Eli Cohen – A Spy without Parallel

This post is in memory of Eli Cohen who was executed by Syrian authorities on 18^th May 1965 in Damascus after being found guilty of spying for Israel. He was unlike any other spy in the annals of espionage – a spy without any parallel. This is his story.

Eliahu (Eli) ben Shaoul Cohen was born in Alexandria, Egypt in an orthodox Jewish family in 1924. His father had moved there from Aleppo in Syria in 1914. In January 1947, Cohen chose to enlist in the Egyptian army as an alternative to paying the proscribed sum all young Jews were supposed to pay, but was declared ineligible on grounds of questionable loyalty. Later that year, he left university and began studying at home after facing harassment by the Muslim Brotherhood. Though his parents and three brothers left for Israel in 1949, Cohen remained to finish a degree in electronics and to coordinate Jewish and Zionist activities. In 1951, in the aftermath of a military coup and anti-Zionist campaign, Cohen was arrested and interrogated over his Zionist activities. Cohen is alleged to have taken part in various Israeli covert operations in Egypt during the 1950s, though the Egyptian government could never verify and provide proof of his involvement in an Israeli operation to smuggle Egyptian Jews out of the country and resettle them in Israel.

Following the Suez Crisis, the Egyptian government stepped up persecution of Jews and expelled many of them. In December 1956, Cohen was forced to leave the country. With the assistance of the Jewish Agency, he migrated to Israel.

In 1957, Cohen was recruited by Israeli Military Intelligence. His work as a counterintelligence analyst bored him, and he attempted to join the Mossad. Cohen was offended when Mossad rejected him, and resigned from military counterintelligence. For the next two years, he worked as a filing clerk in a Tel Aviv insurance office. An introvert to the core, Cohen had very few friends. Most of his leisure time was spent mastering Arabic.

The Mossad recruited Cohen after Director-General Meir Amit, looking for a special agent to infiltrate the Syrian government, came across his name while looking through the agency's files of rejected candidates, after none of the current candidates seemed suitable for the job. For two weeks he was put under surveillance, and was judged suitable for recruitment and training. Cohen then underwent an intensive, six-month course at the Mossad training school, and his graduate report stated that he had all the qualities needed to become a katsa, or field agent.

Training and the making of a Spy

His training was rather unconventional. In 1960, armed with a false identity and a thick beard, Eli Cohen was introduced to one Sheikh Mohammed Salman as a student from the University of Jerusalem. Although Cohen knew quite a lot about the culture and the way of life of an Arab Moslem, Mossad wanted him to be trained to perfection so that he could act and react like a Moslem even under the greatest strain. He spent a few months with Sheikh Salman. Towards the end of 1960, Cohen began to learn a different trade.

On 1^st March 1961, Eli Cohen boarded a Swiss Air flight from Zurich and flew to Buenos Aires. At the Argentinian capital, he passed off as a prosperous businessman who travelled first class. Cohen had become Kamel Amin Thaabet (commonly pronounced Saabet). His passport showed that he was a Syrian from Lebanon.  Buenos Aires has a large Syrian population. Cohen portrayed himself to be serious, generous, considerate and above all a devout Muslim and highly nationalistic. Thaabet gradually became a well-known and respectable member of the Syrian community in Buenos Aires.

Mossad had traversed half way round the globe to prepare a perfect “legend” for Cohen. Mossad had correctly assessed that Syrian intelligence would certainly check on Thaabet and therefore his cover was prepared with great care. Cohen’s new assumed identity was based on a real Kamel Amin Thaabet born in Lebanon of Syrian parents. The real Kamel Amin Thaabet had died long ago, but if he were alive he would have been of Cohen’s age.

The resurrected Kamel Amin Thaabet became a regular visitor to the parties and receptions hosted in the Syrian embassy in Buenos Aires. The military attaché in the Syrian Embassy, Major Amin Al-Hafiz was very impressed by Thaabet. Thaabet’s nationalist fervor and pro-Baathist views were respected by Al-Hafiz. As a result, the officer began to confide a great deal in him and urged him to shift to Damascus to serve the Baathist cause.

