EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Thesis:
The purpose of this study is to examine the methodology of the covert action teams authorized by Prime Minister Golda Meir to find and assassinate those individuals responsible for the attack on the Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympic games in September 1972. Specifically, the study addresses whether the operational and tactical methods utilized in this counterterrorist effort were successful relative to the original operational objectives.

Background:
In 1972, the Israeli Mossad initiated one of the most ambitious covert counterterrorist campaigns in history. Golda Meir and the Israeli cabinet's top secret 'Committee-X' devised a campaign in retaliation for the massacre of eleven Israeli's during the Munich Olympic games. Meir tasked the committee with devising an appropriate response to the Munich massacre. The panel concluded that the most effective response was to authorize the assassination of any Black September terrorists involved in the Munich incident. The Mossad assumed the responsibility for implementing the panel's directive.

To accomplish the directive, the Mossad developed several assassination teams, each with specific mission parameters and methods of operation. The Mossad headquarters element developed one team utilizing staff operations officers supported by recruited assets of regional stations and managed through standard Mossad headquarters' procedures. A second unit recruited staff officers and highly trained specialists and set them outside the arm and control of the government. The theory was to support this team financially through covert mechanisms and let them operate with complete anonymity outside the government structure. The assassination team deployed through normal channels failed to complete their mission and publicly exposed the entire operation. The second team which operated with full decentralized authority and freedom of movement achieved significant success in fulfilling their operational objectives and never compromised the operation.

[...]
Prior to deployment, Harari brought the team together in Israel for a few days of "refresher courses" and in-depth briefings regarding the Mossad's current intelligence on each target. The Mossad also provided official passports for their initial deployment to Geneva, where they would set up their first temporary operational base. They would then lock away any personal items and official passports for the duration of the mission.

Harari provided the team with only two principle rules of engagement prior to their deployment. The Mossad's intent was to send a message with every assassination that PLO terrorists could not hide from Israel under any circumstances. He wanted the team to be imaginative and strike in creative ways. In this vein, the terrorists would know that they had been "touched". If the assassinations occurred while the terrorist leaders operated within their own security nets, it would send a clear message that they would never feel safe. The second principle was for the team to act with zero collateral risk. Harari made it clear that the unit was to ensure one hundred percent identification of the target before acting.

In the early stages, Avner developed a source who was trying to make his way into the higher echelon of the Baader-Meinhof Red Army Faction. He believed that introducing Avner's readily available cash flow to the group might increase his own value.

[...]
Unfortunately, during this operation, Avner's team encountered Muchassi's KGB contact officer in a vehicle blocking the path of their escape. The team shot and killed the KGB officer after observing him reach for a weapon under his jacket.

[...]
In April 1973, forty Israeli commandos conducted a covert amphibious landing on a Beirut beach setting in motion an ambitious mission to strike at multiple targets and deliver a decisive blow against the PLO. The operation succeeded in killing Adwan, Najjer, and Nasser, as well as approximately one hundred PLO Guerrillas. However, it also included two innocent casualties: Najjer's wife and one neighbor.

[...]
In late 1973, Avner's team learned of the Salameh incident in Lillehammer and realized for the first time that Harari was using other teams to target the same PLO terrorists as his list. Harari never disclosed to the unit that any other teams, whether controlled through Mossad headquarters or independent, were also involved in the same mission.

After a year of searching and following endless erroneous leads, the Mossad finally acquired confirmed intelligence placing Salameh in Lillehammer, Norway.

On the night of July 21, 1973, a Mossad hit team mistakenly ambushed Ahmad Bushiki, a waiter holding a Moroccan passport, outside a movie theater. The hapless Bushiki merely resembled Ali Hassan Salameh.

The unintentional collateral damage was to tarnish the Mossad's proud escutcheon for years to follow. The setback, however, did not discourage the patient, steadfast teams. Salameh was killed years later by Mossad agents in a car bombing in Beirut, Lebanon.

Mossad agents executed car bombing in Beirut, Lebanon.
It was delicate business, some 20 years ago, when Israeli intelligence approached the CIA with a question: Was Ali Hassan Salameh, the mastermind of the kidnapping and murder of Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics in 1972, an American agent?

The response was noncommittal: The CIA does not answer such questions. Shortly thereafter, in January 1979, as Salameh drove to work, a car bomb ended his life. [...]

Using the Baader Meinhof Group by providing assets - the victims of terror in Germany will appreciate the Israeli funding of terror!

Also was Ali Hassan Salameh a CIA agent infiltrated within Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement?