Chapter 1
This is a story about the Jordan plot that went wrong. The country had to pay a heavy price for their debacle. The operation was planned, keeping in mind all the adversities, a sudden twist in the situation exposed the operation, and the head of the country had to apologize personally, paying a suitable price for the operation that went wrong.
Khaled Mashal (Born on 28th May 1956) was the political bureau chief of Palestinian organization Hamas. He was a teacher in Kuwait from 1978 to 1984. He played a major role in the foundation of Palestinian organization Hamas from its inception in 1987 and was a full-time active member of the organization. He has been a member of Hamas, Political Bureau since its inception and became its chairman in 1996.
On 30th July 1997, an explosion rocked the Mahane Yehuda Market in Jerusalem that killed about 16 Israel citizens and injuring 169 citizens. This bomb explosion was a planned suicide bombing attack. The order was issued immediately by the Israel Prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu to identify the planners and attackers.
During the investigation, it was revealed, that Hamas political bureau chief, Khaled Mashal was one of the instigators of the bombing attack. Mashal was in Amman, Jordan where he was supported and protected by the Jordanian security.
Chapter 2
The Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was convinced, that if Khaled Mashal is not stopped, at this point, such attacks will continue to drain the blood of innocent Israel citizens. Cabinet supports Netanyahu’s decision and agrees to stop Khaled from committing any further attacks.
Netanyahu summons Mossad chief Gen Danny Yatom and gives him a go-ahead, for executing Khaled Mashal, but he also orders Yatom to make a full proof plan, so that it looks like a natural cause. Yatom calls all the department chiefs for meeting to plan out a strategy for the execution.
On October 1994, an agreement was signed by both Jordan and Israel with the arbitration of the USA, to stop all the spying or espionage activity in either country. King Hussein of Jordan and Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin were signatories of that agreement with the arbitration of Bill Clinton the American President.
As the location of Khaled Mashal was in Amman, Jordan, any activity on his life by Mossad would mean a direct violation of the agreement signed by the two heads of state. Both the country stood by the agreement, since its inception in 1994.
In July 1997, things took an ugly turn after the bombing in Mahane Yehuda Market; Israel had to take action against one of its perpetrators.
Chapter 3
After many meetings, a decision that Mossad will go ahead with the plan to execute Khaled Mashal, though he was staying in Jordan, was finally taken. The strategy would be planned, in such a way that no one will ever know how Khaled Mashal was executed and hence they would not be answerable to Jordan, thus keeping the agreement in place.
The operation was planned; in such a way that it should resemble a silent operation without anybody knowing or discovering whatever happened. After receiving the instructions from the Prime Minister, Gen Danny Yatom requested the head of special operation group Kidon to devise a full proof plan for executing Mashal.
A plan was formulated, based on the input of a research doctor associated with Mossad to spray a potent chemical on Mashal. Few drops of that chemical, when touches the skin could penetrate inside the bloodstream and would result in heart failure, thus displaying a natural death leaving no traces of it behind.
Mossad had used this potent chemical, before as well for executing Waddie Haddad, a Hamas member and the doctor doing the post mortem could not find any traces of the potent chemical used for his execution. About six weeks before the operation, six Mossad agents reach Amman in Jordan possessing a Saudi passport travelling over three different countries.
Chapter 4
According to the plan, two agents start keeping a close eye on the daily activities of Khaled Mashal. When he leaves his house, which routes his car takes, how much time he spends on the signal when he reaches his office when he leaves the office for his home in the evening; all such details were recorded precisely for gathering information about Mashal. After gathering all the information agents send the report to the headquarters in Tel Aviv for further plan of action.
The information received was, Mashal leaves his house in the morning without any bodyguards and climbs into his black SUV vehicle and leaves for Palestinian relief bureau office located in Shamia centre building located in Amman. On reaching the office premises, Mashal gets off from the vehicle, and the driver parks it to the parking lot. Mashal then traverses a small walkway to enter into the building.
According to the drawn up plan, two agents resembling young boys with their caps would approach Mashal from the opposite end as he walks through the walkway towards the office. Just before crossing over Mashal, one of them would open up a coke can and try to drink coke while walking and in doing that would spill some coke over Mashal’s dress.
He would apologies to Mashal for his act. Meanwhile, the second boy in the cap will spray the potent chemical through a sprayer gun to Mashal’s neck. They both will leave the premises when their work completes.
Chapter 5
Few more agents reaches Amman from different countries carrying different passports for rekeying the different escape routes the agents will be taking after completing their operation.
