NSA document proves Israel's foreign assassination program
by Wayne Madsen
The latest trickle of classified National Security Agency documents liberated by whistleblower Edward Snowden, but maintained in the custody of the Pierre Omidyar-funded First Look media operation, contains an Intellipedia document that points to Israel's role in the assassination of Syrian general Mohammed Suleiman near the port city of Tartus in 2008. Intellipedia is a classified version of Wikipedia that is not open to the public, only to those with security clearances and working for the government and its contractors.
Suleiman was the top defense adviser to Syrian president Bashar al-Assad. The Israeli naval commando team that assassinated Suleiman was in clear violation of international law.
The Intellipedia extract does contain one glaring error, however. It claims that the assassination of Suleiman was "the first known instance of Israel targeting a legitimate government official."
The reason for NSA's error concerning Israeli assassinations is simple. The George W. Bush administration reversed a longstanding ban on the NSA having an official "Third Party" relationship with Israel's Unit 8200, the Jewish state's version of NSA. Relations between NSA and Israel remained sour since 1967 when Israel launched a premeditated attack on the NSA intelligence-collection vessel USS Liberty in waters off of Sinai. In 1986, Israeli engineers working on a limited access NSA project codenamed DINDI -- which was aimed at providing Israel with signals intelligence tethered aerostats -- were found to be spying on other NSA programs for which they did not have access. These included PIEREX, a classified NSA project, and the Navy's Trident nuclear submarine communications system. NSA froze intelligence cooperation with Israel.
Israel's Lobby pressured the Ronald Reagan administration to renew intelligence sharing with Israel with a new agreement codenamed ICE CASTLE. In 1996, the Clinton administration updated ICE CASTLE with a new agreement codenamed STONE RUBY that included the sharing of Top Secret signals intelligence information. The George W. Bush administration concluded a memorandum of agreement, which designated the Israel SIGINT National Unit, or Unit 8200, virtual unlimited access to raw NSA SIGINT intercepts as a new Third Party partner, on the same level as Germany, Japan, and South Korea.
It became more difficult for NSA's Hebrew intercept element to conduct its operations without interference from Unit 8200 liaison officers. For years, NSA was forced to describe its Hebrew intercept operators as "Special Arabic" linguists in order to avoid pressure from certain Jewish members of Congress who had close ties to Mossad.
It is clear that the Intellipedia reference to Suleiman being Israel's first assassination target was prompted by the infiltration of NSA by Israeli intelligence officers. However, the fact that U.S. intelligence personnel are being misled by those wishing to avoid irritating Israel and its influential lobby flies in the face of providing editorial-free intelligence to analysts and end-users.
In addition to Gen. Yuri Ivanov, the deputy head of GRU Russian military intelligence, who was drowned in 2010 by Israeli agents in the Mediterranean off the Russian naval base in Latakia, Syria, Israel has either directly assassinated or been heavily involved in the assassinations of the following "legitimate" and internationally-recognized officials:
The latest trickle of classified National Security Agency documents liberated by whistleblower Edward Snowden, but maintained in the custody of the Pierre Omidyar-funded First Look media operation, contains an Intellipedia document that points to Israel's role in the assassination of Syrian general Mohammed Suleiman near the port city of Tartus in 2008. Intellipedia is a classified version of Wikipedia that is not open to the public, only to those with security clearances and working for the government and its contractors.
Suleiman was the top defense adviser to Syrian president Bashar al-Assad. The Israeli naval commando team that assassinated Suleiman was in clear violation of international law.
The Intellipedia extract does contain one glaring error, however. It claims that the assassination of Suleiman was "the first known instance of Israel targeting a legitimate government official."
The reason for NSA's error concerning Israeli assassinations is simple. The George W. Bush administration reversed a longstanding ban on the NSA having an official "Third Party" relationship with Israel's Unit 8200, the Jewish state's version of NSA. Relations between NSA and Israel remained sour since 1967 when Israel launched a premeditated attack on the NSA intelligence-collection vessel USS Liberty in waters off of Sinai. In 1986, Israeli engineers working on a limited access NSA project codenamed DINDI -- which was aimed at providing Israel with signals intelligence tethered aerostats -- were found to be spying on other NSA programs for which they did not have access. These included PIEREX, a classified NSA project, and the Navy's Trident nuclear submarine communications system. NSA froze intelligence cooperation with Israel.
Israel's Lobby pressured the Ronald Reagan administration to renew intelligence sharing with Israel with a new agreement codenamed ICE CASTLE. In 1996, the Clinton administration updated ICE CASTLE with a new agreement codenamed STONE RUBY that included the sharing of Top Secret signals intelligence information. The George W. Bush administration concluded a memorandum of agreement, which designated the Israel SIGINT National Unit, or Unit 8200, virtual unlimited access to raw NSA SIGINT intercepts as a new Third Party partner, on the same level as Germany, Japan, and South Korea.
It became more difficult for NSA's Hebrew intercept element to conduct its operations without interference from Unit 8200 liaison officers. For years, NSA was forced to describe its Hebrew intercept operators as "Special Arabic" linguists in order to avoid pressure from certain Jewish members of Congress who had close ties to Mossad.
