CHAPTER 41
Tehran
After they arrived in Tehran, Ari and Sarah, posing as Kazakh tourists, would stroll to the retail area near their hotel and observe who was walking on the street or in parked and moving vehicles. At one point, Sarah gave Ari’s arm an imperceptible tug and drew his attention across the street from where they were walking. There was a dark green, older Mercedes 190 diesel four-door sedan parked with two sinister characters sitting in the front seats. Both were burly and angry-looking, with thick black beards. Ari spoke in Russian to Sarah, “I think they are the religious police, waiting to pounce on some unfortunate women and men who are not dressed or bearded to their satisfaction.”
Sarah shuddered and pulled her head covering more tightly around her head. The religious police were mostly radical Islamists, brutal in their enforcement of religious protocols, regardless of who the women were. Ari was glad he and the other male team members had let their beards grow. The thugs usually enforced rules using vicious punishment in the form of beatings in the street on anyone who disobeyed their religious laws.
Sarah put on a good act, laughing in a demure way and steering Ari up to the second level of the retail complex. They purchased some souvenirs and sampled offerings from various food stalls.
Ari froze as one of the thugs exited the Mercedes, came into the centre, and took the escalator up to the second level. Had they been targeted?
Again, Ari spoke in Russian. “Sarah, if he confronts either of us, be prepared to incapacitate him.”
Sarah nodded, but then asked, “Why?”
“Because he will make a loud scene and attract other security, which will be very bad for us. Silence him if he confronts us!”
For Sarah this was easy; she was skilled Krav Maga. Within a few minutes, they relaxed. Religious Thug One had just come into the centre to use the men’s room. Ari relaxed a bit when he realized they would not be interrogated after all. Instead the enemy operator stopped at a stall and bought some food for himself and his partner, then exited and returned to the Mercedes.
Ari and Sarah continued their tourist sightseeing routine for another hour. They strolled in and out of various stores in the complex, lingering over women’s fashions and in some cases with Sarah trying on a coat or shoes. All the time, Ari was maintaining a close watch to see if they were under any kind of surveillance by the secret police or militia. There was none, so finally, they exited the mall and returned to their hotel.
The teams sent out couples during the day and evening to conduct surveillance, then reported back that the trucks were of no special interest to anyone. Macha’s special friends had been routinely parking the trucks there ever since the plan was conceived. The weapons were hidden under boxes of nuts and dates set for delivery to local stores and markets. A closer examination of the trucks would have shown that they were cleverly disguised and armoured with thick, heavy plate steel that would protect the occupants from small arms and mortar fire. They also had a heavily reinforced front end that would drive straight through the IRG and Basij compound gates and fortifications. Essentially, they were tanks without tracks. The trucks were driven by Mossad and Iranian opposition operatives across the border at Astara. This crossing was unique in that Astara, Azerbaijan and Astara, Iran are one town with a border separating the two parts. It is relatively relaxed and the guards on both sides are easily bribed to look the other way.
Once in Iran, the trucks were slowly driven to Tehran and Qom, where they were parked awaiting the teams from Israel. This part of the operation was the one with the most risk; Ari and Macha had decided that the Iranian opposition members were going to have to be relied on. They had agreed that this was the only way to get the teams and their equipment into Iran undetected. They had studied the disastrous American Desert One operations of 1980, when US Special Forces under Commander Colonel Beckwith had flown into Iran to free fifty-two American hostages being held at the US Embassy in Tehran. Unfortunately, they had been compromised by poor intelligence and bad weather.
CHAPTER 42
Tehran
Ari expected the “go” signal from Macha at 0001 hours. At 2200 hours, with the trucks having remained undetected and undisturbed, the teams quietly made their way to the warehouse and prepared for their mission. They commenced by putting on their battle dress and checking all of their weapons. The weapons chosen by all the teams were HK suppressed machine pistols with magazines of thirty high-velocity rounds, Glock 17 silenced automatic handguns, and a uniquely Israeli weapon known affectionately as the “Shaveh-ka” or Equalizer.