A day before the operation, two agents reach Amman and check-in a five-star hotel. One patient was pretending to be a heart patient and another doctor. The agent pretending as heart patient was Mossad agent Mishka Ben-David and was responsible for communication between the agents present in Amman and Tel-Aviv. The second person was indeed a lady doctor but she was a Mossad agent as well.
They were carrying the antidote of the potent chemical that was going to be used to execute Mashal. The antidote was kept handy for any mishap in the plan, and the chemical spills on the handling agent. In such a case, this was the only chemical that could save the person. The lady doctor was assigned, the responsibility of administering the antidote if required.
The hit team from the Special Operations group Kidon also lands at Amman travelling through three different countries on Canadian passports. They arrived as tourists named Shaun Kendall and Barry Beads. They had extensively practiced opening of a coke can and spilling the contents over a person and the other person then spraying a liquid from a sprayer.
Chapter 6
The plan to execute of Khaled Mashal was finalized. As a part of the plan, after spraying the potent chemical, the agents will leave the compound in a standby vehicle to their Hotel and would leave the country by the evening by evening.
As this was a close-proximity encounter, the agents will be using sign languages for communication. The operation commander would be watching the operation from a distance, and the agents disguised as young boys would carry out the execution.
In case of any last-minute adversity, the commander would wave his cap in the air as a signal to abort the operation. There would be no cell phone communication between the agents.
On 25-Sep-1997, the agent takes up their position at the front of the house of Khaled Mashal and wait for him to leave. The commander of the operation takes up his position at the front of his office.
The two young agents are ready with their load of beverages waiting for his arrival. The vehicle in which the agents would be departing after the operation was also ready. The day started like any other day, with agents keeping a close watch on the house of Khaled Mashal.
Just as Mashal was about to leave for his office, her wife called him. She said that she had some urgent work today so if he could drop the children to school, to which Mashal agreed happily.
Chapter 7
That day instead of going to school with their mother, the children went with their father Khaled Mashal in his vehicle. The agents keeping an eye on Mashal at his house could not figure this out as his vehicle, was having black windows. So they thought that Mashal was all alone like always.
A little later, Mashal reaches Shamia Center and gets off from his SUV, walks along the road and approaches the entrance of the building. The two Kidon hit agents also start walking towards Mashal from the building gate. The operation commander closely watches Mashal approaching the two agents sitting some distance away.
When Mashal was just 10 meters away from the agents, suddenly something weird happens. The door of his SUV opens up, and his eight-year-old daughter gets out from the vehicle and starts running towards Mashal.
The operation commander suddenly sights his daughter and waves his cap towards the two Kidon hit agents to abort the mission. Mashal’s driver also gets down and runs after the kid to get her into the vehicle safely.
The two hit agents were completely focused on their target as Mashal was only 10 meters distance from them. They were also behind huge pillars supporting the big building and could not notice their mission commander waving his cap to abort the mission.
As soon as Mashal reaches closer, Shaun, one of the hit agents tries to open the coke can. He had practiced opening the coke can more than 50 times for this operation.
Chapter 8
When it was important to open the coke can to spill a drink over Mashal, the coke can refuse to open. Shaun keeps trying, but somehow the coke can didn’t open. The other agent Barry lifts his hand, ready to spray the potent chemical.
Mashal’s driver shouts to Mashal to getaway, on seeing that someone is trying to hit his master. On hearing this Mashal turns back and by that time Barry unleashes the potent chemical spray few drops of which lands on Mashal’s left ear.
A burning sensation begins in his left ear, and Mashal knew that he was poisoned. After spraying the chemical, Shaun and Barry rush towards their getaway vehicle, and during that time, another character enters the crime scene.
Mohammed Abu- Sief, an extremely powerful Hamas man had just arrived in his vehicle to deliver some documents to Mashal and was sitting inside his vehicle. On seeing his boss lying down, and two boys running, he gets out of his vehicle and rushes towards the boys to catch them.
Shaun hits him with the coke bottle that he was carrying and both the agents reach their getaway vehicle and drive away. The car driver informs those agents that he had noticed Abu- Sief, taking down his vehicle number.
Agents get more nervous thinking that he would have informed the police by then and by time, they reach their destination in this vehicle they are sure to be arrested.
So they decide to get down from the vehicle and ask their driver to get rid of the vehicle. In the meantime, Abu- Sief, on seeing his boss lying down, rushes back to his car and starts following the agents.
Chapter 9
Both agents get down from their vehicle and start walking, Abu- Sief, reaches the spot and catches Barry shouting “Mashal was attacked by this man”. Seeing this, Shaun again hits Abu- Sief at the back of the head. Seeing two white boys fighting with their citizen, the crowd slowly starts gathering. In this commotion, the police arrive at the scene and take both agents and Abu- Sief in their custody.
