were marching in lockstep to develop nuclear weapons. Iran had the funds and advanced engineering capabilities to build large banks of centrifuges. North Korea had vast supplies of uranium yellowcake that could be refined into plutonium. They also had other fissile materials required for nuclear weapons and significant knowledge and expertise in missile development and manufacturing. This they had acquired from close ties with Russian scientists who were looking to continue their work and be paid. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, many scientists had been eking out a living by offering themselves to the highest bidder. Once Iran and North Korea were made aware of their value, they hired the Russians and they became a key element in the accelerated programs of both countries.

  The whole upper echelon at 9 — Macha, Ari, Major Dov Horowitz, Sayeret Matkal, plus Defense Minister Melnik and Col. Naftalin of the Mossad — were convinced that the two rogue countries were working closely together. Iran was regarded by most countries around the world as the leader and source of funds for major terrorist entities in the world: Hezbollah, Boko Haram, Hamas, Al-Shaheeb, and the Muslim Brotherhood. Once they had begun to conceive a plan to remove the Iranian nuclear threat, the conclusion was made that the other half of the terror axis would also have to be destroyed.

  North Korea had for many years been terrorizing nations in the southern hemisphere and carried out some notoriously deadly strikes against South Korea, Japan, Australia, Malaysia, and Vietnam. Many were not recorded in Western Eurocentric media, yet they were a message sent by the Kim dynasty that they had worldwide reach and were willing to settle scores at any time and any place.

  After prolonged debates and much heated discussion, it was determined that Israel would attempt to take out both the Iranian and North Korean threats, since the sclerotic and impotent governments of the EU and the US seemed incapable of making tough decisions. They only appeared to care about their re-elections, regardless of national security and the destabilizing force of a nuclear Iran, Syria, or North Korea.

  In making the decision, the Prime Minister and Defense Minister were overwhelmed with the enormity of the task. There was no room for failure. The two combined operations would have to be like no other in the history of modern warfare. To lose would be catastrophic.

  Sitting in the prime minister’s living room, Gershon Mendelsohn and his friend, Defense Minister Yaakov Melnick, wondered aloud if they were making a tragic mistake. They spent hours discussing pros and cons until, finally, Prime Minister Mendelsohn made the fateful determination. “Yaakov, if we don’t take any preemptive action, these two terror nations will try to destroy us. Everyone has heard them promise to destroy the State of Israel — and every Jews in the world — over and over. And no one will care. Anti-Semitism is rising all over Europe once again. Even supposed friends and allies will wring their hands but do nothing. If that bastard Corbyn, the British Labour leader, ever becomes PM, there will be a wave of open and rabid anti-Semitic attacks across the UK. He is playing to the Islamists that are gaining ground all over Britain. Make no mistake, the Islamists that have occupied the towns and hold a strong presence in Corbyn’s party will ensure that. The UK will abandon us; so will the French, for the same reason. Politicians will cave to the Islamists because they are scared of them. With that prick in the White House lying and deceiving everyone including himself, we probably will not get any help from the US. Yaakov, we will be on our own again.”

  “Gershon, please, not so much drama. I understand your feelings, but we must be cautious in our decision-making.”

  “Yaakov!” shouted Gershon Mendelsohn at his friend, “I have decided! We will give the green light to Macha and 9 and Naftalin’s Mossad. If we fail, all that we have done is hasten our own demise. We must be successful; we will surprise the world and possibly ourselves.”

  On that note, the meeting ended and Minister Melnick left to go home for what was probably his last night of uninterrupted sleep for many weeks. The next morning, he called Macha and Eli Naftalin to his offices and the wheels began to turn.

  CHAPTER 31

  Rosh Pinah, September 2015

  Dov was promoted to colonel in the Sayeret and Ari was reappointed to an active commission as a colonel in the IDF; they began the task of strategizing and implementing their plan.

