Free Republic

ABCNews -- .....One Israeli columnist and authority on Israel's intelligence organizations says that all of Mossad's foreign operations similar to the one it is accused of in Dubai are carried out by a special unit called Kidon, Hebrew for dagger. The unit consists of a few dozen men and women who receive rigorous and specialized training including unarmed combat, weapons training, high-speed driving of both cars and motorcycles, and the field craft of trailing suspects without detection. Kidon operatives only work on short contracts of a few years because the work is so stressful. The agents regularly undergo extensive psychological...

Single-handedly, this intense miniature bull of a man, a son of Russian survivors of the holocaust, may be keeping the Middle East a safer place. Dagan leads the most effective and mysterious intelligence agency in the world, Israel's Mossad, which has that reputation because of him. This weekend, the official Egyptian newspaper, Al-Ahram, wrote an unusual story praising Dagan's accomplishments. ..." He is credited with putting its Iran's nuclear program well behind schedule by several years.

The Jan. 12 assassination of Iranian physicist Masoud Ali-Mohammadi remains shrouded in mystery. The Iranian regime, facing unprecedented political domestic opposition over last June's disputed presidential election, has named Israel's Mossad intelligence service as the most likely culprit, aided by the Americans and British. The Israelis' supposed objective: to sabotage Iran's controversial nuclear program. But in the Middle East, where conspiracy theories are a cultural pursuit, there's now another scenario. The Mossad is still the culprit, but its motivation is far murkier -- derailing the tortuous negotiations between Tehran and the West concerning Iran's nuclear project, and thus to clear...

An American source says that Syria allowed Hezbollah operatives to train within its territory in the use of advanced SA2 anti-aircraft missile batteries, the Kuwaiti daily Al Rai reported Sunday. In an interview, the senior U.S. official warned that if Syria supplies Hezbollah with this type of missile, Israel will bomb Damascus and a war will likely ensue. According to the official, Israel has warned Syria not to allow the transfer of the SA2 missiles into the hands of Hezbollah, and views the transfer of such missiles as the crossing of a red line.

LONDON Newly apppointed Mossad chief Meir Dagan is planning to reactivate a special operations unit, code named Caesarea, to target the commanders, controllers, and financiers of terrorist groups throughout the Middle East, the London Sunday Times reports. Quoting sources close to the Mossad, the paper said Islamic extremists abroad will become as vulnerable as those in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. "There is no reason why we should not do the same abroad. They will have nowhere to hide," said one source who is said to be familiar with Dagan's plans for the Mossad. "Gone are the days of...

Mossad - The World's Most Efficient Killing Machine By Gordon Thomas 12-9-2 Standing on a canteen table in down-town Tel Aviv, Israel's spymaster studied the men and women of Mossad. In the few weeks since taking over Mossad, Meir Dagan knew he already commanded something his recent predecessors never managed. Respect. Barely raising his voice he spoke. "When I was fighting in Lebanon, I witnessed the aftermath of a family feud. The patriarch's head had been split open, his brain on the floor. Around him lay his wife and some of his children. All dead. Before I could do anything,...

MOSSAD'S KILLING MACHINE COMES TO BRITAIN A killing war between Israel's Mossad and Islamic fanatics came closer this weekend in Britain. The Israeli intelligence agency has sent four members of its kidon assassination squad to this country, to join fifteen other handpicked katsas, its relentless field agents. Their brief is to "disable" any of the "close to 50" British Muslims that the extremist Islamic group, Al-Muhajiroun, last week boasted were ready to carry out suicide missions similar to the one in Tel Aviv. Al-Muhajiroun spokesman, Asif Butt, said the 50 were "primed and ready to go". The threat was sufficient...