The charging of CIA official Asif Rahman for allegedly leaking US intelligence of Israeli preparations for retaliatory strikes on Iran in October has introduced into open view the shadow battle of espionage and counterespionage that has raged between actors locked in a regional battle for many years.
The Iran-based Telegram channel Rahman is accused of leaking to disavows any reference to Iran’s authorities, however that the affair has embarrassed a US administration reeling from an earlier conviction of another of its officers, Jack Teixeira, for leaking Pentagon papers is simple.
The Rahman leak offers a glimpse into the murky interaction of Iranian, Israeli and US spy companies which have helped form the present battle and, nearly as importantly, our notion of it.
Catching spies
In late October, Israel’s inside safety company, Shin Guess, mentioned it had arrested seven Israeli nationals dwelling in occupied East Jerusalem on suspicion of finishing up espionage on Iran’s behalf.
A day earlier, one other seven Israeli nationals in Haifa had been arrested on suspicion of aiding the enemy, on this case, Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence, in wartime.
Israeli police sources confirmed that extra Iran-aligned cells working within the nation are suspected.
This isn’t new. In September, 73-year-old Israeli businessman Moti Maman was additionally accused by Shin Guess and the Israeli police of working with Iranian intelligence, allegedly providing to kill Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and different political figures in return for an advance cost of $1m.
Conversely, Iran has arrested a number of of its residents all through Israel’s battle on Gaza on costs of getting collaborated with the Israeli spy company Mossad.
In December, Iran executed three men and a woman accused of acting on behalf of Mossad in Iran and endeavor acts, from sabotage to the kidnapping of Iranian safety officers.
In September, within the wake of assaults attributed to Israel on the communications programs of Iran’s ally Hezbollah, Iran introduced the arrests of 12 residents on costs of collaborating with Israel and planning assaults within the nation.
Espionage in a altering world
Whereas digital intercepts, surveillance and monitoring of social media have develop into beneficial intelligence instruments, human intelligence stays key to data gathering and navy focusing on.
“Human intelligence performs a major function within the ongoing covert battle between Israel and Iran,” Sina Toossi, a senior fellow on the Heart for Worldwide Coverage, mentioned.
“Each nations are closely engaged in intelligence gathering with espionage and counterespionage operations informing their broader strategic calculations,” he added.
The Israelis arrested in Haifa are accused of 600 to 700 intelligence-gathering missions for Iran over two years, together with focusing on a senior official – presumably for potential assassination much like Israel’s high-profile assassinations, together with that of Hamas political chief Ismail Haniyeh in Iran in July.
“In Iran, Israel demonstrated its capabilities via a collection of high-profile assassinations and sabotage missions, usually attributed to Mossad’s deep penetration.
“Alternatively, Iran has made efforts to determine human intelligence networks in Israel, as highlighted by the current arrests of a number of Israeli residents accused of spying for Iran,” Toossi mentioned.
Turning the tide
Israel with its small and customarily cohesive society has lengthy been thought-about nearly impregnable by international spy companies, defence analyst Hamze Attar mentioned.
Nevertheless, the strains of the present battle, the rise of the intense proper and bitter divisions over the 2023 judicial reforms championed by Netanyahu have labored at pre-existing societal cracks, leading to a fundamentally changed Israeli society.
It’s into these divisions, analysts have steered, that Iranian intelligence is making inroads.
That the primary group of the 14 brokers arrested in Haifa had immigrated to Israel from Azerbaijan 10 years in the past and the second group was considered Arab Israelis and, due to this fact, barely exterior Israel’s mainstream is important, in keeping with Attar.
“This [was] enormous,” he mentioned.
“Israel has been regarded as … a single id, one taught from an early age that they’re underneath fixed hazard of assault from their Arab neighbours.”
“If Iran can flip these two teams” into performing on its behalf in Israel, “they will flip extra,” he mentioned.
Nice video games
Iran’s makes an attempt to penetrate Israeli society are solely not too long ago coming to mild whereas there has lengthy been protection of Israel’s use of covert intelligence on Iran.
