CHAPTER 69
Israeli leaders made it clear to the UN and the world that they would no longer sit by and have the radical clerics urge incitement against Jews, which called for their murder and destruction. Israel would ignore the UN calls for calm and the accusations of disproportionate responses. Any radical Islamic individual or group calling for the destruction of Israel and the Jews would be targeted for elimination by Israel regardless of where in the world they were. At first, there was abject horror and outrage from the Liberal Left, especially in the EU, Canada, the UK, and the United States. Israel ignored them, and when a well-known radical cleric engaged in incitement to murder Jews and Israelis from a pulpit in Paris, he was summarily assassinated in broad daylight by a 9 team. Another in Malaysia who committed incitement on television to murder Jews and Israelis was terminated in his bathtub by a female team from 9. This added insult to injury as the Israelis loudly publicized how he died.
Even in Washington DC, the Israelis, under the auspices of 9, led by Ari and Noah, carried out their retribution agenda on a well-known Muslim cleric, Ali Muhammad ibn Saya, who would espouse calls every week from his pulpit for the indiscriminate slaughter of Jews wherever they lived.
Ari and Noah flew into Baltimore International from Montreal on a Delta flight. They were met by a nondescript limo driver holding a sign with the name Mr. Landau written on it. With the support of the resident Mossad team attached to the Israeli Embassy, they had accommodation arranged in an Airbnb just outside Georgetown. In fact, the limo driver was a Mossad operative on the ground in DC. If the FBI and CIA had watchers on him, they would soon realize he was just an errand boy for the embassy supplementing his meagre income by moonlighting as a limo driver.
The Mr. Landau the driver was meeting would have easily been picked out on security cameras at BIA, which continuously ran facial recognition software comparisons. The software would have identified Ari as Mordechai Landau, a software engineer from Montreal and Frankfurt. If they had more than a passing interest, the FBI would have identified him as a senior development engineer working for a large multinational software company. In the interests of financial prudence, he had Netta Levi, posing as his assistant, rent an apartment on a long-term contract. This made sense, since extended stays at any of the more comfortable hotels in DC were upwards of $600 per night.
Two days after Ari and Noah arrived, two more engineers, Eli Gershon and Adam Mervish, arrived at Dulles International Airport from Milan. The Vienna team was on the ground and ready to pay some Israeli antiterror retribution on one Ali Muhammad ibn Saya.
After all the agents were settled, Ari and Noah went for a walk around Georgetown. Once they ascertained they were not under any kind of surveillance, they walked into an Avis car rental office and rented a small transit van and a Dodge Caravan minivan. Noah drove the Caravan back to the home while Ari drove across the Potomac into DC, then past the mosque several times over a one-hour period.
Returning to the house in Georgetown, the four 9 operators prepared their plans. Over the next five days, they determined that the best way to eliminate Ali Muhammad ibn Saya was to assassinate him in broad daylight, inside or outside the mosque, whichever scenario presented the best opportunity. They wanted to send a clear message. Ari advised the team that he would make one more trip into DC to check the entrances of the mosque yet again and locate the security cameras. When he returned, he called the group together.
“The mosque has a perimeter covered by at least a dozen cameras. Eli, we are going to need you to hack into those and make them inoperable for twelve hours. I don’t want the people and security in the mosque to be suspicious, so you need to disable them without it appearing to be a malfunction. Can you do that?”
“Not a problem, boss. The mosque is easy. Their system isn’t much better than a residential system from Best Buy. What are we doing about the DC cameras at the immediate intersections and subway entrances?”
“Good point. We will have to hack those as well. Are you able to handle them?”
“No, boss. I will have the IT boys at the embassy take care of those.”
Ari continued fine tuning the plan. “OK. We know ibn Saya, that bastard, will be arriving at the mosque at 1000hrs as per his regular schedule. Unless he changes his security routine, he will have an SUV in front of his armoured Jaguar and another SUV behind. Typically, there have been four security people in each of the SUVs, including the drivers. So, we will be up against at least six armed security guards and possibly two more from his Jaguar.
