Two Books Reveal Secrets of Mughniyeh and Khashoggi Assassination and Expose Arab Collusion

The close relations between Washington and “Tel Aviv” do not need proof, even US President Joe Biden described himself during his recent visit to “Israel” on July 14, 2022, as a “Zionist,” but their intelligence cooperation has always been secret.

However, this changed with the simultaneous publication of two important books, one by Mike Pompeo, former US Secretary of State (2018-2021), Director of the CIA (2017-2018), and the second by Israeli military and security expert Yossi Melman.

The two books reveal intelligence secrets about some of the famous assassinations of Arab figures with full cooperation between agents of the American and Israeli intelligence services. What is new is the reference to the complicity of the intelligence of Arab regimes, including Egypt, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia.

On January 21, 2023, Melman published in Haaretz newspaper a chapter from his new (yet to be named) book documenting the assassination of the leader of the Lebanese Hezbollah, Imad Fayez Mughniyeh, in 2008 in Damascus and the role of the US embassy and the intelligence of Arab countries in the operation.

Simultaneously, Pompeo revealed in his newly released book, Never Give an Inch: Fighting for the America I Love, that former Mossad chief Yossi Cohen had requested CIA help in rescuing a crew of Mossad agents who were in direct danger while carrying out a secret operation.

 

Diplomatic Bomb

Although 15 years have passed since the assassination of Imad Mughniyeh in Damascus on February 12, 2008, “Israel” has not yet officially declared its responsibility, but the book that Melman published revealed several things that remained unclear until now.

The most dangerous of these details is that the intelligence of many countries, including Arab countries, participated in planning with “Israel” and America and collecting information to carry out the assassination of a prominent leader in Hezbollah.

In his book, Melman also revealed a dangerous secret: the bomb that the Mossad made and used to assassinate Imad Mughniyeh was transported through a diplomatic bag of the American embassy.

He confirmed that the US embassy in Jordan transferred the bomb through the diplomatic bag to Damascus, which then handed it over to Mossad’s implementation cell in the Syrian capital.

He added that a number of Arab countries, which he called moderate, played a direct role in carrying out this operation through the participation of their intelligence services in the process of collecting information about Mughniyeh and his movements.

The book revealed the depth of the relationship between the Israeli Occupation and the United States in the field of intelligence exchange and the coordination between them in the method and mechanism for carrying out assassinations in the Middle East, and that Washington has the first and last word.

Melman confirmed, quoting informed security sources in Tel Aviv, that former US President George W. Bush and then-Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert were the ones who issued the orders to assassinate Mughniyeh.

He explained that the Mossad informed its leadership in a message confirming the success of the operation: “The Arab is dead.” The expression was racist and often used by the Israelis against Arabs, according to the London newspaper Rai Alyoum, on January 21, 2023.

An Israeli book, Imperfect Spies, also written by Melman, revealed that the assassination of Imad Mughniyeh was a joint operation between the Mossad and the CIA.

According to Melman, the US intelligence was hesitant about assassinating Mughniyeh, but after the Second Lebanon War, the decision to assassinate him was taken, and Bush personally approved that, making this operation one of the most prominent joint operations between the two sides.

And he indicated that “Israel” wanted to assassinate Mughniyeh while he was accompanied by former Iranian Revolutionary Guard chief Qassem Soleimani, but the Americans refused at that time, while America carried out the assassination of Soleimani later during the era of former President Donald Trump.

Melman confirmed in his book that the Arab intelligence services that actively participated in gathering information to assassinate Mughniyeh are: Egypt, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia, along with the intelligence services of the US, France, and the UK.

He explained that the intelligence provided by these countries contributed to the successful implementation of the operation.

The same thing about the involvement of Arab regimes in providing support and information to American and Israeli intelligence was confirmed by Pompeo’s book without providing details.

 

Save the Mossad

In conjunction with Melman’s book, Pompeo revealed some subtle details of the Mossad and CIA collaboration.

Pompeo said in his book that former Mossad chief Yossi Cohen asked him to help a crew of Mossad agents who were in direct danger while carrying out a secret operation “somewhere.”

According to Pompeo, CIA agents provided safe apartments for Mossad agents until they returned home.

