Now this spy is flying a "MiG-21" fighter jet.. crossing Iraqi airspace.. and speeding on, toward Syrian airspace.
Then he suddenly levels off and banks the fighter.. he penetrates Jordanian airspace.. and tries to cross it at great speed toward his target.
Israel.
And if he succeeds and gets there.. with the secret he carries.. Egypt and Syria lose the war.. and Israel occupies their lands.
Suddenly, over the radio, he hears a stern voice ordering him to land at once.. or be shot down.
To his right, to his left, and behind him, three interceptor fighters of the "Hunter" type are flying.
Jets of the Jordanian Air Force.
The pilot suddenly climbs in his plane, the Jordanian-Israeli border flickers on the horizon, and the commander of the Jordanian formation surges after him, his finger leaping toward the missile-launch button.
But this aerial battle.. had a beginning.
The spy is "Munir Jamil Habib Rufa", a pilot captain in the Iraqi Air Force.
Of Turkish origin, his grandfather emigrated from southeastern Turkey specifically.. and his family was among the displaced families that Iraq took in as refugees, after the First World War.
The story begins at the height of the Cold War, between the United States of America and the Soviet Union, and each one's attempt to outdo the other in alliances, intelligence and armaments.
And the Mossad begins to partner with American intelligence in this race, and together they carry out assassinations and the toppling of regimes in most parts of the world...
These operations included changing regimes and bringing down governments in Guatemala, the Congo, Cyprus, Indonesia and Iran, and eliminating heads of state and figures opposed to American policy in many countries.. such as the assassination of the president of the Dominican Republic, the Vietnamese president, and even the American president "John Kennedy" himself.
And at the very same time, in the other camp, Egypt, Syria and Iraq were completing a deal of the utmost importance.
A deal with the Soviet Union, to supply them with "MiG-21" aircraft.
And this plane was one of the gems of aviation technology at the time.
Light and faster than sound, and its armor was strong at the same time.
And the technology in it was extremely advanced.. even its dimensions and measurements were strange, and American engineers and experts could not understand them.
And they concluded that if the Arab states armed themselves with the MiG-21.. that would give them the upper hand in the sky.. and air superiority over Israel.
But the deal does go through, in 1961...
And the "MiG-21" enters service in Egypt, Iraq and Syria.. officially.
And the Soviets' condition was that no foreign expert come near the plane.. so the technology would not leak.
And that maintenance, when necessary, be carried out by Soviet experts.. sent directly by Soviet intelligence.
And Mossad experts devise a bold plan, to intercept any "MiG-21" flown by any of the three states.. and hijack it..
But American intelligence rejects the Mossad plan.
Because first.. Israel has no plane that can match the MiG-21.. neither in capability nor in speed.
And second.. because the skill and prowess of Israeli pilots was extremely low.. compared with Arab pilots.
And here, in 1965, American intelligence experts, together with the Mossad, devise a new plan.
A plan by which they could obtain the aerial fighting jewel, the "MiG-21".
They even named the operation "Operation: Diamond".
And the operation was bolder and smarter, than the plan the Mossad had proposed.
It was that they recruit a pilot.. from one of the three states.. to fly a "MiG-21" fighter.. and hand it over in Tel Aviv.
This operation, beyond granting them the "MiG-21"'s technology and its codes.. would cause violent frustration, for the Arab peoples...
And it would restore the Mossad's standing, after it had been exposed during the previous years and had suffered severe humiliations at the hands of Egyptian, Syrian and Iraqi intelligence, in Egypt and Syria and Iraq and Switzerland and Rome and Paris.
Even the collapse and downfall of their darling agent "Eli Cohen".
And the choice falls on Iraq.
And specifically on four of the pilots of a "MiG-21" squadron.
The Iraqi captain "Shaker Mahmoud Youssef", who was a sharp opponent of the government.. and criticized conditions openly.. but as they drew closer to him and investigated him.. they discovered that he was extremely patriotic.. and his loyalty was to his country alone.
And given his sharpness and his violent manner.. he rejected their offer outright and insulted them.. which drove them to kill him on the spot.
And Lieutenant "Hamed al-Dahi".. and he was gentle, cheerful and calm.. but he was also extremely religious, and prayed each prayer on time.. and fasted on Mondays and Thursdays.. and this worried them somewhat.. since he would regard Israel as an enemy on both religious and national grounds.
And Captain "Mohammed Gulub".. and he was a man of nationalist thinking.. intelligent, calm, and as sly as a fox. And this suited espionage work perfectly.
As for the last.. he was pilot Captain "Munir Rufa".
And the choice indeed falls on him.. as the first target.
"Munir" lacked any sense of national feeling toward Iraq to begin with.. he boasted all the time of his Turkish origins, and was frivolous, fond of drink and women.
And after the selection.. the American army offers Iraq a special training course for pilots.. and this course, of course, was orchestrated by American intelligence.
And the Iraqi authorities agree.. because it is a chance for their men to see what the Americans have reached in military science and technology.. and to rub shoulders with American society.. and to know the enemy better.
And in the United States, a Mossad officer of Iraqi origin, "Ezra Naji Zalkha", picks up Captain "Munir" and draws close to him and befriends him.. and "Munir" ends up in "Ezra's" apartment and in the arms of an English intelligence agent.. known to the Arabs.
And they confront "Munir" with the photos.. and if he does not cooperate.. they will hand his pictures to the Iraqis.. who will execute him as a spy for England.. which was indeed spying and conspiring and trying to regain its influence in the East.
And "Munir" could have gone back to Iraq and told Iraqi intelligence exactly what happened.. and let them act.
But something deep inside him leaned toward betrayal.
After pull and push, he negotiates the price and the reward and demands that his family be secured.. and the Mossad agrees to all his demands without hesitation.
And all that remains is for "Munir" to play his part.
And after recruiting "Munir" they try to recruit his colleagues.. but "Shaker" erupts in fury.. when "Ezra" comes clean with him.. and he rains blows on him and knocks him unconscious for minutes.. and he unbuckles his belt and starts beating an American intelligence agent who was with him.
But the faint does not last.. and "Ezra" comes to.. and snatches his pistol, and opens fire on "Shaker".. and kills him.. and "Shaker" falls a martyr.
But "Hamed Dahi", the religious one, agrees when they offer him to work as a spy and hand over the MiG-21.. and the moment he reaches the hotel.. he picks up the receiver of his room's phone.. and calls Iraq at once.. and informs his commanders of the matter and tells them that he pretended to agree.
And they ask him to keep up the deception and return to Iraq as quickly as possible, and Iraqi intelligence tells him how to act.. and to keep deceiving the Americans and the Israelis..
But unfortunately.. the Americans were listening in on the phone in his hotel room.. and they learned that he was deceiving them.
And they lured him into an ambush and... killed him.
As for the calm fox "Mohammed Gulub", he was more cautious.. and pretended to agree to the betrayal.. and immediately afterward informed his commanders in Baghdad as well.. but from a public phone.
And he did succeed in deceiving the Americans and escaping from the United States to Paris.. and from there he tried to reach Iraq.
And they pursued him and he misled them and disguised himself and deceived them dozens of times... as if he were a real "James Bond".. on his journey toward his homeland.
But during his thrilling escape.. whose details deserve an entire book.. he made a fatal mistake.. which led American intelligence officers to spot him at a train station.. and board the train behind him.
And they killed him by throwing him from the speeding train in France.. while he was on his way to the airport.
And the striking thing is that the Egyptian intelligence officer and star of Israeli society "Jacques Biton".. or "Raafat al-Hagan".. had learned of the plan.. and sent it in full to Egyptian intelligence, which forwarded it at once to President "Gamal Abdel Nasser".. and he in turn sent it immediately, with a special envoy from Cairo, to the Iraqi president "Abdul Salam Arif".
And the strange thing is that the Iraqi president did refer the matter to Iraqi intelligence, but it conducted a quick, improvised investigation.. concluding, without scrutiny of the matter, that there was no evidence at all of "Munir's" betrayal or espionage for the Mossad.
And that is because Iraqi intelligence at the time was on alert, busy thwarting a massive plot, by American intelligence, aimed at assassinating "Abdul Salam Arif" himself.
Iraqi intelligence will indeed foil this plot.. but an alternative plan will follow it.. in which American intelligence will succeed in assassinating "Arif" for real.. in 1966.
And at the same time the Mossad was carrying out its own part of the agreement.. so they moved "Munir's" family from Baghdad to Basra.. and from there to the Iraqi-Iranian border.
And from there a helicopter takes them to Tel Aviv.. to a private villa.. where all their requests are granted.
And they leave Captain "Munir" free to choose the timing of the execution, whenever conditions allow.
And the strange thing is that "Munir's" commander still harbored doubts about him since the investigation that had been conducted around him.. especially since he was the only one of the four MiG pilots, who came back from America alive.. and that he had suddenly become extremely nervous and tense.
But despite his surveillance of him, he finds no evidence of his betrayal or that he is a spy.
And as the days pass, his doubt in "Munir" weakens.. and fades away.
