Attempt Abduct a Palestinian Engineer From Istanbul
The Turkish newspaper “Sabah” revealed yesterday that in 2022, the country’s intelligence agency thwarted an attempt by the Mossad to abduct a Palestinian engineer from Istanbul who disrupted the operation of the Iron Dome. Now, a day after the publication, Turkey announces that it has arrested two suspects involved in the affair.
24 hours after the Turkish newspaper “Sabah” revealed that the Turkish intelligence agency (MฤฐT) thwarted an attempt by the Mossad in 2022 to abduct from Istanbul and Kuala Lumpur a 32-year-old Palestinian engineer, Omar A., who disrupted the operation of the Iron Dome, Turkey announced today (Thursday) that it has arrested two suspects involved in the affair.
Mossad Agents Try to Recruit Omar
According to Sabah’s report, in April 2021, an agent named Ra’ad ‘Azal contacted him on WhatsApp in the name of the French company Think Hire. He tried to recruit him to the company in face-to-face meetings in June and August 2021. According to Sabah, the task of recruiting Omar was later transferred to another Mossad agent, Omar Sha’albi.
GRAPHIC WARNING October 7th Raw Video Footage
Credit: HamasVideo.com
Military and Political Espionage
Now, Ankara reports that on October 7, the day the “Operation Swords of Iron” war broke out, ‘Azal was arrested at the airport in Istanbul on charges of “military and political espionage” on behalf of the Mossad. Apart from ‘Azal, another person whose initials are F.O.F.H, who is also accused of working for the Mossad, was arrested as part of the same investigation.
The sequence of events, the report in Sabah yesterday, and Turkey’s official publication, indicate the absolute control of the Turkish authorities over the local media, and may indicate a planned publicity plan of a major publication in a newspaper with a wide national distribution. This is with the aim that immediately afterwards, it will be published that suspects in the affair were arrested in Turkey.
Iron Dome System Disruptions
It should be noted that according to the report, the Iron Dome system suffered disruptions between 2016-2015, and the military wing of Hamas, the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, took advantage of this – with the help of the same Omar, who was 24 at the time. Omar studied software engineering at the Islamic University, worked in the service of the Hamas Ministry of the Interior, and helped them break into Android-based phones. According to the report, in 2019, Omar received a job offer from a software company in Norway. However, he suspected and rejected the offer. On March 3, 2020, he moved to Istanbul via Cairo, and according to the claim in “Sabah”, he was followed by the Mossad there.
Sha’albi offered Omar $10,000
In April he met, as mentioned, ‘Azal who transferred him to the care of Sha’albi. According to the newspaper, the purpose of the two was to abduct the Palestinian engineer to Israel. As part of this mission, Sha’albi offered Omar $10,000 for writing software. The French company indeed transferred the money for the product, and according to the Turkish claim – the one who sent the money is a Mossad agent with the cover name “John Foster”.
According to the report, in June 2022, the mission was transferred to another Mossad agent, Nikola Radnoyi (44), who stayed at a hotel in the Karakoy district in Istanbul at the end of August last year. He met with Omar in Istanbul and offered him $5,200 if he worked from Turkey and $20,000 if he agreed to work from Brazil, noting that the work was with other people – Abdulbar Muhammad Kaya, Fuad Osama Hijazi and a Moroccan citizen, Youssef Dahmane Jedid.
Ankara’s Possible Assistance to Hamas
Radnoyi claimed to Omar that he had connections in the Istanbul immigration office, and asked Omar to send him his passport and address immediately, in order to be able to get him out of Turkey. At this stage, according to the report, the Turkish intelligence agency intervened and made it clear to Omar not to do so. The head of the agency at that time is the current Turkish Foreign Minister, Hakan Fidan – which raises many questions regarding Ankara’s possible assistance to Hamas in the matter of intelligence collection.
The engineer was interrogated and asked how he managed to disable the Iron Dome However, according to the report, this was not the end of the story. In September last year, Omar went on a 15-day trip to Malaysia. It should be noted that in 2018, Dr. Fadi Al-Batsh, a senior Hamas engineer, was assassinated in the Malaysian capital, Kuala Lumpur. Before Omar left, he received a briefing from the counter-intelligence department of the Turkish intelligence agency, and they demanded that he install an application on the phone that would allow them to know where he was at all times.
Mossad Team Interrogation
In Sabah it is claimed that Omar was abducted on September 28, 2022 in Kuala Lumpur and interrogated in a building about 50 km from the Malaysian capital. The report stated that the Mossad team interrogated him for 36 hours, including conducting a video call to Tel Aviv. Among other things, they tried to understand from him how the programmer managed to disable the Iron Dome, what programming language he used, and how he broke into Android-based phones of public servants and soldiers.
11 People Were Arrested in Malaysia Recently
At this stage, the Turkish intelligence agency activated its counterpart in Malaysia, which carried out a raid at the location and rescued him. This claim connects to a report on the New Straits Times website from last October, which reported in the Malaysian media about a similar case, in which a member of the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades was rescued – 24 hours after being abducted. The Malaysian website claimed that the kidnappers themselves were Malaysians and they tied him to two people, apparently Israelis. In the end, according to the report in Sabah, 11 people were arrested in Malaysia in this case. At the end of the affair, Omar was returned to Istanbul, to a hiding place of the local intelligence agency, and the agent Fuad Osama Hijazi was arrested.
