Chapter Seventeen
Fiasco in Amman

Baba! Baba!” (Father! Father!) the little girl cried, jumped out of the black jeep, and ran after her father into a tall office building in central Amman, Jordan.

“Baba!” she called, and triggered one of the worst mishaps in the history of the Mossad.

 

The operation had been masterly planned. Even though it seemed somewhat clumsy, it had every chance of success. Its goal was to kill Khaled Mash’al, the newly appointed head of the Hamas Political Bureau. Mash’al, a forty-one-year-old computer engineer, was a handsome man, sporting a well-groomed black beard. He was a rising leader of Hamas, which, in the previous few years, had become Israel’s worst enemy. This terrorist organization, fueled by Islamic fanaticism, had replaced the PLO in the ruthless fight against Israel after Yasser Arafat and Yitzhak Rabin had made a move toward peace by signing the Oslo agreements together in September 1993. The senior officers of Mossad had proposed Mash’al as a target for assassination after a deadly suicide bombing in Jerusalem on July 30, 1997. Two terrorists blew themselves up in the crowded Mahane-Yehuda market, killing 16 Israelis and wounding 169 others. Prime Minister Benjamin (Bibi) Netanyahu called an emergency meeting of the cabinet that decided to kill one of the Hamas leaders. The ramsad, General Danny Yatom, who had been appointed to his post in 1996, was tasked by Netanyahu with designating which man should die.

Yatom had a long military career behind him. A muscular, bald man with a ready smile, he had been a fighter and a deputy commander at Sayeret Matkal, then an Armor Corps officer, and the head of the Israeli Central Command with the rank of major general. Devoted heart and soul to Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, he had been his military secretary. After Rabin’s death, he was, to the surprise of many, appointed head of the Mossad. All those who knew him appreciated his efficiency and his military record, but he seemed to lack all of the qualities needed in a man at the helm of a secret organization. His appointment seemed to be more of a tribute to the dead Rabin than a choice of the best man for the job.

After his meeting with Netanyahu, in early August 1997, Yatom called an urgent meeting at Mossad headquarters in Tel Aviv. The heads of the Mossad’s major departments were summoned to the conference room. These were Aliza Magen, Yatom’s deputy; B., the head of Caesarea, the special operations department; Yitzhak Barzilai, the head of Tevel—department in charge of cooperation with foreign intelligence services; Ilan Mizrahi, head of Tzomet, the intelligence-gathering department; D., head of Neviot, which specialized in penetrating enemy targets; and the heads of the research and terrorism departments (persons designed by a letter instead of a name are still on active duty).

At first, the discussion reached a dead end. The Mossad did not have a full list of the Hamas leaders. The most prominent Hamas chief was Mousa Mohammed Abu Marzook, but the man carried an American passport and any attack on him could create complications with the United States. Khaled Mash’al, on the other hand, was unanimously regarded as a suitable target; but his office was in Amman. After signing a peace agreement with Jordan, in October 1994, Prime Minister Rabin had prohibited all Mossad operations in that country. As long as General Yatom was Rabin’s military secretary, he followed Rabin’s order to the letter; but after he was appointed ramsad, Yatom decided to ignore the late Rabin’s instructions and proposed Mash’al’s name to Prime Minister Netanyahu. His suggestion was backed by the head of Caesarea and his intelligence officer, Mishka Ben-David.

Netanyahu agreed; yet, determined to avoid a crisis with Jordan, he ordered a “quiet” operation, not a showy hit. Yatom charged the Kidon group—the elite unit of Caesarea—with executing the operation. A doctor of biochemistry, employed at the Mossad research department, suggested using a lethal poison that had been developed in the Biology Institute in Ness Ziona. A few drops of this poison, sprinkled on a person’s skin, would cause his death. This poison did not leave any traces and could not be detected even in an autopsy. A similar poison was used in the past, in the Godiva Affair against Wadie Haddad, the head of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (see chapter 16).

“The poison thing didn’t bother you?” Israeli journalist Ronen Bergman asked Mishka Ben-David years later. “Such a disgusting way to die . . .”

“Tell me,” Ben-David answered, “a bullet in the head or a missile fired at the car is more humane than poison? . . . It would have been better, of course, if there was no need to kill people, but in the war against terror this is unavoidable. The prime minister’s decision to carry out a ‘quiet’ operation in order not to harm our relations with Jordan was a logical one.”