  During their intelligence-gathering, Ari had uncovered the fact that his unexpected run-in in Vienna with Al-Baghdadi and his companions had a direct influence on the mission. The Islamic Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) leadership, under the direction of General Hussein Soleimani, had recruited Al-Baghdadi to begin a Hezbollah-executed reign of terror in Europe and the United States. Answering to the Quds Force and Soleimani, they would spread out across the planet, attacking soft but strategic targets. They had already been successful in Khobar, Saudi Arabia, where Hezbollah under Iranian command attacked the US Air Force barracks.

  After Kim Jong-un, General Soleimani was possibly the most dangerous man in the world. He commanded the overseas operations of the Quds Force and was the second most senior commander for all the IRGC. He was also fabulously wealthy because he was skimming a percentage of all revenues generated by arms sales to Hezbollah, Hamas, and others; plus, he garnered illicit funds from many businesses and companies controlled by the Guards in Iran. Moreover, he was known to be the kingpin in Hezbollah drug enterprises and maintained close ties to the South American and Mexican cartels.

  US authorities began to investigate as a result of information passed to them by Mossad. They planned a major assault on Hezbollah’s worldwide operations in armament smuggling, money laundering, and drug running. Assigned the code name Project Cassandra, various US agencies including the CIA and DEA assisted by the FBI and Special Forces, planned a massive interdiction of Hezbollah’s worldwide terror support activities. They hoped to bring Soleimani and his network down, and expose Iran and Hezbollah for what they were — murderers.

  Tragically, because of the obsession of the US president and secretary of state with securing the Iran nuclear deal, the investigations were shut down because of a direct request from Iran’s foreign minister to the secretary of state to back off. This demand was a core condition of achieving the nuclear deal to which the administration acceded.

  Al-Baghdadi’s demise at the hands of Ari and his French pals had significantly, almost as an act from heaven, derailed these plans. Al-Baghdadi was the leader and his shortened time on earth had caused a pause in the IRGC’s plans.

  Led by General Hussein Soleimani, who was stationed with Hezbollah in Lebanon and Syria, Abu-Baghdadi and the IRGC had been planning a series of spectacular and devastating raids on northern Israel and Jewish institutions in England and the United States. It was only after planning began that Israel and the IDF learned how fortunate the timing of Abu’s assassination in Vienna had been. Soleimani was thrown off balance when Ari and his French colleagues removed the key leader of his operational proxies.

  The Mossad and 9 picked up multiple clues and general chatter that Soleimani was insane with anger and wanted immediate revenge. Two of his targets were the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge. President Rouhani and his foreign minister placed heavy restraints on the general that any attacks on the Royals were off limits and made it clear that no attacks on any of the nuclear pact participants were to be carried out. Israel was fair game, but no other countries.

  The Israelis had had Soleimani in their sights for several years; on at least one occasion they had an assassination attempt planned and ready to go when the US president instructed his secretary of state to inform the Iranians. Once they were aware of this, the Israe
lis cancelled the plan. Prime Minister Mendelsohn had never forgiven the US president for this betrayal.

  General Soleimani, as head of the Quds Force, was the mastermind of many of Iran’s terrorist activities. His fingerprints were all over the attacks Israel suffered from Hamas, Hezbollah, and Islamic Jihad. Soleimani was a smart and audacious individual who was both feared and respected in Iran and totally feared elsewhere. His IRGC units stationed in Lebanon and Syria were training Hezbollah-armed units into a cohesive and formidable fighting force. Prior to General Soleimani’s leadership, they had been an undisciplined group of fanatical Islamists without any real sense of purpose other than to hate Jews. After being conscripted to fight on behalf of the Syrian regime of Bashar Assad, these Hezbollah irregulars had developed into a well-trained and disciplined fighting force.

  There had been several Hezbollah-led attacks on northern Israel from across the Lebanon border; and now that Suleiman had committed his forces — Iranian and Hezbollah — to combat in Assad’s Syrian Civil War, these forces of evil were now stationed near the Golan Heights on Israel’s northern border. On the Lebanese border with Israel, Hezbollah threatened the very existence of Israel with over 120,000 missiles and rockets. Soleimani was a marked man, and during their planning at 9 headquarters, Ari, Dov, and Macha had Soleimani targeted and there was a plan to take him down.