During the Gaza wars and various incursions into Lebanon, one of the deadliest weapons used by Hamas and Hezbollah terrorists with devastating results was the rocket-propelled grenade (RPG) launcher. Israeli munitions experts had created the Shaveh-ka, a stealth technology radar-driven deflector, which identified an RPG as soon as it launched from its tube. Each team member wore a ceramic breast and back plate, inside of which was a saucer-shaped disk powered by two AA rechargeable lithium batteries. When activated, the radar waves would lock on to incoming RPGs and a high intensity laser beam would fix the warhead to explode the munition instantly, literally as it left the launch tube. The intent was to explode the warhead well before it reached its target and if possible, eliminate the shooter.
Each team member, in addition to their HK suppressed weapon, also carried a piano-wire garrote; a two-sided, serrated black-bladed commando combat knife — again a uniquely Israeli weapon; four flash bang grenades; two smoke grenades; and two half-kilo blocks of Semtex and pencil fuses.
CHAPTER 43
Qom, the same day
Dov’s teams were staying in third-class hotels that were well known in the young traveller communities from Eastern Europe and Turkey. His four teams, totalling eighty combatants, had arrived in Qom over a period of several days from Sofia, Bulgaria, and Astana, Kazakhstan, posing as Kazakhs and Bulgarians. Macha’s special friends had driven what outwardly appeared to be beat-up old farm trucks from Astara to a service area a few hundred metres from the hotel.
As in Tehran, they attracted no attention, since they had been there off and on for several days. The teams’ weapons and battle uniforms were hidden in false compartments in the beds of the trucks. Earlier that day, the trucks had been driven to an abandoned industrial plant warehouse and the teams had made their way there during the afternoon and evening. As had Ari’s teams, they dressed in their uniforms with Equalizer protectors and checked all their weapons.
While transporting via public transit or taxis to the area where the trucks had been stored, one pair of team members had a narrow escape. Sergeant Yoni Nuss and Trooper Yigal Teichman had been dropped off by taxi a few hundred metres from the warehouse. They were walking diffidently toward the entrance to the industrial plant when Teichman stepped in some dog shit. Involuntarily, he let out an expletive in Hebrew just as a group of militia men were walking by. The leader of the Iranian patrol quickly halted his group.
“Did you hear what that young guy over there said?”
One of the other militia men replied, “No, what did he say?”
“To me it didn’t sound like Arabic or Farsi, but maybe Hebrew — too guttural.”
Speaking to his colleagues in Farsi, he said, “Let’s check them out. They look like two pieces of tourist shit from Turkey or Romania.”
Switching to English, he shouted at Yigal, “Hey you, asshole! Yes, you, cleaning the dog shit off your boot. Get over here.”
Private Teichman, his heart pounding, slowly walked over to the Iranian militia men. As he came within six feet of them, two circled behind and grabbed his arms while the leader — large, and muscular — demanded Yigal’s ID papers. Yoni Nuss maintained a careful eye on his teammate, but since they were not carrying any concealed weapons, he was powerless to intervene. Yigal handed over his ID papers, verifying him as a Bulgarian student on a tourist visa. Big Muscles examined them and then punched him in the stomac
h.
“That’s for being a fucking idiot, stepping in dog shit! When you did that you swore. What language was that?”
Teichman looked up, gasping for breath and explained in deliberately feigned poor English, “German, German! My father was German, and he was always swearing in German. I picked up his bad habits.”
The thuggish militia man held his gaze on Yigal for what seemed an eternity, and then with a hard shove, shouted in his face, “Watch out, you useless fucking unbeliever. Take your dog shit and get out of our sight. We don’t look kindly on your lazy asses traipsing around our country, looking down your snot noses at us. Now git, you piece of infidel shit!”
Yoni Nuss heaved a silent sigh of relief as Teichman quickly crossed the street and then continued to clean off his boot with leaves and grass he found in a mini park nearby.