 

In the summer of 1997, some passersby in a Tel Aviv street saw two young men shaking cans of Coca-Cola, then pulling their tabs and opening them. The bubbly drink squirted out with a sizzling noise. For a moment, the people on the street cast annoyed looks at the two young men, and then kept moving. They could not guess that the two were Mossad agents, rehearsing Mash’al’s killing: one of them would open a Coke can in his vicinity to divert his attention, while the other would squirt a few drops of poison at the back of his neck.

Six weeks before the operation, in August 1997, the first agents arrived in Jordan. They carried foreign passports and followed Mash’al’s daily routine: when does he leave his home, who rides with him in his car in the morning, what is the route he takes and where does he go, how is the road traffic when he travels? They measured the time between his getting out of his car and entering this or that building, checked if he stopped on his way to talk with other people entering the same building, and collected any other bits of information that could influence the operational plans.

The advance team’s report to Kidon headquarters summed up the results of the preliminary mission: Every morning, Mash’al came out of his house without bodyguards. He got into a black SUV driven by his assistant, and headed for the Palestinian Relief Bureau at the Shamia Center building in Amman. After Mash’al got out, the driver departed with the vehicle. Mash’al walked the short distance to the building and entered. The Palestinian Relief Bureau was a cover name for the Hamas headquarters in the Jordanian capital.

The surveillance report by the advance team also suggested the best way to hit Mash’al: in the morning, on the sidewalk, after he got out of the SUV and walked to the office building.

The preparations continued through the summer: surveillance, dispatch of other auxiliary teams to Amman, renting safe houses and vehicles. Suddenly, on September 4, another terrorist attack shook Jerusalem: three Hamas members blew themselves up on Ben-Yehuda Street, killing 5 Israelis, wounding 181. Israel could not wait any longer, it was time to act.

 

September 24, 1997, a day before the operation. A couple of tourists linger by the pool of a big Amman hotel. The man is wearing a white bathrobe. He tells the hotel employees that he is recovering from a heart attack; his slow, cautious walk proves that he still suffers from the side effects of his illness. The young woman with him is a doctor. Every once in a while, she checks his pulse and his blood pressure. Most of the time, they lie on the chaises by the pool. The “heart patient” is Mishka Ben-David, in charge of the communication between the Mossad headquarters and the agents on the ground. The woman, a Mossad agent as well, is a real doctor who carries an injection of antidote to the poison destined to kill Mash’al. The antidote is capable of neutralizing the effect of the poison. It would be used if one or more Kidon agents are accidentally exposed to some drops of the poison during the operation. An immediate shot of the antidote would be the only way to save them from certain death.

While the phony patient and the doctor are waiting by the pool, the hit team is making the last preparations. In the last few days, several agents have arrived to Amman; they will drive the escape vehicles and fill secondary roles. After them, the hit team itself has arrived: two Kidon agents, posing as Canadian tourists by the names of Shawn Kendall and Barry Beads. The two of them have checked into the Intercontinental Hotel. In retrospect, disturbing questions arise concerning these two: Why were they chosen, even though they had never operated in an Arab country? And why did they get Canadian passports, when even the most superficial inspection would prove that they were not Canadians? Their English was stilted, their accent Israeli, and their cover certain to be pulverized by a serious investigation. But all this paled in comparison with the surveillance team’s error, exposed only after the operation was launched.

The hit was to take place at the entrance to the Shamia Center building, where Mash’al’s office was located. The encounter between the Kidon agents and Mash’al was supposed to be quick and deadly. “Shawn” and “Barry” had to approach Mash’al, spray the liquid poison on the back of his neck, and escape aboard a vehicle that was waiting nearby. The two “Canadians” were well prepared after their training in the streets of Tel Aviv. Shawn was to hold the Coke can; when facing Mash’al, he had to pull the tab and “accidentally” spray the Coke in his direction. But the Coke, of course, was not the story. Barry, who held the small container of poison, was the main figure in the operation; in a matter of seconds, he had to spray the poison from his container toward Mash’al. The Coke can was supposed to divert his attention from the poison spray; the liquid would spread on his skin and make him die of a “heart attack.”

Two other “tourists,” a man and a woman, were to wait inside the building lobby in case the hit team needed help. For instance, Mash’al might walk too fast toward the building, and the two Canadians may not be able to get to him. In such case, the “tourists” were supposed to get out of the building and bump into Mash’al, delaying him until the hit men reached him.

That way, the Mossad planners believed, there would be no confrontation with the Jordanians.

The key to success was the situation on the ground: target area clean of bodyguards, family members, acquaintances, police officers, Hamas militants, and others who could thwart the hit. And indeed, the instructions to the eight agents sent to Jordan were clear: carry out the operations only if all the above conditions are fulfilled. Danny Yatom maintains that he had told the agents: “If the conditions differ from the original planning, we can always execute at a later date.” As far as we know, that was what really happened. The agents came several times to the target area but aborted the hit because of unexpected problems—the presence of Jordanian police officers in the area, bodyguards who escorted Mash’al, or Mash’al’s last-minute decision not to go to the office that day.

 

September 25, 1997, D-Day.

The operation commander takes position across the street, in front of the office building. It has been decided not to use cell phones or electronic communication instruments in the target area, and the agents would communicate by manual and body signs. In case they needed to abort the operation, the commander would notify the two agents by removing his visor cap.

Behind the building, the getaway car is waiting for the two hit men.

Shawn and Barry are in place, and so is the couple in the lobby of the building.

Everything is ready.

In Mash’al’s home, it is almost a perfectly routine morning; but for a small, last-minute change. Mash’al’s wife asks him to take the two children to school today. Usually she takes care of that. The children get in the SUV with their father, but the Mossad surveillance team does not notice them, and reports to the Kidon people that Mash’al is on his way, alone in the car with the driver. The agents fail to notice the two kids who are sitting in the back. The car windows are tinted and the children cannot be seen from the outside.

Mash’al arrives to the Shamia Center, gets out of the car, crosses the sidewalk, and starts climbing the stairs leading to the building entrance. The two hit men approach him—ten meters, five, three . . . Suddenly Mash’al’s little girl emerges from the SUV. “Baba! Baba!” she calls and starts running toward her father. The driver jumps out of the car and follows the child. The operation commander, who is positioned across the street, notices the child. He removes his hat and tries to signal to his men to abort. But in these critical seconds, the two agents are getting around one of the concrete pillars at the building entrance and for a moment they lose contact with their commander. And even worse—they don’t see the little girl and the driver who runs after her.

The hit men proceed with their mission. They reach Mash’al, and Shawn shakes the Coke can and pulls the tab. But today, for the first time, the tab tears but the can does not open. The diversion fails. Barry nonetheless raises his hand, to spray the poison on Mash’al’s neck. But Mash’al’s driver, who runs after the child, sees the stranger’s raised hand and thinks he is trying to stab his boss. He starts to shout, darts toward Barry, and tries to strike him with a folded newspaper. Mash’al hears his driver’s shouts and turns back. At this moment, Barry sprays the poison and a few drops fall on Mash’al’s ear. He feels only a light prick, but realizes that something is wrong, and runs away as fast as he can. Shawn and Barry rush toward the getaway car.

At this point, another character enters the scene: Muhammad Abu Seif, a Hamas militant who is on his way to deliver some documents to Mash’al. He hears the shouts and sees the confrontation between his leader and the two agents. While Mash’al is running for his life, Abu Seif tries to stop Shawn and Barry, who are about to get into the getaway car, a third snag in the ill-fated mission. He struggles with Shawn, who hits him with the unopened Coke can. Shawn and Barry manage to jump into the car. It darts off.

But then they make the most critical mistake in the operation. The driver tells Shawn and Barry that he has seen Abu Seif writing down the car’s license plate number. The two hit men decide on the spot to abandon the car. They fear that Abu Seif would alert the police, and if they get to the hotel with that car, as planned, they will be arrested there. They have no address of a safe house, no other escape route. Barry and Shawn get out of the car after a few blocks, and the driver speeds away to get rid of the car.

But it turns out that Abu Seif, a veteran of the mujahideen, who had fought in Afghanistan against the Russians, has not given up. The stubborn and agile man has been running after the Israelis’ car. Shawn and Barry, who have left the car and are now walking on both sides of the street, have not noticed him till he jumps Barry, grabs his shirt, and starts yelling that this man has tried to hurt Mash’al. Shawn, who is on the other sidewalk, across the street, rushes to his partner’s aid. He slams into Abu Seif, wounding him slightly in the head, and throws him into a roadside ditch. The struggle continues; a crowd quickly assembles around them and converges on the two foreigners who seem to be beating a fellow Arab. A police officer appears on the scene, disperses the crowd, stops a taxi, and makes the two strangers and the badly beaten Abu Seif get in. The taxi heads for the police station.

