Who knows Israel's Mossad?
Updated on 18 February 2010
The assassination in Dubai of Hamas commander Mahmoud al-Mabhouh by an 11-person hit squad has thrown the spotlight on the Mossad, Israel's security service. Who Knows Who investigates.
Israel’s secret services – known as the Mossad – have a long history of carrying out clandestine operations.
Attributed assassinations range from the Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann, who was snatched from hiding in Argentina by Mossad operatives in the 1960s, to revenge by Mossad on the perpetrators of the attacks on the Israeli Olympic team in 1972.
In recent days Mossad has once again been in the spotlight, after it was accused of killing a Hamas leader in Dubai. Mahmoud al-Mabhouh was found dead in a luxury hotel in the emirate on January 20.
Dubai police said today they were virtually certain Mossad was behind the assassination of al-Mabhouh, as the incident threatened to turn into a diplomatic row between Israel and Britain over the use of false British passports.
Foreign secretary David Miliband even pledged to "get to the bottom of" how British fake passports were allegedly used to set up the attack on al-Mabhouh.
But what do we know of the connections that surround Mossad?
Channel 4's Who Knows Who will try to start piecing together a profile of the world's most secretive secret service…
The most obvious link to the UK is with MI6. Two years ago reports were circulating of Britain forging closer links with Mossad.
Then head of MI6, Sir John Scarlett, was said to have visited Israel for talks over Iran’s nuclear threat. Scarlett was reported to have been briefed by Mossad director Meir Dagan.
While details of Mossad agents never appear in the public domain; details of its directors have been published: Reuven Shiloah, 1949-1952, Isser Harel, 1952-1963, Meir Amit, 1963-1968, Zvi Zamir, 1968-1974, Yitzhak Hofi, 1974-1982, Nahum Admoni, 1982-1989, Shabtai Shavit, 1989-1996, Danny Yatom, 1996-1998, Efraim Halevy, 1998-2002, up to current incumbent Meir Dagan.
Over the years Mossad has been reported to have been engaged in assassinations of members of Palestinian resistance movement Hamas and the PLO, among others, while there have been rumours of links with the CIA and much debate over links with former Pakistan President Benazir Bhutto.
Mossad promotes the following motto on its official website: "Where no counsel is, the people fall, but in the multitude of counsellors there is safety".