Aiding Israel’s efforts is Iran’s sheer dimension with a inhabitants that dwarfs Israel’s at a scale of about 9.5 to 1 and social and political fault strains operating via its society – from protests towards the 2022 loss of life of Mahsa Amini for allegedly not carrying her scarf appropriately to minorities demanding extra rights.
“Israel’s said purpose because the Iranian Revolution of 1979 is to foment the overthrow of the regime from inside,” Ahron Bregman of the Division of Battle Research at King’s Faculty London mentioned.
“That informs the best way they work. Israel has had a protracted interval to plan, to recruit and to construction their intelligence inside Iran,” he mentioned.
In distinction, Iran seems to have invested a lot of its long-term planning in assembling a community of allies, akin to Lebanon’s Hezbollah, which give it with data.
Intelligence actions appeared to focus primarily on recruiting Palestinians working inside Israel, the place they usually face prejudice, or comparatively low-risk efforts to penetrate Israeli society through social media
![Ismail Haniyeh was assassinated this morning in Tehran. [Reuters/Mohammed Salem]](https://www.aljazeera.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/Haniyeah-1722424368.jpg?w=770&resize=770%2C480)
In January, sources in Israel claimed Iranian intelligence had been seeking to exploit fashionable anger over each the judicial adjustments and the unknown destiny of the captives taken into Gaza to stoke dissent and persuade Israelis to {photograph} the properties of senior officers.
Nonetheless, “Israel’s intelligence operations inside Iran seem considerably extra developed and in depth,” Toossi mentioned.
“The assassination of Iranian scientists, high-profile figures like Ismail Haniyeh, the sabotage of nuclear services and Israel’s confirmed capability to hold out strikes deep inside Iran all spotlight how successfully it has infiltrated the nation’s most delicate sectors.”
Chasing clicks
For Iran, planting demonstrably false tales supposed for an opposing spy company to choose up and publicise, solely to then disprove and discredit the opposing company, generally is a highly effective weapon within the battle for affect, analysts mentioned.
“Iran has a file of planting false tales for Western shops – together with foreign-based Persian-language shops with hyperlinks to Israel and Gulf nations – to choose up, which it could actually then show false and acquire extra credibility,” Veena Ali-Khan, a fellow on the Century Basis, mentioned.
“[There] have been studies in Israeli media that [Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Brigadier General Esmail] Qaani was lifeless or detained for espionage functions earlier than he was proved by Iran to be very a lot alive.
“As soon as once more, state media emphasised that Western media … have been fully mistaken about Qaani, reinforcing their logic that Western shops shouldn’t be trusted,” she mentioned.
Deterrence
Controlling the general public narrative will be as important for sustaining deterrence as it may be for undermining your opponent, Bregman steered.
“The Shin Guess and the police are publicising these arrests intentionally. It’s about deterring others,” he mentioned, explaining a rationale at odds with the privacy-driven safety companies of fashionable creativeness.
“They’re publicising their efforts. They’re letting individuals know that they’re there, they’ll catch them.”
Likewise, Toossi identified, the publicity surrounding the current arrests masked quite a few failures on the a part of Israeli intelligence, not least its failure to foresee the devastating Hamas-led assaults of October 7 final yr.
“It’s essential to recognise that Israel and its supportive media usually challenge a picture of invincibility relating to Israeli intelligence that doesn’t all the time align with actuality,” he wrote by e-mail, noting that the timing of the well-publicised pager and walkie-talkie assaults on Hezbollah in mid-September was compelled upon Israel when considerations over the operation’s discovery gained floor inside Mossad.
“Regardless of Israel’s tactical successes, the notion of Israeli invincibility within the covert realm or in any other case is significantly undermined by the nation’s more and more precarious strategic scenario.
“Israel’s intelligence capabilities are formidable, however it’s nonetheless going through sustained resistance and main challenges on a number of fronts,” he wrote.