By NDT Special Bureau

In the wake of heightened security threats, the role played by country’s intelligence agencies is too significant to take a backfoot or to enter the realm of denial. The security confrontation between Israel and Iran has augmented the tension and hostility between the intelligence agencies of both countries.

On issues concerning the levels of human intelligence (HUMINT) and signals intelligence (SIGINT), both the Israeli intelligence community – foreign intelligence service ‘Mossad’ and security agency ‘Shin Bet’ – and its Iranian counterparts have been engaged in augmented confrontations.

Several senior officers have testified the presence of two principal Iranian intelligence services operating in the Israel region which to name are the intelligence branch of the ‘Islamic Revolution Guards Corps’ and the Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS). Iranian intelligence in the past two decades has showed an upward hike in intelligence capabilities and its advancement of the SIGINT and HUMINT procedures, thus significantly raising the bars of security concerns to an altogether different level. Officials have testified that both the intelligence branches of Iran have made significant improvement in pooling out resources with greater budgets, and with bases for recruitment and operations in Lebanon and Syria to run Arab spies against Israel.

The intelligence of both nations have not shied away from revealing the measures and coercive stance taken by respective countries in the name of national security. The countries have been crystal clear in their intent of establishing espionage cell and several reports regarding the same are readily available so as to compare past patterns and data. Reports of Iranian espionage in Israel is not a new chapter to get astonished about. The security agency, Shin Bet has time and again exposed the presence of such espionage on the Israeli soil.

In May 2018, Shin Bet revealed the arrest of former Minister of Energy and Infrastructure, Gonen Segev, who after being recruited through the Iranian Embassy in Nigeria had spied for Iran for nearly five years. Gonen Segev was sentenced to 11 years of imprisonment as during his service he transgressed to provide intelligence on the energy industry, national security sites, and Israeli officials. Shin Bet efficiency has been proved time and again as in March 2019, it informed about the Iranian intelligence infiltration of the mobile phone of former Israel Defense Forces (IDF) Chief of Staff and a Prime Ministerial candidate, Benny Gantz.

Per several testimonies of senior security expects, it makes sense that the intelligence of Iran apart from its SIGNIT has been continuously infiltrating the Iranian soil with its HUMINT with an intent to know every bits and parcel about Israel to draw Israel’s intelligence picture so as to attack the cyber and IT capabilities of the country along with its security bases and civil-framework of its society.

The recent addition in the list of exposed espionage has been of the 20th June public revelation by Shin Bet, that lay bared the efforts of the Iranian intelligence to establish an espionage cell in Israel under commercial cover. A Jordanian businessman, Thaer Shafut, of Palestinian origin was arrested on 17 April and was questioned to reveal that he had entered Israel to establish cells in Israel and the West Bank to use it to carry out clandestine Iranian activities. He had been recruited for Iranian intelligence in Lebanon by two Arabic-speaking operatives using the pseudonyms ‘Abu Tzadak’ and ‘Abu Jafar’.

According to the Shin Bet statement, further meetings with these handlers took place in Lebanon and Syria in 2018–19, at which Shafut was instructed to establish commercial infrastructure in Israel.

Being an undercover intelligence agent, Shafut set up a factory in Jordan to employ Shia workers who would underpin Iranian activity in Israel and the West Bank. An investment of USD500,000 for field operations was made by his handlers who even supplied him with encrypted communications for intelligence and to co-ordinate meetings.

With an intent to drive funds to Palestinian military groups such as ‘Hamas’ and ‘Palestine Islamic Jihad’, as well as the ‘Lebanese Hizbullah’ in the West Bank and in Israel, the Iranian Intelligence planned to use Shafut and send him to Iran for advanced training, per Shin Bet. Iranian intelligence easy targets for the intelligence purpose has been 1.5 million Israeli Arabs, Palestinians, or foreigners foreseeing the difficult to recruit the Jewish Israeli citizens.

On the occasion of Israel Defense Force briefing, an Israeli military commentator revealed that on a daily basis near to 50 Iranian cyber-attacks take place aiming the Ministry of Defense and electricity utilities. The confrontations between the intelligence of both nations especially in recent years, have raised significant security concerns not just for the region but for the world at large.

Photo Credit : Shutterstock

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