Papers reveal botched Israeli assassination

[J-10]

Papers reveal botched Israeli assassination
January 02, 2005

London, England, Jan. 1 (UPI) -- Details of a 1974 assassination by Israeli secret services were revealed Saturday by papers released at Britain's National Archives in London, the BBC reported.

Two Israelis killed a Moroccan catering worker in Lillehammer, Norway, whom they believed to be Ali Hassan Salame, the Palestinian behind the deaths of 11 Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics. However, the declassified papers revealed that the Israelis killed the wrong man.

The Israelis had seen Ahmed Bouchikhi conversing with an Algerian, Kamal Benamane, at a Lillehammer bathhouse.

The Israelis wrongly believed Benamane to be a Black September courier who could lead them to Ali Hassan Salame.

The Israelis concluded that Bouchikhi must be Salame, and later shot and killed him.

The real Ali Hassan Salame was killed five years later in Beirut.
http://www.washtimes.com/upi-breaking/20050101-094619-1673r.htm

[Jedburgh]

Their screw-up in Jordan in '97 was far worse. Two Mossad operatives were captured by Khaled Mashal's bodyguards when they tried to kill him. They were turned over to the Jordanian authorities, who then put the Israeli embassy under cordon to prevent any other cloak and toxin types from beating a hasty retreat.

In order to gain their release, Israel had to agree to the release of a number of Palestinian prisoners - including Sheikh Yassin - as well as providing the antidote to the toxin that had been administered to Mashal.

To make it worse, relations with Canada were off for a bit, as the operators were traveling with forged Canadian passports.

After that debacle and a few others, including another yokel arrested while emplacing a wiretap in Switzerland, Mossad virtually ceased all ops.

Meir Dagan is currently the head of the organization, and he's instituted a large number of real reforms that seem to be fixing the incompetent circus that Mossad had turned into - despite the previous cycles of reform such as those recommended by the Agranat committe following the '73 war, and the Halevy reforms under Netanyahu.