  Of even more concern was some of the anecdotal street intelligence acquired by the Israeli security agencies indicating that Soleimani was gradually pulling all the threads of the worldwide terror groups into one global organization with himself as its undisputed leader. Some reports even filtered out of Iran that the mullahs were concerned about his ruthless consolidation of power. There were fears that if he carried out a military coup, the ruthless regime of the mullahs would be overturned and replaced by an even more fanatical one-man rule with hegemonic designs on all of the Middle East, Afghanistan, Iraq, and North Africa in an attempt to re-create a great Persian Empire.

  Soleimani fancied himself as a modern-day Darius who would govern this great empire, which until 2,344 years ago was the dominant power in the known world, until Alexander the Great defeated Darius at the Battle of Gaugamela in 331 BCE. Soleimani wanted the Persian Empire back, and the nuclear program was vital to his plans. He was adamant with his masters in Tehran that Iran must have a credible nuclear weapon. He had contemplated many times using such a weapon on Israel but was pragmatic enough to recognize that the collateral damage to Israel’s neighbours would be too great. His plan was to acquire the means to build and deliver several nuclear weapons simultaneously. He would then unleash a three-front war against Israel. Hamas would invade from Gaza in the South, launching terror attacks from Judea and Samaria; Hezbollah and Iranian troops would invade from Lebanon and Syria; and Iraqi and Iranian troops would invade from the east through Jordan.

  The Iran nuclear threat would be levelled at any European or NATO countries that might contemplate going to aid Israel. As far as the United States was concerned, he planned to initiate spectacular terror attacks carried out by the many Hezbollah sleeper cells he had infiltrated into the continent. He had little or no concern for collateral damage in infidel countries. He would deliver a direct message to the American and Canadian governments that any interference with the Iranian attack on Israel would be met with unprecedented retaliation — now with nuclear weapons. He calculated that in light of this news, none of Israel’s allies would lift a finger to repel the Iranian invasions.

  Macha and Naftalin set the capture or elimination of Soleimani as one of the operation’s top priorities. There was no question that his removal from the control of the terror networks would severely curtail their activities and above all, derail his maniacal plans.

  CHAPTER 32

  Training Rosh Pina and Port of Haifa

  A secret training facility was set up for the missions at the Rosh Pina military air base in central Israel.

  On this day, there were some 450 men and women assembled from all the Israeli Special Forces outfits: Navy underwater demolition experts, paratroopers, deep penetration Sayeret, and female commandos — elite practitioners of the fearsome martial art of Krav Maga. There were IAF helicopter, fighter, gunship, transport and tanker pilots.

  For the Mossad operation against the North Korean nuclear facilities, four teams of twenty special forces soldiers consisted solely of second- and third-generation Vietnamese Chinese whose parents had been admitted to Israel as refugees during June 1977. Many of their parents had fled the repressive Communist regime of Vietnam because, as ethnic Chinese, they were deemed second-class citizens. They had embarked on unseaworthy fishing boats chartered to them by unscrupulous captains. Once on the China seas, they were subjected to attacks by pirates and many of the boats sank with no survivors. Some experienced vicious attacks and barely managed to survive. Many attempted to gain entry to Hong Kong and other South Asian ports but were turned away. Two such craft had been refused by the British authorities in Hong Kong and denied landing in Taiwan. A passing Israeli Zim container ship rescued them from almost certain death by drowning as their boats were on the verge of capsizing. After attempting to disembark them in Hong Kong, the victims were once again refused. The Zim vessel was instructed by the Israeli government to “bring them home.” Once in Israel, the government offered the desperate souls asylum and, eventually, citizenship. As citizens of Israel, they completed their service in the IDF and some had continued in the Sayeret Matkal, where they were recognized as being some of the detachment’s fiercest and most proficient warriors.