“We will be dressed as worshippers in keffiyehs and thobes. Each of us will carry the suppressed HK machine pistols with thirty round magazines under the thobes.”
“What if we’re stopped at the doors?” Noah questioned Ari.
“I’ve selected the side entrance, where he always has his vehicle stop, so we will not be entering the building. We will carry out the attack outside on the street, just as he alights from the car and prepares to walk into the building.” The other operators nodded in agreement.
“We know that ibn Saya will be travelling as usual in his armoured Jaguar. His security guys are reasonably professional, but they will be slow. They are very protective of him and the only real opportunity will be when he gets out of the car to enter the mosque. He always uses the side entrance, so that’s where we will set up. His driver will stay in the Jag. The bodyguard will jump out and open the rear right door for him. The muscle in the two SUVs will alight also, but our customer is very impatient. It will be that impatience that gets him killed.”
As he walks between the car and the side door, we will hose them from just outside the door. Eli, you will have the transit ready. Adam, Noah, and I will direct our first shots in controlled and deadly fire on ibn Saya. Then we’ll each take a target vehicle and spray full auto fire at the security detail. When they duck for cover, we will run for our vehicle.”
They knew that Ali Muhammad ibn Saya had a community meeting at the mosque that morning. As the convoy pulled up to the side entrance, three men, apparently humble worshippers dressed in long, flowing white thobes and keffiyehs stepped out from the entryway and devastated the imam and his guards before they had time to react. Ali ibn Saya collapsed on the spot, instantly dead from three bullets to the head.
Each of the 9 operators unloaded the remainder of their thirty-shot magazines at the three vehicles. The bodyguard from the sedan died as he was closing the door, instructing the driver to wait. The driver, who was the only survivor, was too traumatized to be of any assistance. All eight of the security detail were either dead or severely wounded.
The entire action was over within ten seconds. By the time any bystanders, of which there were few, could react, the three men took off walking fast down the side streets that surrounded the mosque. As soon as they were out of sight, they discarded their robes and headgear and quietly evacuated the area in the transit van driven by Eli.
Once again, Ari and his 9 team had eliminated a terrorist who otherwise would have continued to incite terrorist attacks against Jews. One less enemy of Israel and peace. This assassination caused tension between the United States and Israel; the Americans were convinced it was the Israelis who had engineered the hit on US soil. The US president called Prime Minister Mendelsohn to express his outrage and displeasure. But there was no proof.
After the call terminated, the US president was furious as he recounted the details of his conversation to his aides and national security advisers. “The son of a bitch knows exactly who is responsible! I want a full press on this to catch the people involved.”
Nathan Levi, the national security adviser, gently began to calm his president down, saying, “Mr. President, that imam has been inciting his flock to murder Jews for years. Our administration, like previous administrations, have turned a blind eye to his incitement. Frankly, the genuflecting that we in particular and the West in general have addressed to the destabilizing forces of terrorism is over, thanks t
o the Israeli actions in Iran and North Korea. My advice to you, sir, is go with the flow. If the Israelis are indeed responsible for the killing of the imam, so be it. Perhaps you should express your displeasure with the random shootings that take lives on the streets of Washington, DC. There were thirteen shootings with nine fatalities, besides the imam and his people, in DC in the last 24 hours. Four of those killed were under the age of fifteen.”
The president and secretary of state were not enamoured by Levi’s statement. Levi calmly continued, even though he recognized that he had earned the ire of the president. “The DC police chief informed me that besides the imam and his personal bodyguard, three of his security detail died and five others are all in serious condition. The only witness was the imam’s driver, and he described the killers as ‘Bedouin-like assassins.’ He was convinced they were Arabs from a rival sect.”
The president glared at Levi, but his sense of political survival prevailed. He knew that Levi was ultimately correct. Another, albeit famous, radical imam and four of his security detail killed on the streets of Washington, DC was not going to cause a war in the Middle East, Eastern Europe, or even the South China Seas.