“That was close.” The four militia men continued to observe Yoni and Yigal, and for a moment, Yoni was sure they were going to summon them again, but just then, Big Muscles’s collar-attached radio squawked. By his body language, Yoni and Yigal concluded they had been summoned to a more important assignment. The quartet hurriedly rounded the corner and moments later, the two Israelis saw them drive away in a 4x4 truck.
According to protocol, they continued past the plant and hailed another taxi to take them to a subway station. There, they boarded a bus that eventually stopped across from the plant, which was next to a wholesale fruit and produce market. After wandering through the market, Yigal and Yoni quickly slipped through the gates of the industrial plant and joined their comrades.
At 0001hrs, Macha and the IDF command leadership sent the “Go” signal to an AWACS plane circling the Caspian Sea. Dov and Ari received clearance via the AWACS to commence the mission, and Operation Begin was given the green light. There was no turning back. Ari’s call sign was Macha 1 and Dov’s, Macha 2.
CHAPTER 44
Bandar Abbas, 0300 hrs
IDF Navy special forces Captain Levi Einhorn and his complement of demolition sailors were carried by the Israeli Navy’s submarine Tekumah (Revival), commanded by Rav Seren (Captain) Saul Issa. They were taken to an insertion point 3.2 kilometres from Bandar Abbas. As they had determined in training at Haifa, this was as close as the submarine could safely go undetected.
Captain Issa slowly brought the Tekumah up to hover 35 feet just below the surface as they had practised. The Tekumah had been sitting on the bottom of the Persian Gulf across from Bandar Abbas for eighteen hours. So far, he had avoided sonar detection from any surface patrols. The Israelis were aware that the Iranian Guards had sonar on some of their surface patrol craft, but their greater fear was if the Guards had deployed any submarines into the area across from Banda Abbas. This was a delicate and precarious part of the operation. It was imperative that the submarine not be detected this close to shore, so they had to creep in at a speed of less than two knots to avoid leaving an underwater wake that may have been spotted from the surface or air.
The waters were shallow at this part of the Gulf, less than 240 feet deep. After Captains Issa and Einhorn verified the signal to deploy and confirmed their coordinates yet again, Issa clutched Einhorn’s left shoulder and gripped his right hand. “Einhorn, my orders were to get you here safely on target. My direct orders to you are to return safely with all your men. Israel needs you. Be'ezrat Hashem (with God’s help).”
With that exhortation, Levi Einhorn and his men, watched apprehensively by some of the submarine’s crew, silently exited through the escape hatch and corralled their three electric-powered Zodiacs. The powerful electric motors had been stored in waterproof containers inside the Zodiacs, along with weapons and explosives. Once they surfaced, the commandos had to remove the containers, install the motors to the sterns of the Zodiacs, and check the weapons and the explosives. They had practised this in training countless times and achieved a 100% success rate in deploying the cargo. Each craft held ten highly trained naval commandos who, under the cover of darkness, silently motored toward their objective, Bandar Abbas harbour. Their mission was to destroy the oil containers in and around the harbour as well as to knock out the Iranian naval installations and communications centre.
They arrived undetected and secured and hid their Zodiacs under the wharves. Then they clung to the pilings around the wharves of the naval base awaiting the final “go” signal. Captain Einhorn quietly checked in with IDF command headquarters via the second high-altitude AWACS aircraft circling over the Red Sea. His arrival status was passed on immediately to Ari and Dov, who were awaiting word from 9 that Major Benyamin Avigold, who led the team that was tasked with capturing General Suleiman in Lebanon, was in place and ready. At 0012 hours, Ari, Dov, Sarah, Captain Einhorn, and Major Avigold received the signal to go.
Captain Einhorn and his three teams forming the naval force silently climbed up on to the dockside. Each had been outfitted with a wetsuit which was dull grey instead of the usual black. Grey blended into backgrounds better than black at night. Once on the huge dock, two of the three teams quickly headed for the oil storage tanks located at the northern end of the maritime facility. The tanks, at least thirty of them, were enormous; each held approximately a million litres of refined oil, gasoline, diesel, and aviation fuel.
