Last October I wrote about how Israel’s Mossad had targetted Iranian general Qassem Soleimani for assassination. On January 3, President Trump did what Mossad–and President George W. Bush–had contemplated but always chosen not to do.
Other intelligence services use assassination as a policy too. The Russian GRU sought to kill turncoat agent Sergey Skripal in England in 2018. But no spy service is so prolific or open about assassinating its enemies as the Mossad. Here’s a look at how Israel assassinated Iranian nuclear scientists.
HBO is producing as series about one of Mossad’s highest-profile assassination: the killing of Lebanese engineer Iman Mughniyeh who was killed in Syria in 2008 by a remote controlled bomb.
The series is based on the book of the same title by Ronen Bergman, an Israeli journalist who also writes for the New York Times.
Mughniyeh was purportedly behind dozens of terrorist operations, including the embassy and barracks bombings in Lebanon, multiple kidnappings of Americans, hijacking of airlines, and attacks in Buenos Aires, including the bombing the Israeli Embassy there. U.S. intelligence officials accused him of killing more United States citizens than any other man prior to the September 11 attacks. He was also a close ally of General Suleimani, working with him to export the Iranian revolution to Iraq after the invasion.