CHAPTER 70
Bolivia, South America, and Jerusalem, Israel, two months later
In Bolivia, there was a radical Hezbollah branch fomenting hatred against not only Israel and the Jews, but all infidels, especially North Americans. The Hezbollah cell was now led by Hashim Safi Al Din, a cousin of Nasrallah, the former leader of Hezbollah in Lebanon. Nasrallah was on the run, believed to be hiding somewhere in Syria or Iraq. A combined Israeli and US special forces detachment was actively hunting for him to bring him to justice.
The South American Hezbollah cell had been embedded in Bolivia for over twenty-five years, slowly spreading tentacles throughout Venezuela, Peru, and Guatemala. The cell also had strong ties to the Colombian and Mexican drug cartels. The terror group, with limitless access to Iranian cash and drug cartel distribution proceeds, was feared all over South America because of their indiscriminate brutality — including against law enforcement and government members who opposed them. Safi Al Din reported directly to General Hussein Soleimani, the mastermind behind the whole Hezbollah drug operation.
Macha and his 9 teams deemed this group the most dangerous terror cadre in the world now that the threats from Iran and North Korea had been eliminated. Over the past number of years, Israeli Mossad had been observing the group and their offshoots all over South America.
Macha requested a secure meeting with Prime Minister Mendelsohn and Defense Minister Melnik. The following day, his request was granted and at 0900hrs he was ushered into the PM’s private office in Jerusalem.
“So, Macha, to what do we owe the pleasure of your company? I suspect, knowing your proclivity for trouble, that you don’t have much for us to be happy about.”
Macha smiled and responded, “Happy, no, but excited, yes, because between Naftalin’s Mossad and my sources we have definitively identified the heart and head of Hezbollah outside of Lebanon. Nasrallah’s cousin, Safi Al Din, is their top man running all Hezbollah operations worldwide since we chased Nasrallah out of Beirut and sent him into hiding. Ali Din reported directly to that bastard Soleimani. Frankly, Gershon, we consider this extension arm of Hezbollah more dangerous and more of a threat to peace than the Lebanese group was. Ari, Dov, and Eli have prepared an intriguing operation plan that we believe will take these bastards out once and for all. Unlike Lebanon, South America is a huge geographical area and these momserim are all over. We do not have the resources to cover all the bases, so our plan calls for a singular large-scale attack on their Bolivian headquarters, with further actions against their satellite operations in Chile, Peru, Venezuela, Mexico, and Colombia. We have all the locations detailed and our satellite imagery, which we have been sharing with the Americans, confirms that they are gearing up for a major operation.”
Prime Minister Mendelsohn looked at Macha momentarily, and then growled, “And what is it you are proposing?”
“Gershon, we need you to sell the Americans on conducting a wide-ranging attack on these guys. Optimally, we believe if you can convince the Americans, Canadians, and Mexicans to develop a large special forces operation utilizing our intelligence to neutralize these bad guys, we will not be seen in the Arab world as the aggressors.”
PM Gershon Mendelsohn scrunched his eyebrows. “That’s it?! You want me to call up that skinny prick of a US president and basically ask him if we can borrow his Delta and Seal teams, so we appear clean as we orchestrate the takedown of Hezbollah? My dear Benyamin, just wait one moment while I pick up the phone and call him right now!”
Macha realized that he had pushed some wrong buttons but observing the hint of a smile on Melnik’s face, he rebutted. “Prime Minister, we have the advantage after Iran and North Korea. Once we present the operational intelligence on this Bolivian Hezbollah organization to the US and Mexico presidents as well as the Canadian PM, they will come on board.”
After Macha finished detailing some of the logistical support he required to get the operation in gear, he left the PM’s office and returned to his headquarters.
Meanwhile, both Mendelsohn and Melnik began working the phones. Eli Naftalin, head of Mossad, and General Mordechai Nudelman, the Chief of the IDF, flew to Washington, where they were joined by their Canadian and American counterparts. They had all agreed to leave the Mexicans out of the operation since the drug cartels and Hezbollah had infiltrated all levels of government in Mexico. After they made their presentation to the Joint Chiefs and the heads of the CIA and DEA, to their utmost surprise, the United States and Canadian special forces commanders formally requested that Israeli operatives and Sayeret commandos be attached to their forces.
Two months after the capture of the Iranian clerics, the Americans led a raid with assistance from Israeli and Canadian JTF2 special forces on the Bolivian Hezbollah headquarters. They also hit two mosques that were nothing more than armed camps. The combined special forces secretly entered Bolivia at Villazón, across from Argentina. The mosques and Hezbollah infrastructure were sited some 10 miles from the centre of Villazón. After assembling around the sites, especially at the larger of the two mosques, the United States, Israeli, and Canadian special forces first deployed drones to unleash missiles into the buildings. The terrorists came rushing out into the square in front of the building, as expected. The specialists fired controlled bursts of automatic weapons fire on the radicals and in short order there were none left standing.
A joint Israeli and Canadian JTF2 team commanded by Captain Michel (Wolfman) Leroux entered the remains of the damaged mosque to search for any terrorists who may have been hiding. Wolfman was a ferocious warrior. He had deployed to Afghanistan soon after 9/11 as a trooper in JTF2. He was highly motivated, since his elder brother, Jean-George, had died in the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center. JG, as the elder Leroux was called, had been a successful financial trader at an international brokerage house on the 76th floor of the South Tower when it was struck by United Airlines Flight 175. The Boeing 767 slammed into the 60th floor below JG’s offices and he perished along with so many others who could not evacuate the upper floors. “Wolfman” Leroux had idolized his brother, and once he knew of JG’s fate, he vowed revenge. He had already been serving in the Canadian Armed Forces and immediately volunteered for the JTF2 detachment. He was accepted and deployed soon after to Afghanistan. There he garnered a reputation as a fierce and uncompromising soldier. He was equally at home killing Taliban and Al Qaeda terrorists with his McMillan TAC-50 sniper rifle, his sidearm, or even his bare hands. “Wolfman” Leroux now commanded one of the most elite units ever assembled and his team made quick work of the Hezbollah terrorists.
Over at the office and school buildings, US Navy Seal Teams used devastating fire from two drones to smash their way into the halls and rooms that were not destroyed. Seal Team leader Lt. John Daker and his number two, Petty Office
r Norman Haspell, with Israeli Sayeret commando, Senior Sergeant Alon Lasky, resolved not to let any terrorists survive.
Daker deployed his teams on the perimeter of the buildings to prevent any terrorists from escaping. He ordered Haspell and Lasky to clean out the buildings. Taking six men with them, four Seals and two Sayeret, they conducted a room-to-room search. A good amount of the infrastructure was fairly damaged from the drone strikes, but the central core and offices leading from it were still standing. Sergeant Lasky began to climb the stairs to flush out any terrorists still hiding when he heard suspicious sounds. Mindful of not being ambushed, the team held still while Lasky and Haspell counselled. Suspecting that some terrorists would be hiding, they withdrew down the stairs and ordered up a pinpoint strike on the top floor. After the drone unleashed its intensely accurate missiles, the teams entered the building once more and climbed to the third floor to search for any terrorist survivors. There were none. As they descended to the second floor, they soon located Safi Al Din hiding in a cleaning supply locker. He was cowering behind some cartons of paper supplies and since he had no civilians to hide behind, he was terrified.
When he lived in Lebanon and Gaza, Ali Din had been identified by Israeli intelligence services as responsible for planning and participating in several brutal murders of innocent civilians within Israel and in France. Defense Minister Melnik, who had assisted in planning the assault, had made it clear to the Sayeret that no prisoners were to be taken. The US and Canadian forces simply removed themselves from direct involvement as the Sayeret eliminated the radical terrorists. As Sergeant Alon Lasky explained to his Canadian and US counterparts after he shot Ali Din in the head, “We used to capture these bastards and put them in jail. Then, one day we were held ransom by their groups to release hundreds of the bastards for Gilad Shalit. We know that this garbage was directly responsible by his own hand for the killing of at least eight Israeli women and young children.”
The End of Terror Page 22