At the police station, the officers at first thought that Abu Seif had attacked the two foreigners; but after he recovered from the beating, he accused them of assaulting Mash’al. The Jordanian investigators checked the passports of the two men, and when they realized they were Canadians, they alerted the Canadian consul. The diplomat spoke for a short while with Shawn and Barry, and told the Jordanians: “I don’t know who these guys are, but of one thing I am sure—Canadians they’re not!”

The Jordanians, still unaware of the treasure that had fallen into their hands, decided to keep the two foreigners in custody and allowed them to make one phone call. The agents reached Mossad operational headquarters in Europe and reported their arrest. Simultaneously, a female agent, who had taken part in the operation and watched the scene in front of Shamia Center, understood that a serious failure had occurred, and decided to alert “the heart patient,” Mishka Ben-David, the senior Mossad officer in the Jordanian capital. She rushed to his hotel. Seeing her, he immediately understood that the worst had happened. The standing orders for the operation were that no one was to come near him, with one exception: if the operation had misfired and all agents had to be pulled out of the country at once.

Ben-David discarded his robe, dressed quickly, and hurried to the secret meeting place that had been prepared beforehand. Soon after, the operation commander arrived as well. He, too, was aware of the failure. Yet none of them could imagine the chaos that was about to unfold.

Mishka sent an immediate report to Mossad headquarters. Ramsad Danny Yatom discussed the situation with the department heads, and decided to order the agents to seek refuge at the Israeli embassy in Amman—and not use the escape route they had rehearsed beforehand. Back in Jordan, everyone left the meeting place and headed for the embassy. Only the doctor remained in the hotel.

In the meantime, in a different Amman neighborhood, the poison had begun its deadly work on Mash’al. He collapsed and was taken to a hospital. The Israelis realized that if he did not get the antidote, he was going to die in a few hours.

Netanyahu received the bad news in his car, while on his way to a Jewish New Year’s party at . . . Mossad headquarters—an amazing coincidence. Yatom briefed the prime minister. Netanyahu was appalled. He decided that the ramsad should fly to Amman immediately, meet with King Hussein, and tell him everything, without any diversion or lies. From Mossad headquarters, the prime minister called King Hussein and told him he was sending over the ramsad on a very important matter. The king agreed right away, even though he had no idea what the meeting was about.

Netanyahu’s aides, who were at his side at that time, maintain that he was overwhelmed with anxiety and instructed Yatom to agree to any demand of the king in exchange for the return of the agents to Israel. He also ordered Yatom to offer the antidote to the Jordanians and save Mash’al from certain death. Sharon would say later: “I saw Netanyahu in the Mash’al affair. He went to pieces completely and we had to assemble him again . . . He was under pressure and was ready to give up everything . . .”

King Hussein, distraught, listened to Yatom’s report and ordered his people to find out what Mash’al’s condition was. The accurate diagnosis arrived right away: the man’s condition was quickly deteriorating. The king ordered him transferred immediately to the royal hospital, and accepted Yatom’s offer of the antidote that could save him. In an absurd twist in this harrowing affair, the Israelis and the Jordanians engaged in a race against time to save the life of their enemy, an arch-terrorist.

Mishka Ben-David returned to the hotel. The ampoule of the antidote was in his pocket. “I was moving around with the antidote in my possession,” he said in a later interview with Ronen Bergman, “knowing that it is of no use anymore, as none of our men had been affected by the poison. Only our target was in critical condition. I decided to destroy the antidote, as I feared I might be caught with it. But then I got a call from the unit commander in Israel. He asked me if I still had the antidote, and when I said yes, he asked me to go down to the hotel lobby. A captain of the Jordanian Army was waiting there for me, he said, and he had to take the antidote to the hospital right away.”

But at that moment, another unexpected problem arose: the doctor who was supposed to administer the antidote to the dying Mash’al refused to do it unless the ramsad ordered her to do so in person. Danny Yatom, who had left the royal palace and was on his way to the embassy, called her and ordered her to go with Mishka. But upon their arrival at the hospital, the Jordanians flatly refused to have an Israeli doctor inject the antidote. Perhaps they feared she would only try to finish the job . . .

Complicating things further, the king’s physician, who was charged with saving Mash’al, refused to administer the antidote without knowing the chemical formulas of the poison and of the antidote. He did not want to assume responsibility for Mash’al’s life, lest the Israelis outsmart him and kill the man. A new crisis broke out. Both sides entrenched themselves in their positions, the Jordanians demanding the formulas and the Israelis refusing.

