Israeli intelligence has seen great success in recruiting human sources from hostile countries and organizations. In fact, Israel owes a great many of its achievements in fighting terror to those sources.
The general public is rarely exposed to those espionage stories. Even more so- to the human situations who lead to those successes, in a world whose players are no strangers to manipulation, human sacrifice, courage and betrayal. For those involved, the story rarely ends well.
Today, Yedioth Aharonoth weekly magazine publishes an interview with one of Mossad’s long time agents, a member of a prominent Shia’a family, whose brothers and cousins are high ranking members of Hizbollah. Amin al-Hajj (code name Rummenigge) chose a different path for himself.
In this interview he tells me how he came to work covertly with Israel against the PLO at first, and then Hizbollah. He reveals why he was code named after a German football legend, how he recruited prostitutes, customs brokers, cab drivers, young boys and even ship captains to a huge network of agents across the middle east and how in his retirement years he was forsaken by Israeli establishment, and left to live out his years away from his home country with no means to support himself.
The story in English can be read on Yedioth’s English site on this link.
Image Credits: Ynetnews