Ron Arad (Israeli Air Force)
Israeli intelligence assessments repeatedly questioned Iran’s involvement as investigators increasingly focused on a Lebanese village.
By Vered Weiss, World Israel News
Israel’s Mossad abducted two Iranian generals during its decadeslong search for missing airman Ron Arad, killing one despite intelligence assessments questioning Tehran’s involvement in his disappearance, The New York Times reported Sunday.
The investigation, based on interviews with dozens of Israeli, Iranian and American officials, revealed previously undisclosed operations against senior Iranian commanders who were suspected of possessing information about Arad.
Arad disappeared after ejecting from a damaged Israeli aircraft over Lebanon on Oct. 16, 1986. He was captured by the Lebanese Shiite Amal movement, but his subsequent fate remains unknown.
According to the Times, Mossad operatives kidnapped Iranian Gen. Alireza Asgari after he arrived in Istanbul in December 2006.
Three former American officials said Israeli agents interrogated Asgari for weeks before killing him.
Israel has consistently denied involvement in Asgari’s disappearance.
A separate operation in September 2021 targeted Gen. Abdullah Saberi, an Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps commander, in Damascus.
Israeli agents disguised as movers abducted him near the Iranian diplomatic compound and transported him to Israel for questioning.
Saberi was subsequently abandoned in Johannesburg, South Africa, after an unsuccessful interrogation.
The operations continued despite repeated Israeli intelligence reviews challenging the assumption that Iran had taken custody of Arad.
Former Shin Bet chief Yuval Diskin said a 2006 investigation determined that reports placing Arad in Iran were unreliable or incorrectly interpreted.
Avi Kalo, a former senior Israeli military officer, reached a similar conclusion in 2016, assessing that Arad probably died in Lebanon in 1988.
“We could not get away from the narrative that Iran was involved,” Kalo told the Times.
Israeli investigators have since redirected their attention toward Nabi Chit, a Lebanese village where Arad was previously held.
Earlier this year, Israeli forces searched a cemetery there but failed to locate his remains.
The Mossad declined to comment on its operations, while the Israeli military maintained that Arad remains classified as alive and missing in action.
'I set up this unity tent because I feel deep in my gut that this…
Etihad Airways is currently the only airline flying between the United Arab Emirates and Israel…
Brig. Gen. (Res.) Zvika Haimovich, former commander of the Israel Defense Forces’ (IDF) Aerial Defense…
IDF forces operating in southern Lebanon destroyed an underground route about 35 meters long, including…
Even though Iran is supposed to be engaged in diplomatic efforts to end the war,…
By June 1935, Ben-Gurion had moved from the question of immigration to the question of…