Intelligence is key: Ex-Mossad chief
Nauzer Bharucha & C Unnikrishnan I TNN
Mumbai: Danny Yatom, former head of the Israeli secret service Mossad, has attributed the 26/11 carnage in Mumbai to intelligence failure and said the National Security Guards (NSG) came too late.
“You did not have intelligence. The best weapon is intelligence which gives you the exact time and location of the attack in advance,’’ he said.
Major General Yatom, 63, who is on his first business visit to India, was speaking in an exclusive interview to TOI on Monday.
“India is a big country and it needs highly-equipped, local special anti-terror forces stationed in every state,’’ he added, reacting to the arrival of the NSG from Delhi more than eight hours after the attack started in Mumbai.
Yatom was part of the commando squad which rescued passengers from a hijacked Sabena airlines flight from Vienna to Tel Aviv in 1972. The team entered the aircraft posing as airplane technicians in white overalls. “The entire operation was over within 90 seconds,’’ he claimed. Two hijackers were killed and two were captured.
“Mossad has also had its successes and failures,’’ he said. In fact, Yatom resigned as Mossad chief after the Ciechanover commission of inquiry came out with its findings into the botched attempt to assassinate Hamas official Khaled Meshal in Amman on September 25, 1997. “I had given strict instructions that there are certain red lines which should not be crossed. The agents who were sent out on this mission were so highly motivated and tired of waiting for their target that they crossed this line when they spotted him,’’ he said.
The two Mossad agents were arrested and as part of the bargain with the Jordanian government to release them, Israel had to provide an antidote to save the Hamas official’s life.
Targeted killings require precise intelligence, like for instance, the number plate, manufacturing date and colour of the car in which the target is travelling, he explained.
Mossad has two key objectives—to ensure hostile countries do not acquire nonconventional weapons and to carry out covert anti-terror operations. For this, only the most intelligent and motivated people are selected. The selection process is so gruelling that most drop out.
“A Mossad agent is one who will walk alone in an enemy country without fear,’’ said Yatom.
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