The Syrian intelligence in the Argentinian capital carried out a thorough check on Thaabet. One day when he came home late, he discovered that his papers and photo albums had been tampered with. Israeli intelligence had taken lot of pains to prepare ‘authentic’ papers and the old photographs of the Thaabet family were perfect. Cohen had successfully passed the final test as Thaabet. He was now a trusted Syrian national. Mossad instructed Cohen to move to Damascus. Major Al-Hafiz was posted in the Syrian capital at the time when Cohen was instructed to make the move to Syria. Thaabet, accordingly wrote to Al-Hafiz of his desire to serve the Baathist cause and his intention to shift to Damascus.

In December 1961, Cohen paid a quick visit to Munich and met his “control” from Tel Aviv. In a hotel room the katsa and his control discussed details of his mission in Damascus; they re-checked on the business procedures, the codes and the radio discipline. At the same time a technical team from Mossad prepared Cohen’s luggage. A powerful transmitter was hidden in the false bottom of an electric mixer. A Minox micro-film camera was given the shape of an electric shaver, its chord, when detached, would serve as a long range antenna. Chemicals for making explosives were stored in toothpaste tubes and cans of shaving cream.

Mission - Damascus

On 1^st January 1962, Thaabet was on his way to Damascus. On arrival in Damascus he became a temporary guest of Major Al-Hafiz. Within a span of few days he settled himself on the fourth floor of a modern building in the prosperous Abu-Rummanah district across the Syrian Military High Command and close to the Indian Embassy.

Cohen alias Thaabet started an export business and was soon exporting Syrian antique furniture, backgammon tables, jewellery and objets d’art to European countries. He was often seen drinking Turkish coffee in the Hamidia market place discussing business and politics. At night, Thaabet was transformed into a deadly spy, passing information to Tel Aviv using the powerful transmitter set. The lengthy reports and microfilms were dispatched in the hollowed out antique furniture. With the help of highly placed contacts in government and friends, Thaabet visited military installations and was allowed to freely indulge in his hobby of photography even while visiting sensitive areas. His photographs of sensitive military installations proved extremely useful to Mossad and the Israeli Army during the 1967 Six-Day War. His most famous achievement was when he toured the Golan Heights, and collected intelligence on the Syrian fortifications there. Feigning sympathy for the soldiers being exposed to the sun, Cohen had trees planted at every position. The trees were used as targeting markers by the Israeli military during the 1967 War. Cohen made repeated visits to the southern frontier zone, providing photographs and sketches of Syrian positions. Cohen also learned of an important secret plan by Syria to create three successive lines of bunkers and mortars; the Israeli Army would otherwise have expected to encounter only a single line.

Capture and execution

How did Cohen get caught? There are conflicting versions as to what led to the unmasking of Thaabet. The Mossad blames the Indian Embassy in Damascus which they say, inadvertently led to Cohen getting caught. In early ’65, the Indian Mission is alleged to have complained to the Syrians that it was experiencing disturbances in its transmissions to New Delhi. The Syrians suspected, and rightly so, of an unauthorized radio transmission in the vicinity of the Indian Embassy. The Syrians pressed into a service a sophisticated mobile detection unit imported from the Soviet Union to track down the source of the illegal transmission. Thaabet was unaware of this development and he carried on his daily transmission to Tel Aviv. After a close surveillance for a few days, the Syrians caught Thaabet red handed in a pre-dawn raid on 24^th January 1965. After a trial before a military tribunal, he was found guilty of espionage and sentenced to death, without the possibility of an appeal. Israel staged an international campaign to for clemency, hoping to persuade the Syrians not to execute him. Hoping to put international pressure on Syria to spare Cohen's life, the Israelis approached many governments to press for clemency, and even appealed to the Soviets to intercede. The Syrians were determined not to spare a spy, especially if he happened to be an Israeli. On 18^th May 1965, Eli Cohen was publicly hanged in El Marga Square in Damascus.