And one early morning, in late 1966, the pilots wake up at "Rashid Air Base" in Baghdad.. to carry out a routine maneuver and training.
And "Munir" decided that he would not let this chance slip.. whatever the cost.
And on the grounds of the base.. the aircraft engines roar.. and the formation shoots into the sky.. including a single "MiG-21".. flown by "Munir".. after the assassination of the rest of the pilots.. trained to take off in it.
And with the takeoff.. and after minutes.. the first thing his commander notices.. is that "Munir" has separated from the squadron formation.. and surged to a much higher altitude.. and then shot off like a rocket, toward the Syrian border.
And his commander shouts at him in rage to return to the formation.. but "Munir" does not answer him.
And in panic, the commander suddenly understands everything.
And his mind recalls in a single second, all the events.
And because at that time there was an alliance between the three states, his commander immediately calls the commanders of the Syrian Air Force, and begs them to intercept the MiG-21.
But in the flood of his emotion he forgot that "Munir" could hear him and heard his instructions over the radio.. so "Munir" banked the MiG at once and leveled off along the Syrian border, heading for Jordan.
And his commander calls the command of the Jordanian Air Force, which immediately scrambles its interceptor fighters; to stop the MiG-21.
And we return to the scene with which the story began.
"Munir" flies at an extremely low altitude.. evading the Jordanian radars and air defenses, while three fighters of the Royal Jordanian Air Force try to intercept him.
And on the horizon the Israeli border appears to the traitor "Munir".
And the Iraqi commander screams over the radio in madness, his decision made, and his goal now that they bring down the MiG-21.. at any cost.
But the MiG-21 was indeed the jewel of the sky at the time.. and the English "Hunter" fighters, which the Jordanian army used.. were in no way a match for it.
And the Jordanian pilot's finger leaps to the missile-launch button.. but "Munir" unleashes the MiG-21's engine.
And the Jordanian pilots feel a powerful decompression wave, with a massive crack, as the MiG-21 broke the sound barrier.. and...
And it vanished.
The MiG-21 shot off like a bullet.. and crossed the Dead Sea area...
Then it crossed Israeli airspace in seconds.
And in Israel the warning sirens blared, treating it as an Iraqi attack.. and the pilots raced to their fighters.
And as an automatic procedure.. the event was reported to the prime minister and the defense minister and the director of the Mossad.
And the latter was in his bed, at sunrise.. so when they called him.. for seconds he did not understand what MiG-21 and what it was doing and who these people were.
And when he came to.. panic seized him.. and he asked that the plane not be shot down because it was an operation of extreme importance to the Mossad.
And at the same time the Israeli fighters were surrounding the MiG-21 with "Munir" at its heart.. who slowed his speed.. and flew amid the Israeli squadron in surrender.
But the commander of the Israeli squadron imagined it was a trick on his part.. and decided that they should open fire on him and blow him up.
But suddenly.. instructions arrive from the defense minister himself.. and with them.. the voice of squadron commander "Mordechai Hod" suddenly rises over the radio, ordering his men to cease fire.. and to escort the MiG-21.. to land.
And Israel wins the MiG-21.. intact.. complete.. with a pilot trained to fly and fight in it.. by its very makers.
This event had its most profound impact months later, in the 1967 war.. as the MiG-21s in Egypt and Syria were pounced on by the Israeli bombers while on the ground.. and their takeoff was delayed.. and they were bombed in place.. before the Soviets could send updated technology for them.
And the strangest thing is that "Jacques Biton" had also sent the time of the 1967 attack, to Egyptian intelligence.. which forwarded it at once to the late "Gamal Abdel Nasser".
But President "Gamal" at the time, when he referred the file to Field Marshal "Abdel Hakim Amer".. "Amer" told him that everything was fine and that he was ready and everything was excellent.
And the truth was otherwise.
"Munir" and his family were not comfortable in Israel and asked to emigrate to Europe.. and the Mossad fulfilled their request.
And "Munir" lived with his family happy and wealthy.. and after a while his money ran out and he asked the Mossad for more.
But they ignored him completely.
And he realized that his role was over and his importance had faded.
And after that he emigrated to Canada and worked in an ordinary profession.. and lived there.
But Iraqi intelligence was lying in wait for him.
They never forgot what happened, and "Munir" died in his apartment of a heart attack in the late 1990s.. it was said, without sufficient sources, that he suffered it after an unknown Iraqi man visited him.. injected him with a large amount of potassium, after a brief struggle, and boarded the plane the same day to Europe.. and from there to Baghdad.
And the file of the traitor "Munir Habib Rufa" was closed forever.
#awareness_against_terrorism #awareness