Israel, through the Mossad and the IDF, tore its two most dangerous enemies – Iran and Hezbollah – to pieces over the last year – each in around 10 days.
How did Mossad Director David Barnea, for his large part in the equation, pull it off?
Assassination of Nasrallah
September 2024 kicked off a very unique year for the Mossad.
By now, a vast number of readers have heard about the Mossad’s incredible skill in pulling off the exploding beeper attacks, which sent Hezbollah reeling on September 17, 2024. But the full extent of the spy agency’s decisive role in the killing of Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah 10 days later has still not been fully revealed.
The more comprehensive defeat of Hezbollah came soon after the assassination of Nasrallah. It was not entirely immediate, taking some two to four additional weeks, once the organization collapsed, it was sudden and distinctive.
The first element of defeating Hezbollah was the Mossad’s beeper operation and how this heavily impacted Nasrallah during his last 10 days of life in terms of how he ran Hezbollah.
There was lots of hidden technology involved with assassinating Nasrallah, and the mix of human spies and technology was critical, The Jerusalem Post has learned, though it cannot reveal the exact nature of those activities.
The Mossad was active for at least three years to develop technological capabilities connected to specific operations, which no one else can do, including other Israeli defense agencies.
Of course, the separate distinctive technology of IDF Unit 8200 was also decisive in the assassination.
Tech and human spies
But the Mossad and Israel seized supremacy in rivalries not only against Hezbollah, but also against the head of the snake – Iran.
Barnea realized that joining technological and operational supremacy was needed for the Mossad to reach new levels. Sometimes only having human spies in the field can accomplish this as technological supremacy alone is not enough.
In explaining this synergy, Barnea sees the beepers explosion operation as a helpful analogy. An amazing technological capability was developed. But you cannot do anything with such a technology if it is just sitting in your development lab.
Israel needed to get it to Hezbollah in a way that they would willingly (and without figuring out they are being set up for sabotage) adopt it and widely distribute the technology, the Post understands.
The Mossad had and has unique abilities in terms of setting up the straw men companies in Hungary and Taiwan that were part of the beepers operation and regarding a variety of other still secret operational moves as part of the campaign to get Hezbollah to incorporate and use the technology as the Mossad intended.
Synergy reform
Barnea started to build new structures and alter old ones to make whole new divisions and to enact reforms when he first took over as the Mossad chief in June 2021. He focused on areas where the Mossad could most fully utilize its comparative advantages.
No one knew when the Mossad would finally carry out major operations in Iran and certainly no one knew far in advance that it would be June 13.
But Barnea’s concept was to get the Mossad to be always ready for massive simultaneous operations throughout Iran with an unprecedented large number of agents.
Barnea sent hundreds of Mossad agents, or individuals being run by agents, into operations in Iran simultaneously. All of the varying groups of staff were highly coordinated. There were set orders and processes to create new efficiencies and a ton of capabilities. Barnea managed a project leading to a diverse spectrum of all of the different kinds of agents and backgrounds of those agents one could imagine.
Besides actual Israeli Mossad agents, the spy service has reached new highs in recruiting and training local dissident Iranian agents to act against the ayatollahs’ regime.
There were clearly defined mission sets for each sub-group.
Also, the agency carried out an elevated level of intelligence collection and surveillance for three years regarding Iran.
There were many special covert actions that were running, which dated back two years, with some such operations even older.
A huge volume of new technologies were used to follow very specific items and specific people, the Post understands.
Before Barnea’s era, the Mossad had a limited number of large active attack operations (as opposed to classic patient and more passive surveillance) it could run at once, the Post has learned.
It was not built to do more and did not always have enough human spies to do more who were also plugged directly into and highly trained with the latest technologies (versus Mossad scientists giving Mossad covert attackers specific disposable gadgets to use once or twice in the field without much training.)
The Mossad could do one to one-and-a-half large-scale attack operations at the same time, but maybe not even two.
Here, hundreds of Mossad agents and officials were working on dozens of attack and intelligence operations inside and outside Iran all at the same time, the Post has learned.
Barnea created the option within the organization to deploy these dozens of big attack operations simultaneously.
There was a much greater capacity to draft more new agents in Iran faster. There are new possibilities offered using artificial intelligence and cyber technologies. Also, there are new ways to build their capabilities and train them from a distance, until they are capable of far more, the Post has learned.
Barnea ran Tsomet, recruiting spies for the Mossad, and then was the deputy chief, running day to day operations, such that by the time he got to the chief’s chair, he knew what was needed to take the Mossad to the next level.
They could not have dozens upon dozens of active attack agents all at once in prior Mossad eras.
Collectively, the Mossad agents in Iran targeted: large amounts of radar platforms – these came first – then ballistic missiles, and also provided targeting information to the air force for a wide variety of other Iranian targets.
Due to the effectiveness of the Mossad’s opening series of attacks, stunningly, Iran was only able to attack Israel at all on the second day of the war.
Next, the damage to the ballistic missile program was very substantial, leading to aspects of it needing to be rebuilt from the start.
The Post understands that the nuclear program basically needs to be rebuilt from the start.
China-Russia-Iran axis
Big questions have been asked recently about the elevation of cooperation between China, Russia, and Iran, and how much Beijing and Moscow will help Tehran to rebuild aspects of its ability to threaten Israel.
Barnea would say that China and Russia must think 10 times about helping Iran. His view is that the Mossad and Israel have declared to the entire world the incredible supremacy Israel has in the air against their missiles.
Based on this, the Mossad is not that sure that so many nations will look to help the Islamic Republic. Barnea thinks that these countries will need to take into account that like Russia’s weapons this past June, their weapons will fail, The Jerusalem Post has learned. After that, their systems will be thought of as being weak against Israeli capabilities.
Pressed on reports that China is already gambling more on Iran, the Mossad would double down and warn the Chinese to think a thousand times because its systems can be attacked if Iran uses them.
After what he pulled off over the last year, who would want to test Barnea?