As Team Aleph, led by Senior Sergeant Moses Meyers, began their dash to the oil tanks, the leader of Bet team, Sergeant Benny Marcus, spoke into the universal comms throat microphone that communicated with all of the operators, quickly alerting him a four-man guard patrol was coming his way. Meyers and his men sank into prone positions on the broad expanse of wharf and held their breath. The new grey wetsuits earned their keep. It would be disastrous if the alarm was raised before they reached their targets.
“Bet to Aleph; four guards will be rounding the space to the east of the tanks between the first two huts in thirty seconds.”
“Aleph to Bet; Copy that.”
Working their way slowly behind the guards as they came out into the open, Moses and his men slit their throats.
Moses Meyers’ Aleph team quickly deployed to the fence surrounding the tank reservoirs. After quietly cutting through the wire fencing, the commandos made their way to the massive storage tanks while Bet team covered them.
Captain Einhorn and Gimel team were able to stay concealed. As other security guards patrolled, they left their concealment and silently eliminated them with garrotes and commando knives.
Aleph team, under Moses Myers’ direction, set timed explosive charges that would detonate in forty-five minutes at the bases of the thirty huge oil storage containers, each holding hundreds of thousands of litres of fuel — oil for the Iranian Navy, aviation fuel for the Air Force, and gasoline and diesel fuel for domestic use. The base of each tank was surrounded by an earthen berm designed to contain any leaks. This demolition was a sophisticated one that they had practised extensively in Rosh Pina.
Blowing up a tank containing diesel oil — or just plain oil — was not as simple as many would believe. Myers and his team had noted what petroleum products were in each tank and, as planned, created a small explosion that would fracture the base of the heavy tanks. This would cause them to leak onto the ground, creating a pool of oil within the containment berm surrounding the tanks. Those pools would aid the combustion when the gas and high-octane fuel tanks exploded. The heavier oil products would cook off on the ground and eventually turn the whole tank farm into a blazing inferno. It would easily take two years to repair and rebuild.
Meyers had a reputation as a fearless leader. At less than a metre and half tall (just under five feet tall), he was a legend in the IDF Navy, the go-to person for teaching and instructing in the art of unarmed elimination — whether with a garrote, knife, or Krav Maga. He was also an instructor in sabotage techniques with explosives of all kinds.
Once the guard patrols were neutralized, Einhorn and his men hurried over to the administration and communications buildings in the centre of the facility, where they set more
charges. Bet and Gimel teams forced their way into the communication centre, eliminating two sleepy guards. There they placed Semtex plastic explosive blocks in and around all the control consoles and computer banks. Captain Einhorn’s team also carried several satchel charges with them. Those they had brought along in the event they saw other targets of opportunity.
Incredibly, none of guards had been able to alert the Iranian sailors and IRG contingents who were still sleeping in their barracks, such was the speed and expertise of the Israeli commando teams. The explosive charges were timed to coincide with the charges set on the tanks earlier. The charges were set in and around the buildings housing the radio communications of the Iranian Navy. Once the explosions began, the anticipation was that disarray and panic would overwhelm the Iranian guards and their Navy counterparts would be unmanageable for at least two hours, thus allowing the three boat teams to exit unseen.
As quietly as they had landed on the docks, they carefully worked their way back to the water and the pilings. There they boarded their Zodiacs and prepared to slip out of the harbour. As they were passing the end of the furthermost jetty, Moses Meyer identified two targets — the Russian built Kilo class submarine Yunes and the newly launched destroyer Persian Gulf. After a brief consult, Captain Einhorn ordered Aleph and Bet teams to continue to the evacuation submarine. Einhorn then detoured toward the moored craft and deployed four satchel charges just at the waterline on the sides of the two vessels. Then he sped away just as some lookouts on the destroyer sounded the alarm.
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