Fearing a spectacular Munich-style attack on its athletes at this week’s London Olympics, Israel has sent Mossad agents to hunt down Iranian-backed terrorists in Europe, a media report said today.
“Israeli agents fearing an `anniversary attack’ on Israel’s athletes at the Olympic Games in London are hunting Iranian-backed terrorists in Europe,” the Sunday Times reported.
The report quoting unnamed intelligence analysts in Tel Aviv fear the Iranians are back in the terrorist game in Europe and may be aiming to pull off a spectacular act of reprisal in the eye-for-an-eye war over their nuclear weapons programme.
The alert sounded for the security services last week when five Israeli tourists were ambushed and killed by a bomber in the resort of Burgas in Bulgaria, the first attack of its kind in that country.
Within 24 hours Mossad dispatched teams from its Neviot or “spring” units, which use state-of-the-art telecoms monitoring systems, to several capitals in Europe. Their job was to monitor known Quds Force agents operating from Iranian embassies and safe houses, the report said.
Israel has identified its arch-enemy in this shadowy war as General Qassem Suleimani of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, who is said to be the mastermind of its terrorist operations around the globe, it said.
Meanwhile, in Jerusalem, Israeli Defence Minister Mr Ehud Barak said the government was working with British and other global intelligence and security agencies to minimise the chance of an attack on its nationals during the London Olympics from July 27.
Israeli, British and other international intelligence and security agencies are working ahead of the Olympics to minimise the chance that any attack takes place, Mr Barak said.
“This is something we work on anyway, whether there is a threat or not,” Jerusalem Post quoted Mr Barak as saying.
“There is definitely intelligence and operational awareness” ahead of the games, he said, saying Israel will defend itself everywhere at all times.
“Naturally it is an attractive event, and even without concrete warnings, we must be ready and alert, first and foremost because such things have already happened,” he said, referring to a deadly attack at the 1972 Munich Games which left 11 Israelis dead.
Meanwhile, Israeli Defense Ministry Diplomatic and Security Bureau head Mr Amos Gilad today denied the Sunday Times report saying, “Intelligence doesn’t work that way.”
“You don’t send dozens of agents hunt down ghosts,” Mr Gilad told Israeli Army Radio.
There are, however, threats and attempts to harm Israelis by Iran and Hezbollah, generally, he said.