Requests by Cohen's family for his remains to be returned to Israel have been repeatedly denied by the Syrian government. In August 2008 Monthir Maosily, the former bureau chief of the late Syrian leader Hafez al-Assad, said that Eli Cohen's burial site is unknown, claiming that the Syrians buried the executed Israeli spy three times, to stop the remains from being brought back to Israel via a special operation.

References

Wikipedia

Mossad-Israel's Knuckle-Duster by H Jesse Kochar, Probe May 1981

Mystery Behind the Israeli Raid on Syria – Operation Orchard Unveiled

In 2001, Mossad was profiling Syria's new President Bashar al-Assad. Around the same time, Aman, Israel's military intelligence directorate was closely observing visits made by North Korean officials to Syria which focussed on advance arms deliveries. Aman was of the opinion that nuclear arms were being discussed. In 2004, US intelligence picked up several communications between Syria and Pyongyang and calls were traced to a Syrian desert location called al-Kibar. Israel's Unit 8200, a unit responsible for collection of signals intelligence and code-breaking, also started keeping a close watch on this location.

In April 2004, a massive explosion on a North Korean freight train headed for the port of Namp'o alerted the Israelis. Mossad learned that dozens of Syrian nuclear technicians travelling in a compartment adjoining a sealed wagon were killed in the blast. Their bodies were flown in lead encased coffins aboard a Syrian military plane.A wide area around the explosion site was cordoned off for days as North Korean soldiers in anti-contamination suits collected wreckage and sprayed the area. Mossad analysts suspected they were trying to recover weapons-grade plutonium. Since the explosion, the Mossad tracked about a dozen trips by Syrian military officers and scientists to Pyongyang.

The Daily Telegraph, citing anonymous sources, reported that in December 2006, a top Syrian official arrived in London under a false name. The Mossad had detected a booking for the official in a London hotel, and dispatched at least ten undercover agents to London. The agents were split into three teams. One group was sent to Heathrow Airport to identify the official as he arrived, a second to book into his hotel, and a third to monitor his movements and visitors. Some of the operatives were from the Kidon Division, which specialised in assassinations, and the Negev Division, which specialised in breaking into homes, embassies, and hotel rooms to install bugging devices. On the first day of his visit, he visited the Syrian embassy and then went shopping. Kidon operatives closely followed him, while Negev operatives broke into his hotel room and found his laptop. A computer expert then installed software that allowed the Mossad to monitor his activities on the computer. When the computer material was examined at Mossad headquarters, officials found blueprints and hundreds of pictures of the al-Kibar facility in various stages of construction, and correspondence. One photograph showed a North Korean nuclear official meeting with Ibrahim Othman, Syria's atomic energy agency director. Though the Mossad had originally planned to kill the official in London, it was decided to spare his life following the discovery.

A senior U.S. official stated that, in early summer 2007, Israel had discovered a suspected Syrian nuclear facility, and that the Mossad then "managed to either co-opt one of the facility's workers or insert a spy posing as an employee" at the suspected Syrian nuclear site, and through this was able to get pictures of the target from on the ground." Two months before the strike, Israel launched the Ofek-7 spy satellite into space. The satellite was geo-positioned to watch activity at the complex. 

Intelligence and Planning:
Early in the summer, the Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak had ordered the doubling of Israeli forces on the Golan Heights bordering Syria in anticipation of a possible Syrian retaliation in the event of air strikes by Israel. According to American sources, Israeli intelligence tracked a North Korean vessel identified as “Al Hamed", a 1700-tonne cargo ship that was previously owned by North Korea, purported to be carrying a cargo of nuclear material labeled “cement”. The vessel registered itself as a South Korean ship when it traveled through the Suez Canal. On 28th July the vessel docked at the Syrian port of Tartous. The ship returned on 3rd September and is said to have unloaded the cargo of “cement”. The Israelis continued to keep track of the cargo as it was transported to the small town of Deir ez-Zor, in north-eastern Syria near the Turkish border. Israeli sources revealed that the Israeli satellite Ofek 7, launched in June, was redirected from Iran to Syria. The satellite sent high quality images of the north-eastern area every 90 minutes enabling the air force specialists to spot the facility. Three days after the consignment arrived, the final phase of Operation Orchard got underway. According to Sunday Times, around mid-August 2007 a team belonging to Sayarat Matkal covertly raided the suspected Syrian nuclear facility and brought soil samples and other material back to Israel. This confirmed that the cargo was nuclear. Once the material was tested and confirmed to have come from North Korea, the Israelis decided to carry out the attack.

