As soon as upon a time in Damascus, Kamal Amin Thaabet moved freely amongst Syria’s elite, trusted and unseen. However behind the rigorously constructed persona was Eli Cohen, an Israeli spy feeding essential secrets and techniques to his homeland. Sixty years in the past, his double life ended with a public execution.
This week, Israel retrieved thousands of items linked to Cohen from a covert Syrian archive.
Who Was Eli Cohen?
Born in 1924 in Alexandria, Egypt, to Syrian Jewish mother and father, Eli Cohen was no extraordinary man. His fluency in Arabic, English, and French made him uniquely fitted to espionage.
After being expelled from Egypt following the Suez Disaster, Cohen settled in Israel in 1957, the place he labored as a translator and accountant, till the Israeli spy company, Mossad, noticed his potential.
By 1960, Eli Cohen was recruited for a mission that may turn out to be legendary. After coaching, he moved to Buenos Aires, Argentina, below the alias Kamal Amin Thaabet, a Syrian businessman. There, he constructed belief throughout the Syrian expatriate neighborhood, making contacts that may open doorways into Syria’s political and navy elite.
Right this moment 55 Years In the past: Legendary #Israeli spy, Eli Cohen, was publicly hanged in Damascus, #Syria.
He sacrificed his life to maintain Israel secure. Thanks Eli. Relaxation in Peace. #Israel pic.twitter.com/cI9QbcgRJy
— Hananya Naftali (@HananyaNaftali) May 18, 2020
In 1962, Cohen made the dangerous transfer to Damascus, the place he shortly grew to become a trusted insider. His cowl story was impeccable, and he used his connections to rise to the very best circles of energy. When a Bathist coup in 1963 introduced a few of Eli Cohen’s Argentine contacts to energy, his entry grew even deeper.
Between 1961 and 1965, Cohen gathered essential intelligence on Syrian navy methods, particularly concerning the Golan Heights, a contested area of strategic significance to Israel. His entry was so deep that he was thought of for high-ranking positions, together with deputy minister of defence.
This espionage was very important, significantly after a Ba’athist navy coup in 1963 dropped at energy leaders who have been Cohen’s former contacts from Argentina. Cohen’s intelligence considerably aided Israel’s preparedness within the years main as much as the Six-Day Struggle of 1967.
By means of him, Israel acquired very important intelligence on Syrian navy plans and operations.
Eli Cohen’s success got here at a value. Regardless of warnings from his Mossad handlers, he was careless along with his radio transmissions, sending alerts too often and at predictable occasions. This error gave Syrian counterintelligence the prospect they wanted.
In January 1965, Cohen was caught red-handed transmitting messages. After a quick trial, he was publicly executed in Could that 12 months.
In 2019, Netflix launched The Spy, a restricted collection dramatising his years-long undercover operation in Syria, with Sacha Baron Cohen portraying Eli Cohen.
Lately, in a covert operation, Israel retrieved over 2,500 gadgets from Syrian intelligence archives – paperwork, letters, images, private results, and mission information associated to Eli Cohen’s work. These artefacts, together with his handwritten letters to household, false passports, keys to his Damascus house, and mission briefings, have been introduced by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to Cohen’s widow, Nadia.
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