Wednesday, July 24, 2019

Inside Iran's efforts to build spy network inside Israel

Israeli security forces foiled a recent bid by Iran to build an espionage network inside of Israel, the Shin Bet internal security agency revealed Wednesday afternoon.
 
According to the Shin Bet report, over the past few months, joint operations of the Shin Bet, Israeli Police, and IDF revealed efforts by Iranian operatives to establish a comprehensive information-gathering network in Israel, the Palestinian Authority, and the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip.
 
The network was directed by Iranian operatives working from Syria, and led by a Syrian front group known as Abu-Jihad. The group tried to recruit Arabs in Judea, Samaria, Gaza, and pre-1967 Israel over social media, including through the use of fictitious Facebook profiles, and later by managing communications via messaging applications.
 
Using social networks is a method known to intelligence agencies as being used by terror organizations, including Hamas and Hezbollah, to recruit activists.
 
This bid by Iranian forces is the latest attempt by hostile forces – including the Hamas and Hezbollah terror groups – to try recruiting Israeli and Palestinian Authority Arabs via social media, in the hopes of using them for either intelligence gathering or terror attacks.
 
The recruits were asked to gather information on a number of targets, including military bases, sensitive security installations, security personnel, police stations, and hospitals in preparation for Iranian-backed terror attacks in Israel.
 
The networking activity was detected and monitored by the Israeli intelligence community from its inception, while closely monitoring operators abroad and those in Israel, Judea, and Samaria who had expressed willingness to cooperate with the Iranian network.
 
Beginning in April 2019, Israel launched a broad counterterror operation against operatives in Israel and the Palestinian Authority.
 
After the launch of the counter-terror initiative, a number of Israeli Arab citizens were found to have links to the Iranian spy ring, with information indicating that they had been contacted and recruited by Iranian handlers.
 
During the course of the investigations, information emerged that the connection between some of the recruits and their handlers in Syria had developed into a high level of information transfer, with plans for terror attacks against Israeli civilian and military targets.