Message Traffic: Mossad ops in Iran

Israeli intelligence goes behind the lines to kick Quds ass

Israel’s vaunted intelligence agency, the Mossad, took the unusual and somewhat unprecedented step of going behind the lines into what is probably, for them (and the United States), one of the most denied areas on earth (short of North Korea), to snatch up an Iranian national who was trying to arrange the assassination of an Israeli diplomat and an American general on European soil.

The Iranian in question, one Mansour Rasouli, is apparently a cutout for Quds Force, the Islamic Republic’s most elite and shadowy foreign covert operations unit. The assassination plan was the brainchild of Quds’s Unit 840, responsible for planning and executing terror operations against Western targets around the world, whether directly or through cutouts—in this case using a European-based drug cartel. Using drug cartels to carry out their dirty work is nothing new for Quds.

Back in 2011, an Iranian-American and a Quds Force officer were charged in connection with a plot to pay Los Zetas, then one of the most vicious and active Mexican drug cartels, $1.5 million to assassinate the Saudi Ambassador to the United States by bombing a restaurant he frequented in Washington D.C. The mass casualties that the attack would have caused were considered a bonus. Also included in the deal was an option for further attacks with Zeta help, with the Iranians offering a new supply of opium out of the Middle East in return. The only hitch was that their contact with the Zetas turned out to be an undercover DEA informant who quickly tipped off the feds.

For years, U.S. law enforcement and intelligence agencies have been concerned with the presence of Hezbollah (and Qaeda) operatives in the lawless tri-border region between Panama, Argentina, and Brazil; as well as certain mosques in Mexico.

Mossad’s daring operation in Iran, along with the Quds Force’s continuing efforts to establish global operational reach via proxies, prove just how imperative it is that U.S., European, and relevant Middle Eastern (i.e. Saudi, Jordanian, Emirati) intelligence agencies deepen their cooperation with the Israelis to curb Iranian covert aggression.

Alex Holstein is the co-author of Warfighter: The Story of an American Fighting Man, due out May 25, 2022, from Lyons Press, and available for pre-order NOW at Amazon and Barnes & Noble.  He holds an MSc in Russian and Post-Soviet Studies from the London School of Economics, where he wrote his thesis on the Soviet KGB.