It is clear that the Intellipedia reference to Suleiman being Israel's first assassination target was prompted by the infiltration of NSA by Israeli intelligence officers. However, the fact that U.S. intelligence personnel are being misled by those wishing to avoid irritating Israel and its influential lobby flies in the face of providing editorial-free intelligence to analysts and end-users.
In addition to Gen. Yuri Ivanov, the deputy head of GRU Russian military intelligence, who was drowned in 2010 by Israeli agents in the Mediterranean off the Russian naval base in Latakia, Syria, Israel has either directly assassinated or been heavily involved in the assassinations of the following "legitimate" and internationally-recognized officials:
- United Nations Special Middle East envoy Count Folke Bernadotte, shot by Stern Gang gunmen linked to Israeli government in Jerusalem, 1948.
- Lt. Col. Mustafa Hafez, Egyptian Army, killed by mail bomb in Gaza, 1956.
- Col. Saleh Mustafa, Egyptian military attaché, killed by mail bomb, Amman, 1956.
- Hazza al-Majali, Prime Minister of Jordan, package bomb, Amman, 1960.
- Kamal Nasser, Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) spokesman, killed by sniper, Beirut, 1973.
- King Faisal, King of Saudi Arabia, shot in the face by his nephew who had just returned from the United States, Riyadh, 1975. Mossad and U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger implicated.
- Aldo Moro, former Italian prime minister, gunshot after kidnapping, Rome, 1978.
- Ahmad bin Hussein al-Ghashmi, President of the Yemen Arab Republic, bomb, Sana'a, 1978.
- Mohammad-Ali Rajai, President of Iran, and Mohammad-Javad Bahonar, Prime Minister of Iran, briefcase bomb, Tehran, 1981.
- Issam Sartawi, PLO senior adviser to Chairman Yasir Arafat, shot while attending Socialist International meeting in Lisbon, 1983
- Olof Palme, Swedish Prime Minister, gun shot, Stockholm, 1986.
- Uwe Barschel, Minister President of Schleswig-Holstein, drug overdose in bathtub, Geneva, 1987.
- Rashid Karami, Prime Minister of Lebanon, helicopter bomb, near Beirut, 1987.
- Carlos Mauro Hoyos, Attorney General of Colombia, gunfire, Rionegro, Colombia, 1988.
- Abu Jihad, deputy head of PLO, shot by Israeli commandos in Tunis, 1988. This was condemned by the U.S. State Department as a political assassination, which, by itself, makes the Intellipedia entry on General Suleiman incorrect.
- Luis Carlos Galan, Colombian Liberal Party presidential candidate, gunfire, Bogota, 1989.
- Alfred Herrhausen, chairman of Deutsche Bank, sophisticated roadside bomb, Bad Homburg, Germany, 1989.
- Rene Moawad, President of Lebanon, car bomb, West Beirut, 1989.
- Robert Ouko, Kenyan Foreign Minister, gunshot after kidnapping from his farm near Muhoroni, Kenya, 1990.
- Rifaat el-Mahgoub, speaker of Egyptian parliament, gunshot, Cairo, 1990.
- Rajiv Gandhi, suicide bomber, Sriperumbudur, Tamil Nadu, India, 1991.
- Salah Khalaf, head of intelligence for PLO, gunshots, Tunis, 1991.
- Anette Fischer, Danish head of Amnesty International, car accident that also killed her husband, Florence, Italy, 1992.
- Abbas al-Musawi, Secretary General of Lebanese Hezbollah, Israeli missile attack in Nabatieh, Lebanon, 1992, which also killed his wife and 5-year old son.
- Ranasinghe Premadasa, President of Sri Lanka, suicide bomber, Colombo, 1993.
- Andrey Lukanov, last Communist prime minister of Bulgaria, gunshot, Sofia, 1996. Lukanov had important information on the criminal activities of Mossad mole and publisher Robert Maxwell.
- Valeriy Hubulov, former prime minister of South Ossetia, gunfire, Vladikavkaz, South Ossetia, 1998.
- Elie Hobeika, Christian Phalangist politician, car bomb, Hazmiyeh, 2002.
- Anna Lindh, Swedish Foreign Minister, knife attack, Stockholm, 2003.
- Yasir Arafat, Palestinian President, died from Mossad poisoning in Clamart, France, 2004.
- Rafik Hariri, former Prime Minister of Lebanon, car bomb, Beirut, 2005.
- George Hawi, former secretary general of the Lebanese Communist Party, car bomb, Beirut, 2005.
- Major General Francois el-Hajj, potential presidential candidate, car bomb, Baadba, Lebanon, 2007
- Jorg Haider, head of the Austrian Freedom Party and Governor of Carinthia, car crash, near Klagenfurt, Austria, 2008.
- Major General Hassan Tehrani Moghaddam, Iranian Army, killed with other military personnel by bomb in Tehran, 2011.
- Mohammad Chatah, former Lebanese finance minister, car bomb, Beirut.