He said while he got off the plane after his return from a visit to a European capital, he received a call from Cohen, so he went back inside to receive the call. The plane was equipped with appropriate communications equipment to hold a secret conversation with an Israeli leader, and the official was Mossad director Yossi Cohen.

The latter called him and said that they had just completed a very important mission, and now he was having some trouble getting some of them out, and asked for help.

Although Pompeo did not mention the name of the operation or the period, his description of it, as one of the most important secret operations ever conducted, prompted activists to link it to Iran, as it coincided with the theft of the Iranian nuclear archive in 2018.

The Israeli website Intelli Times suggested that the target place is Tehran, and the smuggled Mossad agents stole the secrets of the nuclear program that Netanyahu previously presented, and published a picture of Pompeo with Israeli agents.

The Jerusalem Post reported on January 24, 2023, that although Pompeo says in his book that it was one of the most important secret intelligence operations ever, intelligence sources have repeatedly denied that the operation in question was the theft of the secret Iranian nuclear archive from Tehran in February 2018.

The sources of the Israeli newspaper did not specify another operation that could be of that importance as described by Pompeo, but they insisted that the Americans did not participate in the Tehran archive operation in 2018, according to the newspaper.

It is worth noting, in this context, that Pompeo’s tenure under Trump witnessed more than one major Israeli intelligence operation that was announced, including the sabotage of Iranian nuclear facilities in Natanz in July 2020, in addition to the assassination of the director of the Iranian nuclear program, Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, in November 2020, but the two operations took place after Pompeo’s departure from the Intelligence Agency and his assumption of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

One of the strange things is that Pompeo spoke in his book about religious reasons that unite the American evangelical current, to which he belongs, with the stream of Orthodox Judaism, to which he said that the head of the Mossad (Cohen) belongs.

He said that his evangelical Christianity and Cohen’s Orthodox Judaism helped to strengthen the bonds between the two intelligence agencies.

Pompeo is using his Christian faith and unwavering support for “Israel” to satisfy America’s evangelical base, an important voting base for anyone aspiring to the White House that voted heavily for Trump in the 2016 and 2020 elections.

This is what Pompeo is seeking after he announced his desire to run for the presidential elections in 2024 for the Republican Party, as he is well aware of the importance of the support of the evangelical Christian base for him if he shows his unlimited support for “Israel,” even at the expense of America’s interests.

 

Khashoggi’s Assassination

It was a great irony that Pompeo, in his book, strongly defended Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who is accused of killing journalist Jamal Khashoggi, saying MBS would be one of the leaders of his time and a historical figure, and accuses Khashoggi of being a member of the Muslim Brotherhood as if he is justifying his killing.

It came to the point that Pompeo used ugly phrases as he responded to the American press defending Jamal Khashoggi, in exchange for the Trump administration’s support for the Saudi crown prince.

Pompeo traveled to Riyadh days after the killing of Jamal Khashoggi in October 2018 and met with bin Salman to support him in the face of the American media’s attack on Saudi Arabia at the time.

In his book, he revealed that he and Trump felt that they had saved bin Salman from a bad reputation, as Trump asked him to go to Saudi Arabia, telling him he should go to Saudi Arabia and tell MBS that “he owes us,” according to the Washington Post.

Mike did so despite the fact that the CIA, which was headed by Pompeo in 2017, confirmed in its report published on February 11, 2021, that Jamal was brutally killed by order of Mohammed bin Salman, and his crime was exposing corruption and suppression of authority.

Pompeo severely criticized Jamal Khashoggi in his new book, and mocked the media’s description of him as the Saudi Bob Woodward, in reference to the famous American writer.

He claimed that Khashoggi was loyal to the Muslim Brotherhood.

Sarah Leah Whitson, Executive Director of Freedom for the Arab World Now (DAWN), said on January 23, 2023, that Pompeo’s blunt and cowardly comments justifying the killing of Khashoggi by disparaging his political views and falsely linking them to terrorism reflect the same justifications that Mohammed bin Salman and other tyrants use to justify their crimes.

She added that it is despicable for a senior US official to suggest that it is okay to kill a journalist if his political views are not liked.

According to her, suggesting that killing a journalist is acceptable because it is routine in an unforgiving Middle East is a racist and insulting act of curtailing Mohammed bin Salman’s appalling criminality.