Such was the secrecy that the target of the attack was revealed to the pilots only while they were airborne. All that the pilots were told was that the target was a northern Syrian facility that was labelled as an agricultural research centre on the Euphrates River, close to the Turkish border. So also the pilots who were assigned to provide air cover for the strike jets were not briefed about the mission till they too were airborne. The air cover was not required; thanks to the stealth technology and the sophisticated electronic systems, Syria’s Russian-made anti-aircraft systems were blinded. There was speculation that Israel may have used technology similar to Suter airborne network attack system used by the US, to enable its aircraft to pass undetected by Syrian radar. This system makes it possible to feed enemy radar with false targets and even manipulate enemy sensors directly.

The Raid and After:
According to Times Online, just after midnight of 6th September 2007, the 69th Squadron of Israeli Air Force comprising of F-15Is and F-16s equipped with AGM-65 Maverik missiles, 500lb bombs and external fuel tanks crossed the Syrian coastline. The raiding team consisted of 8 aircraft including an ELINT aircraft. On the ground, Syria’s air defences went dead. Operation Orchard was underway. A daring attack on a Syrian target in Deir ez-Zor or Dayr az-Zwar near the village Tal Abyad in northern Syria near the Turkish border had begun.

At a rendezvous point deep inside Syrian territory, a commando team from Shaldag air force commando waited to direct their laser beams at the target for the approaching jets. The team had arrived a day earlier, taking up positions near a large underground depot. Shortly thereafter the target was destroyed.

The only piece of evidence which was left behind were two detachable tanks from an Israeli fighter were found just over the Turkish border (Hatav and Gaziantep provinces) which according to Turkey, belonged to a Raam F15I - the newest generation of Israeli long-range bomber, which has a combat range of over 2,000km when equipped with the drop tanks.

Though Israel did not issue any statement acknowledging or denying responsibility for the attack, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert stated that the IDF was demonstrating unusual courage. And added that it could not naturally reveal to the public everything.

Former officials familiar with both Syria and North Korea have pointed out that an almost bankrupt Syria has neither the economic nor the industrial base to support the kind of nuclear programme described, adding that Syria has long rejected going down the nuclear route.

At this point in time, it is difficult to verify the truth of the allegations against Syria - and Israel has a long history of employing complex deceptions in its operations - the message being delivered is quite clear: if Syria's ally, Iran, comes close to acquiring a nuclear weapon, and the world fails to prevent it, either through diplomatic or military means then Israel will stop it on its own. 

The Killing of Brigadier Suleiman
As mysterious as the raid, was the killing of Mohammed Suleiman, an officer in the Syrian Arab Army. Brigadier General Mohammed Suleiman, 49, was shot dead on  the night of 1st August 2008 at his chalet in the Rimal al-Zahabieh luxury resort nine miles north of the port city of Tartous on the Mediterranean. He was shot in the head and neck by sniper/s from a yacht which was about 50 metres from the coast.

Suleiman had been a key aide to Assad since the mid-1990s, when Bashar was being groomed to succeed his father, Hafez al-Assad, as president. Suleiman, who belonged to the same Alawite religious sect as the Assad family, supervised several portfolios, and oversaw Syria's weapons research and development program. After Assad became president in 2000, Suleiman handled his intelligence affairs and was reportedly also in charge of arms transfers from Syria to Hizballah in neighboring Lebanon. A 2007 cable from the US embassy in Damascus, published by Wikileaks in 2010, described him as "special presidential adviser for arms procurement and strategic weapons". He was probably targetted for his involvement in the uranium procurement and Syrian nuclear programme.