secretive, is the Israeli Mossad. The organization has been directly implicated in everything

from extrajudicial assassinations, to capturing former Nazis, and successfully infiltrating

enemy governments. So, what exactly do we know about Mossad?

Well, Mossad, or "The Institute for Intelligence and Special Operations” is one of five intelligence

services of Israel. While others are predominantly focused on domestic, military, and law enforcement

intelligence, Mossad is considered the primary foreign intelligence service. Since Israel

is surrounded by relatively unfriendly countries, the information gathered by the spy agency

is critical enough to be reported directly to the Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu.

As with any major spy organization, specific details about Mossad are not well known. Although

it was founded around 1950, its director was only publicly revealed in 1996. Additionally,

compared to other agencies, Mossad is incredibly small, with an estimated 1,200 personnel.

By comparison, the US’s equivalent foreign spy agency, the CIA, is estimated to have

about 20,000 employees.

One of the many functions they perform abroad is helping Jewish refugees escape countries

where they may be persecuted or attacked, in what is called Aliyah. Particularly hostile

or war-torn countries like Syria, Iran, and Ethiopia have seen Mossad agents help Jews

emigrate to Israel.

But in addition to clandestine humanitarian efforts, Mossad has also been accused of regular

extrajudicial assassinations. Human rights groups have widely criticized a 2006 ruling

by the Supreme Court of Israel which stated that government agents executing suspected

terrorists before they could act was a legitimate form of preemptive self defense. Mossad agents

have been suspected of killing high-ranking members of Hamas and Hezbollah, both long

considered terrorist groups by Israel and the United States. In 2010, one of the founders

of Hamas’ military wing was found drugged and suffocated in a hotel room in Dubai, which

Dubai police blamed on Mossad. But not all the assassinations are so secretive. In 2004,

an Israeli Apache Helicopter fired two Hellfire missiles at close range at a founder of Hamas,

killing him and injuring multiple bystanders.

Mossad also works to bring international criminals to court. Following World War Two, Adolf Eichmann,

one of the principal architects of the Holocaust, avoided prosecution for war crimes by escaping

to Argentina. Fifteen years after the end of the war, in 1960, Mossad agents discovered

and captured Eichmann, taking him back to Israel to stand trial for war crimes and crimes

against humanity. He was found guilty and hanged in 1962.

Around that time, a Mossad agent, Eli Cohen, infiltrated the Syrian government. He befriended

high ranking government officials, and was eventually appointed the Chief Advisor to

the Minister of Defense. Although he was found out and executed by Syrian authorities in

1965, the intelligence he gathered helped Israel win the extremely contentious Six Day

War.

Although Mossad performs some humanitarian and defensive purposes, many criticize the

Israeli government for letting agents act with impunity, especially in cases of extrajudicial

assassination. But whether the full extend of Mossad’s actions abroad will ever be

known is extremely unlikely.

Another infamously secret intelligence agency was the Soviet Union’s komitet gosudarstivnoy

bezopasnosti, or the KGB. Learn more about this massive and infamous agency by watching

this video!