On reaching the police station, police retrieve Canadian passports from both Shaun and Barry and communicate with Canadian consulate. A Canadian consulate person arrives to talk to both of them, after communication, he states to the Jordanian authority that they are not Canadian nationals.
As soon as the report about the failed operation reaches Mishka Ben-David, who was pretending as a heart patient, he reports to Mossad chief Danny Yatom and provides him details about the failed operation. Yatom directs all the agents across Amman to take shelter in the Israel embassy and personally goes to meet Benjamin Netanyahu to report about the operation.
In Amman, Mashal’s health was deteriorating fast; the potent chemical started taking its effect. There was no improvement in his health and was still unconscious. The only thing that could save Mashal from this potent chemical was its antidote.
Chapter 10
Hearing about the failed operation, Benjamin Netanyahu calls King Hussein of Jordan, telling him that he is sending the chief of Mossad Danny Yatom to him to deliver some urgent information. King Hussein was still unaware of the situation, agrees to meet Danny Yatom.
Prime Minister Netanyahu briefs Yatom to accept all the demands of King Hussein and ensure that all their agents are returned safely to Israel. On reaching Jordan, Yatom meets King Hussein, who had been updated regarding this operation already. Yatom requests Hussein that Mashal’s life can only be saved, by administrating the antidote.
Hussein calls up the hospital to enquire about the health of Mashal hospital informs him, that Mashal is not responding to the treatment, and his health is deteriorating fast. King Hussein orders Mashal to be transferred to Royal Hospital and accepts Danny Yatom’s offer of administrating the antidote.
During that time Mishka Ben-David, who was still residing at the hotel pretending as a heart patient thought of destroying the antidote, thinking that if he and the lady doctor gets arrested with the antidote then they would land up in serious trouble.
Mishka Ben-David was about to break the bottle of the antidote and flush it in the toilet, his phone rings up. The operational commander was on the other side of the phone, asking him whether he still has the antidote bottles.
Mishka Ben-David, replies in affirmative, the operational commander requests him to hand over the antidotes to a Jordanian army commander present in the lobby of the hotel and send the lady doctor to the Royal hospital with the army captain.
Chapter 11
In the hospital, the lady doctor was asked to inject the antidote to Mashal, but she refuses, saying, until she receives permission from Danny Yatom personally she cannot proceed with the task.
Danny Yatom calls her personally from the Israel Embassy office in Amman to administer the antidote to Mashal. As she was preparing, to administer the antidote to Mashal, the doctor in charge stops her. The doctor tells her to provide him with the chemical composition of the antidote before administering it to Mashal.
Danny Yatom does not agree to provide the chemical composition of the antidote to the Jordanian authorities. A situation of standoff emerged with time running out quickly, with the health of Mashal was deteriorating fast.
King Hussein intervened, he called Netanyahu to provide his doctors with the chemical composition of the antidote, or he would order his army to take over Israel Embassy.
Netanyahu calls Danny Yatom, and persuades him to provide the chemical composition of the antidote to Jordanian doctors, as saving the life of all agents was the topmost priority of that time. After listening to his Prime Minister, Danny Yatom agrees to provide the chemical composition of the antidote to the doctors.
The doctor permitted to administer the antidote on Mashal. Within an hour, Mashal starts recovering. After some days, Mashal recovers completely.
Chapter 12
A week later Israel sends Ex-Mossad deputy chief Efraim Halevy to Jordan. Halevy was a friend of King Hussein of Jordan. He requests the King to release all the persons of the Israel Embassy in exchange of Jordanian prisoners lying in Israel’s Prison. King Hussein accepts the proposal and the following day all the agents of Israel return to their homeland with Halevy.
Two of the agents Shaun and Barry were still in a Jordanian prison. The Israel Foreign Minister, Ariel Sharon was sent to Jordan to release these two agents. In exchange, Jordan demands the release of 20 other Jordanian prisoners. To which Ariel Sharon agrees to accomplish.
When the time to release these two prisoners arrived, Jordan stepped back insisting other demands along with the release of 20 prisoners that they had demanded earlier.
This time Ariel Sharon gets angry, he says let these two prisoners remain in the Jordanian prison we will have many other agents. We will kill Mashal anyway even if he tries to hide in Kings Palace. If we fail for the next time, we will continue to execute him again and again until we succeed.
On hearing this, all the staff of King Hussein was shocked and later King Hussein decides to stick to their earlier demand of releasing 20 prisoners.
In the year 1999, Jordan banned the Palestinian organization Hamas, all the persons related to that organization were asked to leave the country. Khaled Mashal lives in Syria with a net asset worth of more than 3 billion dollars.
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