We continue the series, and among the intelligence operations that changed the history of the world is the operation that Dr. Nabil Farouk wrote about in Al-Shabab magazine long ago.. the "Eli Cohen" operation. So this time we will make room for the pen of Dr. Nabil.. but do not be surprised.. there are Egyptian intelligence operations.. that truly changed the course of history.

(Eli Amin Shaul Cohen).. Eli Cohen. The spy who almost became president of the entire Syrian Arab Republic.

A name that no Arab or Israeli intelligence man could possibly fail to know, after dozens of books and novels were published about him, most of them Israeli, wrapping him in a frame of strength and heroism, and weaving around him dozens of legendary tales, which make him a kind of star, in this secret world, or so the Israelis tried to present him, without pointing to what befell this star.. to his horrifying fall..

And (Eli's) beginnings were simple and utterly ordinary: his father, (Houfi Cohen), was a modest Syrian merchant, who emigrated with his family to (Egypt), and they settled in (Alexandria). And there (Eli) was born on 16 December 1924, and there too he enrolled at the French (Lycée) school.. and there too he met (Polandi Gabi), who was the beginning of the thread..

And this (Polandi) was one of the ladies of the wealthy Jewish families, and at the same time an active member of (HaMossad LeAliyah Bet).. or (the Mossad), which decided to establish a branch for itself in (Egypt), through the Egyptian Jewish youth movement known as (Hashirot), so it sent one of its men, (Levi Avraham), to whom she recommended a number of Jewish youths, at their head (Eli)..

And (Eli Cohen) worked for the (Mossad), before he obtained the (Baccalaureate) certificate, or the general secondary certificate as it was called at the time, and he showed remarkable activity in facilitating the departure of Egyptian Jews to (Palestine) and in contacting embassies and consulates, and he mastered English, French and Italian, and he enrolled in the Faculty of Engineering at (Fuad I) University — (Cairo) today — and obtained his degree, despite the emigration of his entire family to (Israel).. in 1950..

And in 1953, Israeli military intelligence (Aman) sent one of its men to (Egypt), (Avraham Dar), who arrived on a British passport bearing the name (John Darling), seeking to form two Zionist cells, in (Cairo) and (Alexandria), and he sent five members of the two cells to (Tel Aviv), via (Paris), to receive training in detonating time bombs, then these five were returned to (Egypt), carrying a special sabotage plan... and among those five was (Eli Cohen)..

And during an operation known as (Operation Susannah), (John Darling) issued his orders to the two cells to blow up and sabotage a number of British and American installations, with the aim of wrecking the evacuation agreement that had been signed between the Egyptian and British sides at that time.. but one of the members of the two cells made a fatal mistake, which set fire to his pocket before he could blow up his target, which led one of the policemen to arrest him and take him to the Raml Station police station, where he was interrogated, and he confessed the whole affair, and the two cells collapsed.

And on the evening of that same night, a wide arrest campaign took place, in (Cairo) and (Alexandria), of all the members of the two cells and suspected elements, and among them too was (Eli).

And although the confessions of the members of the two cells included a large number of Jewish youths, they did not include the name of (Eli Cohen), which led to his release and the clearing of his way, though this did not prevent a special file being opened for him, in the Egyptian General Intelligence Service, which was taking its first steps in this mysterious secret world.

And the file bore the name (Eli Houfi Cohen), and this made it imperative that (Eli) stop his activity.. then the Tripartite Aggression against (Egypt) took place.. and as a precautionary measure, all the owners of these files were arrested, without any evidence for charges, until December 1956.. when it was decided to release them, and expel them outside (Egypt), for security reasons.

And on the twentieth of December 1956, (Eli) left (Egypt), on a ship belonging to the Red Cross, which carried him to (Italy), along with a large number of Egyptian Jews, where he spent several weeks in (Genoa).. and in (Bat Yam), south of (Tel Aviv), (Eli) spent his first days in (Israel), with his mother and his family, and he began studying Hebrew, and before long, at the end of that same year, he took a job in the Israeli Ministry of Defence, based on translating everything published in the Arab newspapers into Hebrew, and preparing reports and analyses on it, for the military intelligence service (Aman).

And before long he grew tired of this work too, so he submitted a request for transfer to the (Mossad), but his request was met with refusal, which drove him to submit his resignation, and to work in a company for marketing foodstuffs, and during this work he met (Nadia), a nurse at (Hadassah) Hospital in Jerusalem, and he married her after a short period of acquaintance.

And (Eli) did not feel at ease in his new job, but this time he did not complain about it, or try to leave it...

It is true that he did not seek to resign, but the matter came about by a different means this time, when he met an old friend, who had worked with him in (Aman), and a conversation took place between them about his resignation, after which his colleague left, after they had agreed to meet a second time.

And on this second occasion, his friend invited him to walk along the beach, and there he suddenly asked him whether he would like to work in the Mossad, then he revealed to him that he was one of the (Mossad's) officers, and asked him to keep completely secret what he was about to hear, even from his family and his wife, then he informed him of the (Mossad's) approval of his working in their ranks.

And in the spring and summer of 1960, (Eli) completed his training programme, and prepared to take up his new work, and his supremely important mission, in (Syria).

And although the mission was aimed at (Syria), it began in (Buenos Aires), the capital of (Argentina), which (Eli) reached on 21 March 1961, coming from (Zurich), and carrying the name (Kamel Amin Thabet), whose passport indicated his Syrian nationality.

And as soon as he arrived, (Eli) became active in getting to know the émigré community in (Buenos Aires), and he began to cement his friendships with them, carrying a carefully prepared story, saying: that he was a Syrian of Lebanese origin, who had emigrated with his family to (Alexandria), then his uncle had travelled to (Argentina) in 1946, and he had followed him there with his family in 1947, then his father had died there of a heart attack, in 1952, and six months later his mother had passed away, and he had remained there alone, working in the fabric trade, then he had travelled to (Europe) for several years, and returned a rich man.

And only a few weeks passed before (Kamel Amin Thabet) became a well-known man, in émigré circles, whose number at that period reached half a million Arab emigrants, and his ties were cemented with the editor-in-chief of the magazine (The Arab World) published there, (Abdel Latif Al-Khashan), who introduced him in good faith to his friends and acquaintances, among the men of the Arab embassies in (Argentina), and quickly (Eli) became a permanent guest at most of the embassy parties.

And the strange thing is that one of the Syrian intelligence officers had suspected the man, and sent to the (Second Bureau) in (Syria), requesting an investigation into him, but the Israelis had chosen a real story, of an émigré family, bearing the name (Thabet), which made Syrian intelligence endorse (Eli's) story, without bothering to scrutinise it and examine it well, given that the suspicions about him were not sufficient for that.. and after several months, specifically in August 1961, (Kamel Amin Thabet) announced his desire to return to the homeland (Syria), and submitted an application to obtain an entry visa..

And in (Damascus), (Eli) spent a whole month without carrying on his activity, so as not to arouse suspicions around him, until 28 September 1961, then he began to establish an import-export company, specialising in exporting Arab furniture and wooden handicrafts to (Europe), and he began to benefit his company in a double way, since the conversations he exchanged with others, by virtue of the work, brought him a plentiful amount of information about conditions in the economic market, which he would send as soon as he returned to his house, directly to the (Mossad), by means of a very small transmitter...

As for the photographs and documents he captured, he would send them inside special cavities, in the pieces of furniture and handicrafts that were exported to (Europe), where one of the (Mossad's) officers in (Switzerland) would collect them..

As for the social side, the development was more rapid, and more dangerous.

(Eli) succeeded in forming numerous friendships with Syrian military men and media figures, and he rented a house facing the building of the General Command of the Syrian Armed Forces, where he began to monitor the developments taking place there, which helped him to send information of the utmost importance and usefulness to the Israelis, who considered him an excellent agent.. then (Kamel Thabet) made the most important catch since the start of his work.

He formed a friendship with a young officer, who was at the same time the nephew of the chief of staff of the armed forces, and he succeeded in drawing him in to obtain extremely dangerous information, under the pretext of ensuring the safety and security of the homeland.

The officer even took him to the front lines, where he saw for himself the armaments and fortifications of the Syrian units, and he went further the next time, carrying a camera with him, and took several photographs of the Israeli settlements situated at the foot of the Syrian heights, and sent them to (Tel Aviv), which used them to pinpoint the positions of the Syrian heights..

And as a member of the Baath Party, (Eli) cemented his relations with the party's leadership, and with the Minister of Information (Sami Al-Jundi), and he became one of the party cadres that are pointed out with admiration, and an almost permanent guest at the receptions held by the Syrian presidency, especially after his proposal to make a party visit to (Argentina), during which he collected nine thousand dollars in donations for the Baath Party, from the Syrian emigrants there, to which he added a thousand dollars from his own account.

And the name (Kamel Amin Thabet) shone, and this helped him to form stronger and more dangerous friendships, and granted him greater freedom of movement, especially after he was nominated, or his name was floated as a candidate, for the post of deputy minister of information, or deputy minister of defence, to the point that he was able to take several close-up photographs of the interceptor fighter the (MiG-21), which was the most powerful interceptor fighter at that time.

And as his standing rose, (Eli) became one of the members of the Syrian delegation accompanying Lieutenant General (Ali Amer), the commander-in-chief of the Unified Arab Command, when he visited the Syrian Arab Republic, at the head of a large military delegation, in December 1964, to hold talks with the military leaders there..

And (Kamel Amin Thabet) was almost the only civilian who officially accompanied the military men on that tour, apart from the photographers and journalists..

And this was the mistake, that began the stage of the end..

In early January 1965, the Egyptian spy "Rifaat Al-Gammal" was browsing some Arab newspapers, when a picture of Major General (Ali Amer) caught his attention, during his visit to Syria, surrounded by the members of the Syrian delegation accompanying him, and his gaze settled on one person in their midst in particular, and he knitted his brows hard, racking his brain, in an attempt to work out when he had seen the owner of that face in particular..

When he remembered him, panic seized him, so he snatched the newspaper, and hurried off to arrange a meeting with the case officer known as "Mohsen Mumtaz".. and he told him the whole story.. and "Mohsen Mumtaz", or by his real name "Abdel Mohsen Faeq", in turn hurried to the office of (Salah Nasr), the director of Egyptian General Intelligence at that time, and placed the newspaper in front of him, to tell him that this man, who was accompanying the military delegation, was not a Syrian.. he was a Jew named (Eli Houfi Cohen).

And "Salah Nasr" was greatly alarmed, especially since that officer had been a colleague of the spy at the French (Lycée) school, and the two of them had obtained the Baccalaureate together in 1946.. and that he had a complete file in the intelligence service, since the bombings operation, and at this point (Salah Nasr) requested the file, and reviewed it, and then carried it at once to President (Gamal Abdel Nasser)..

And in his office, President (Gamal) kept reading the file for more than forty-five minutes, then he lifted the receiver of his telephone, and asked his secretariat to contact the Syrian president, Major General (Amin Hafez), at once, and as soon as the call was connected, President (Gamal) exchanged some pleasantries with the Syrian president, then told him that he would send him a special envoy the next day, carrying a message of the utmost importance and gravity..

And this envoy was (Salah Nasr) himself, who travelled the next morning to (Damascus), and met the Syrian president, and presented him with the file.. and just as had happened to President (Gamal Abdel Nasser), the Syrian president was struck with overwhelming astonishment, as he leafed through the file, and before long he asked for the head of Syrian intelligence (the Second Bureau) to attend, who arrived shortly afterwards, and reviewed the file in his turn, and the same stupefaction struck him.

For at that period, the wireless operators at the Indian embassy were complaining of interference with some of their messages sent to (New Delhi), and the Syrian security men suspected the presence of a spy sending wireless signals in the area, but they were unable to pinpoint his location, given the wide scope of the search, and the difficulty of tracking wireless signals at that time..

And with the information that (Salah Nasr) brought, the matter became clear, and settled..

And hours after this meeting, (Eli) was preparing to send one of his wireless messages to (Tel Aviv), on one of the cold January nights, when he was surprised by a number of men storming his house, levelling their pistols at him, and ordering him not to move, and to surrender himself.

And (Eli) grew angry and shouted at them, and raged against them, but he collapsed suddenly, when Lieutenant Colonel (Ahmed Suwaidani), the head of the counter-espionage department at Syrian intelligence, walked into his office, addressing him by his real name..

And then (Eli Cohen) realised that he had fallen.. and the Israelis went mad, when they learned of (Eli's) fall, and they attempted the impossible to save him, and they offered to exchange him for a dozen people accused of spying for (Syria), and to pay a million dollars for his release, but (Syria) refused this insistently.

And on the eighteenth of May, 1965, (Eli Houfi Cohen) was led to the noose, which closed around his neck...

Then the executioner pushed a metal lever, and his body dropped into the void, announcing the fall of a spy, and the loss of the round by Israeli intelligence.

These stories are completely different from the stories of other spies.

Spies of a very special kind. The world of intelligence gave them the title of "the nuclear spy".

And we will talk about them later.

And there is still more of the conversation to come.

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