Nevertheless the discovery of Riyadh’s intentions had created international alarm, especially in Israel. This increased as evidence emerged of Saudi Arabia’s support for jihadist causes in Kashmir, Uzbekistan, and Chechnya that were linked to bin Laden. It was the Saudi link with Kashmir that Mossad had focused on; Riyadh supported the Kashmir insurgents by funneling the funds through Pakistan; tens of millions of dollars were laundered through Islamabad’s central bank. Vast sums were sent by the same route to support the Taliban in Afghanistan. Osama bin Laden, already lionized in Riyadh for his fight against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan, remained a heroic figure in the desert kingdom. Too late the House of Saud realized he was its mortal enemy. The September 11 attacks against the United States made the king and his thousands of princes realize the extent of the threat posed by al-Qaeda. With the American withdrawal of its protective military shield, the House of Saud found itself urgently needing a nuclear arsenal. Pakistan, still one of the world’s leading sponsors of terrorism, had the capability of providing the weapons. It became the first port of call for the frightened rulers of the kingdom. The arrival of Abdul Qadeer Khan in Riyadh was further proof of Pakistan’s readiness to satisfy their demands in return for unlimited oil at a bargain price.
Tel Aviv saw the real danger from a Saudi-Pakistan pact was that the House of Saud could be tempted to try and buy peace for itself by providing al-Qaeda with nuclear weapons.
The
It was then that the scientists had moved from Mossad’s Detain List to the separate and very secret one it kept for those it was tasked to assassinate.
Rules for an assassination had not changed. Each execution had to be approved by a committee chaired by the incumbent prime minister and was of a person, the evidence showed, who posed a clear and present danger to the state of Israel and who could not be brought to trial because he or she was protected within the borders of one of Israel’s enemies. Among them were Saudi Arabia, North Korea, Iran, and the numerous Islamic republics of the former Soviet Bloc. In Mossad’s eye view, the need for kidon had increased with the spread of Islamic fundamentalism in all its guises: Hamas, Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad, Solidarity Front, Palestinian Liberation Front, the terrorists of the Philippines; all were pledged to destroy the Jewish State. The kidon had killed in all those places, employing the many skills acquired through their extensive training under the precise guidelines they had learned and that had remained in force since Meir Amit, the most innovative and ruthless director general of Mossad before Meir Dagan had taken over, had written out the rules in his bold handwriting: “There will be no killing of heads of state however extreme they are. They will be dealt with politically. There will be no killing of a terrorist’s family unless they are also proven to be implicated in terrorism. Each execution must be legally sanctioned by the prime minister of the day. It is therefore the ultimate judicial sanction of the state and the executioner is no different from a legally appointed hangman or any other lawfully appointed executioner of the state.”
Part of what Amit once likened to a “theology of death” (to the author) is based on an eighty-page manual written in 1953 by a scientist, Dr. Sidney Gottlieb, who at the time was head of the CIA’s Technical Services Division. The manual has remained to this day in the
