42 Facts About Mossad

1.

Mossad is responsible for intelligence collection, covert operations, and counter-terrorism.

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2.

Mossad has been described by Ronen Bergman as a "deep state" because of the way that it has been able to carry out actions that would otherwise be subject to prosecution.

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3.

Largest department of Mossad is Collections, tasked with many aspects of conducting espionage overseas.

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4.

Additionally, Mossad has a Research Department, tasked with intelligence production, and a Technology Department concerned with the development of tools for Mossad activities.

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5.

Mossad opened a venture capital fund in June 2017, in order to invest in hi-tech startups to develop new cyber technologies.

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6.

Mossad's former motto, be-tachbulot ta`aseh lekha milchamah is a quote from the Bible : "For by wise guidance you can wage your war" .

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7.

The usage of Sayanim allows the Mossad to operate with a slim budget yet conduct vast operations worldwide.

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8.

In September 1956, Mossad established a secretive network in Morocco to smuggle Moroccan Jews to Israel after a ban on immigration to Israel was imposed.

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9.

In early 1991, two Mossad operatives infiltrated the Moroccan port of Casablanca and planted a tracking device on the freighter Al-Yarmouk, which was carrying a cargo of North Korean missiles bound for Syria.

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10.

Mossad assisted in Operation Moses, the evacuation of Ethiopian Jews to Israel from a famine-ridden region of Sudan in 1984, maintaining a relationship with the Ethiopian government.

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11.

In 1960, Mossad discovered that the Nazi leader Adolf Eichmann was in Argentina.

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12.

Mossad was smuggled to Israel, where he was tried and executed.

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13.

The report highlights the growing secret cooperation with Saudi Arabia, claiming that Mossad has been in direct contact with Saudi intelligence about Iran's nuclear energy program.

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14.

Mossad has been accused of assassinating Masoud Alimohammadi, Ardeshir Hosseinpour, Majid Shahriari, Darioush Rezaeinejad and Mostafa Ahmadi-Roshan; scientists involved in the Iranian nuclear program.

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15.

Jordanian authorities apprehended two Mossad agents posing as Canadian tourists and trapped a further six in the Israeli embassy.

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16.

Mossad was suspected of establishing a large spy network in Lebanon, recruited from Druze, Christian, and Sunni Muslim communities, and officials in the Lebanese government, to spy on Hezbollah and its Iranian Revolutionary Guard advisors.

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17.

Mossad ordered the planting of trees by every Syrian fortified position under the pretext of shading soldiers, but the trees actually served as targeting markers for the Israel Defense Forces.

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18.

Mossad was discovered by Syrian and Soviet intelligence, tried in secret, and executed publicly in 1965.

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19.

Mossad's information played a crucial role during the Six-Day War.

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20.

Mossad was accused of being behind the assassination of Aziz Asbar, a senior Syrian scientist responsible for developing long-range rockets and chemical weapons programs.

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21.

Mossad is suspected of killing Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, a senior Hamas military commander, in January 2010 at Dubai, United Arab Emirates.

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22.

Dubai's police chief has said "I am now completely sure that it was Mossad, " adding: "I have presented the prosecutor with a request for the arrest of Netanyahu and the head of Mossad, " for the murder.

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23.

Rediff story in 2003 revealed that Mossad had clandestine links with the Research and Analysis Wing, India's external intelligence agency.

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24.

India Today cites "RAW insiders" as saying that RAW agents hid a Mossad agent holding an Argentine passport and exchanged intelligence and expertise in operations, including negotiations for the release of an Israeli tourist by the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front militants in June 1991.

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25.

Mossad may have been involved in the 2004 explosion of Ryongchon, where several Syrian nuclear scientists working on the Syrian and Iranian nuclear-weapons programs were killed and a train carrying fissionable material was destroyed.

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26.

In 1954, after Mossad received intelligence that an Israeli officer who had access to classified military technologies, Major Alexander Israel, had approached Egyptian officials in Europe and offered to sell Israeli military secrets and documents, a team of Mossad and Shin Bet officers was quickly sent to Europe to locate him and abduct him, and located him in Vienna.

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27.

Mossad gathered information on Austrian politician Jorg Haider using a mole.

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28.

Mossad was shot multiple times in the head outside his Brussels apartment.

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29.

Mossad allegedly assisted Morocco's domestic security service in the disappearance of dissident politician Mehdi Ben Barka in 1965.

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30.

Mossad discovered that Hezbollah had recruited a German national named Steven Smyrek, and that he was travelling to Israel.

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31.

Mossad is reported to have a working relationship with the Irish military intelligence service and has previously tipped the Irish authorities off about arms shipments from the Middle East to Ireland for use by dissident republican militants, resulting in their interception and arrests.

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32.

Mossad agents had used fake Canadian passports, which angered the Canadian government.

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33.

Six Mossad agents were arrested, and the incident came to be known as the Lillehammer affair.

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34.

The Mossad allegedly was responsible for providing Serbian groups with arms.

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35.

In February 1998, five Mossad agents were caught wiretapping the home of a Hezbollah agent in a Bern suburb.

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36.

Mossad was involved in outreach to refuseniks in the Soviet Union during the crackdown on Soviet Jews in the period between the 1950s and the 1980s.

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37.

Mossad helped establish contact with Refuseniks in the USSR, and helped them acquire Jewish religious items, banned by the Soviet government, in addition to passing communications into and out of the USSR.

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38.

In 1984 Mossad agents were caught attempting to kidnap Nigerian politician Umaru Dikko from London.

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39.

The passports had been the work of Mossad and were intended for the Israeli Embassy in London for use in covert operations.

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40.

On 30 September 1986 Mossad agents succeeded in luring Mordechai Vanunu from London to Rome where he was kidnapped back to Israel and tried for treason.

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41.

Mossad had been planning to apply for Ukrainian citizenship, and reappeared in an Israeli jail only three weeks after the incident.

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42.

In July 2004, New Zealand imposed diplomatic sanctions on Israel over an incident in which two Australia-based Israelis, Uriel Kelman and Eli Cara, who were allegedly working for Mossad, attempted to fraudulently obtain New Zealand passports by claiming the identity of a severely disabled man.

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