  For the current operation, South Korean US Navy Seal–trained special forces teams joined the training at Rosh Pina. Now they were going to be deployed into North Korea. Their objectives were the nuclear plants and underground missile factories as well as the capture and dismantling of the Kim dynasty.

  In the meantime, the Mossad had already run several clandestine operations inside North Korea. Several years prior, Mossad agents had entered North Korea and derailed a train that was carrying vital Iranian nuclear material from the Musudan-ri missile facility. Their agents had learned of a cargo ship that was going to be loaded with sophisticated missiles and armaments in a North Korean port with a final destination in the Sudan. From Sudan, the cargo would be smuggled into Gaza. Once the freighter left the North Korean port, it was shadowed by Mossad and Israeli Navy assets until it entered the Red Sea. Israeli and US Navy forces stopped and boarded the ship and uncovered a huge cache of missiles, arms, and ammunition that would have been unloaded at a Sudanese port and then destined for Hamas and ISIS.

  CHAPTER 33

  Jerusalem

  Seated in the prime minister’s office, Dov, Ari, and Col. Naftalin presented their plans while Macha observed like a proud father. The Defense Minister had briefed the prime minister about both Ari and Dov, in particular Dov’s mission in Tehran and Ari’s recent success in Vienna. Dov detailed their plan for over an hour. When he completed his presentation, Eli Naftalin laid out the intended Mossad operation in North Korea. The Israeli Vietnamese Chinese citizens who had been recruited from the military into the Mossad would infiltrate into North Korea posing as Chinese scientists and observers. After the groups’ training at Rosh Pina, they would be deployed into North Korea along with the Mossad teams.

  The Iranian operation ground force was divided into eight twenty-person teams under the direct command of Ari and Dov, and seven six-person Sayeryet deep penetration teams. The Navy and Air Force groups were assigned special targets and objectives. A ninth special forces team was to specifically target and, if possible, capture General Soleimani in Lebanon.

  The Mossad teams were stationed at Rosh Pina at the commencement of their training, but after a short period they were dispatched to practice in the inhospitable mountains of northern Greece. Since their objectives and strategies were different and separate from those of Ari and Dov, it was determined that exposure to the harsh conditions of the Greek terrain wou
ld be essential to their training, as it was similar to the landscape and climate of North Korea.

  The prime minister, as was his wont, sat as still as a sphinx and listened while his hooded eagle-like eyes bore into Eli, Ari, and Dov. Minister Melnik occasionally interrupted to ask for clarification on a specific point. Once they were finished, the Prime Minister and Defense Minister quietly thanked the two men from 9 and Naftalin from Mossad. They were dismissed.

  Prime Minister Mendelsohn sat at his desk in deep thought for several minutes, then turned to his Defense Minister and said, “Yaakov, those brave young men have conceived of a very daring plan that I believe will put a stop to this Iranian–North Korean nexus of terror and bombs. We must keep this strictly covert and absolutely we cannot share it with the Americans.”

  Minister Melnik looked askance at his boss and friend, “Gershon, don’t you think we need to gain the support of the US?”

  “My dear Yaakov, the last time we consulted with the US when we planned to bomb the nuclear plants, the president went ballistic and applied so much pressure we had to cancel. It will not happen again. I don’t trust the US president, nor do I trust his secretary of state. The president will as always stay high and mighty, but the secretary will tip off all the people we don’t want to know. For sure the Turks and the Russians will get wind of our plan and then so will the Iranians.”

  Melnik appraised his friend and saw in his eyes an anger and resolve he had never seen before.

  “All right, Gershon. We’ll do it your way. You realize if we don’t succeed, the US will be a very angry ally, and even if those three young men do pull it off and successfully eliminate the Iranian and North Korean nuclear facilities and destroy their terrorist leaders, the US president will still be furious on two counts. One, we didn’t advise them in advance, and two, we will have destroyed his administration’s grand plan for the Middle East. Furthermore, the US State Department will be apoplectic when they find out we have done an end run around them in North Korea. They believe that the US holds all the cards when it comes to dealing with the Kim regime.”