Mash’al’s condition worsened rapidly. He stopped breathing and was connected to a respirator in the intensive-care unit of the royal hospital. It was clear to everybody involved that if Mash’al died, it would be disastrous for the fragile relations of the two countries. The king, who felt deeply hurt by the Israelis, even threatened to order his army to break into the embassy and arrest the four Mossad agents, who had found refuge there. He also said that he would put an end to any political and military cooperation with Israel.

The hours ticked by and the tension kept growing. The king announced that if Mash’al died, he would sentence his killers—the two agents kept in custody by the Jordanian police—to death. He also placed an urgent call to U.S. president Bill Clinton.

The Americans immediately started pressuring Israel to deliver the formula to the Jordanians. Netanyahu plunged into a marathon of meetings with various groups of advisers and cabinet ministers. He finally yielded and gave the formula to the Jordanians.

The Jordanian doctor administered the antidote to Mash’al. The reaction was immediate. Mash’al opened his eyes.

When the news about Mash’al’s recovery reached Israel, everybody let out a sigh of relief, as if their long-lost brother in Jordan was saved, thank God!

Mishka Ben-David and the doctor were able to leave Jordan. Six Mossad agents remained in Amman—four at the embassy, and two held by the Jordanian police.

In the intensive-care unit, Mash’al’s condition kept improving. Israel sent a high-level delegation to Amman, which included Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Minister of Foreign Affairs Ariel Sharon, and Minister of Defense Yitzhak Mordechai. King Hussein, however, refused to receive the delegation and sent his brother Hassan to meet them.

The cabinet also summoned Efraim Halevy, a former deputy ramsad and King Hussein’s personal friend. Halevy was now Israel’s ambassador to the European Union in Brussels. He traveled to Amman immediately, and offered the king a deal. In exchange for the four agents at the embassy, Israel would release from prison the charismatic founder and leader of Hamas, the Sheikh Ahmed Yassin. The king agreed, and the four agents returned to Israel with Halevy.

The final negotiation was entrusted to Ariel Sharon, who maintained close relations with the king.

Sharon demanded the release of the two Kidon agents who were still in custody. In exchange, the Jordanians demanded the release of twenty Jordanian prisoners held by Israel. Sharon agreed. But at the last moment, the Jordanians changed their mind, and demanded more concessions from Israel. Sharon lost his cool in the presence of the king. “If you continue like this,” he angrily said, “our people will remain in your hands, we’ll cut your water (which Israel was supplying to Jordan), and we’ll kill Mash’al one more time.”

Sharon’s outburst turned out to be very effective, and the deal was closed. Two Israeli helicopters landed in Jordan. One of them took the two Kidon agents back to Israel, the other one brought over Sheikh Yassin, who had been released from prison.

The Israeli and world media criticized and ridiculed the Mossad operation in Jordan. Netanyahu was also harshly attacked for his handling of the affair; he had no choice but to establish a board of inquiry, to investigate “the operational failure in Jordan.”

The board completely cleared the prime minister, but blamed the ramsad for “faults in his performance” and for launching an operation that was bound to fail from the start. Yet they did not ask for Yatom’s resignation.

Following the fiasco in Amman, Jordan’s relations with Israel reached a new low. Khaled Mash’al, who was still a minor figure in Hamas, gained stature in the organization and became one of its major leaders. After Sheikh Yassin’s death, Mash’al rose to the overall leadership of Hamas. The prestige of the Mossad in Israel and the world—and even in the eyes of its leaders and agents—was badly scarred. Danny Yatom, who had failed all throughout the operation, was openly criticized by many of the Mossad senior officers. Aliza Magen, Yatom’s deputy, bluntly said that he was not qualified to be a ramsad.

In spite of the criticism, Yatom wouldn’t resign. The only one who assumed responsibility for the mishap was the head of Caesarea, who immediately submitted his resignation. It took five more months—till February 1998, when a Mossad agent was arrested in Switzerland while trying to tap the phone line of a Hezbollah member—for Yatom to finally give in. “I assumed a commander’s responsibility,” he said in an interview with the Haaretz newspaper, “and decided to resign because of the mishaps in Jordan and Switzerland.”

He was replaced by Efraim Halevy, the former deputy ramsad who had successfully negotiated with King Hussein the release of the four agents involved in the Mash’al fiasco.