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How Israel, the US & Iran deploy covert ops
How Israel, the US & Iran deploy covert ops
They go by different names, these anonymous agents who blend into crowds, whose roles are to spy, sabotage or kill. Sleeper cells. Clandestine networks. Covert operatives. Their names vary, as do their roles. But whatever they are called, Israel, the United States and Iran have all deployed their agents against enemies abroad.
How Israel, the US & Iran deploy covert ops
Operation Wrath of God, for example, was Israel’s response to the killing of 11 of its athletes by Black September, a Palestinian group, during the 1972 Munich Olympics. The covert operation ran for perhaps 20 years. It targeted Black September and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), killing dozens of people in Europe and Lebanon, both intended targets and civilian bystanders, with at least one case of mistaken identity.
How Israel, the US & Iran deploy covert ops
The end of Operation Wrath of God did not end the killing. In 2010, police in Dubai said Mossad intelligence agents assassinated Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in his hotel room. He was described as a founder of Hamas’s military wing. Police identified 26 suspects who had entered Dubai in staggered waves under fake passports.
A decade later, Mossad recruited people in Iran to strategically park a truck in Absard, a city about 70km (43.5 miles) east of Tehran. It was loaded with a hidden, remote-controlled machinegun. The target was Iran’s top nuclear scientist, Mohsen Fakhrizadeh.
The US is also infamous for its covert operations. For instance, the CIA in 1953 orchestrated the overthrow of Iran’s democratically elected prime minister, Mohammad Mossadegh. But not everything has gone to plan.
In 2000, the CIA recruited a Russian scientist as a covert courier to deliver flawed plans for a nuclear bomb to Iran. The idea was that the plans would waste Iran’s time. But Operation Merlin backfired when the Russians exposed the CIA to the Iranians. The worry was that the plans may have actually helped the Iranians.
As for Iran, it has been implicated in a 2011 plot to kill the Saudi Arabian ambassador to the US. Manssor Arbabsiar, an Iranian American, was sentenced to 25 years for conspiring with Iran's Quds Force to kill the ambassador in Washington.
The assassination of Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, on February 28, 2026, was aided by Israeli intelligence and a covert CIA source in Iran who reportedly confirmed Khamenei’s location. Cyberattacks by the US military then targeted Iran’s ability to see and communicate, while Israeli jets bombed Khamenei’s compound.
On March 3, Qatar arrested 10 people suspected of spying and plotting sabotage for Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps. It all suggests countries will do almost anything, anywhere, if it serves their interests. And if they think they can get away with it.
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Lebanon Israel Iran
A displaced boy who fled Israeli air raids with his family in Dahiyeh, Beirut's southern suburb, holds his cat at the Bir Hassan Technical Institute, which has been turned into a shelter, in Beirut. [Bilal Hussein/AP Photo]
Lebanon Israel Iran
A displaced man who fled Israeli attacks in southern Lebanon receives a haircut in the playground of a school turned into a shelter in Beirut. [Hussein Malla/AP Photo]
Lebanon Israel Iran
Children displaced by Israeli air raids play in the courtyard of a school used as a shelter in Beirut. [Hassan Ammar/AP Photo]
Lebanon Israel Iran
Displaced people settle in at the Bir Hassan Technical Institute in Beirut. [Bilal Hussein/AP Photo]
More than 800,000 people, almost 15 percent of Lebanon's population, have fled their homes. [Bilal Hussein/AP Photo]
A displaced woman carries mattresses at Saint Joseph Church, which has been turned into a shelter for displaced migrant workers, mostly from African nations, in Beirut. [Hussein Malla/AP Photo]
Only a fraction of the displaced, some 132,000 according to Lebanese authorities, are in collective shelters. [Hussein Malla/AP Photo]
Children of displaced migrant workers sit inside a room at Beirut's Saint Joseph Church, now a shelter for displaced migrants. [Hussein Malla/AP Photo]
A displaced child plays past tents set up inside Beirut's Camille Chamoun Sports City Stadium, which has been turned into a shelter. [Hassan Ammar/AP Photo]
People walk past tents sheltering people displaced by Israeli air raids along the Beirut waterfront. [Hassan Ammar/AP Photo]
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