Israel's covert action coup leaves gaping hole in US policy
Welcome! I’m Tom Griffin and this is my intelligence history newsletter. Feel free to share this post with the button below.
US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin with Israeli counterpart Yoav Gallant at the Pentagon on 24 June. Austin was reportedly informed on Tuesday of an upcoming Israeli operation in Lebanon, but not its exact nature (US Secretary of Defense, Creative Commons 2.0).
Last week was something of a turning point in intelligence history. Scholars of covert action have struggled to come up with a precedent for the attacks which saw Hezbollah-distributed pagers and walkie-talkies exploding across Lebanon.
Some have compared it to the so-called ‘intelligence coup of the century’ in which the CIA, NSA and BND collaborated to sell compromised cypher equipment to clients across the world through a Swiss front company, Crypto AG.1
That was a pure intelligence-collection exercise, not one where communications equipment was turned into a weapon against its users. The latter type of operation has been carried out before by Israel, universally assumed to be the author of the pager attacks.
In 1996, Shin Bet killed Hamas bomb-maker Yahya Ayyash by remotely detonating explosives in his mobile phone.2 Last week represented a step-change in scale and complexity. Former NSA director Paul Nakasone commented that those behind the attack ‘had incredible ability to do targeting intelligence and to be able to actually know the numbers, know who’s got them, know the periodicity upon which they’re using them.'3
Just how discriminating the attack really was has been a matter of some dispute. In an article for West Point's Lieber Institute, former RAF legal expert William Boothby suggested that the pagers could be illegal booby-traps under the Conventional Weapons Convention. He also raises separate issues in targeting law. Even if the targeting of Hezbollah fighters is lawful, there are questions about whether all members of the group can be classified as combatants, and whether reasonable precautions were taken to protect nearby civilians.4
UN human rights experts have suggested that the attacks constituted a war crime, noting that ‘among the dead are a boy and a girl, as well as medical personnel.’5
When such considerations were put to former CIA officer Robert Baer, he commented ‘Everything that goes on in the Middle East is wrong. International law is gone.’6
Other intelligence veterans had a more sanguine response to the Israeli air strike in Beirut on Friday, which killed a number of women and children alongside Ibrahim Aqil, a senior Hezbollah commander said to have been responsible for the bombings of the US Embassy and US marines in Beirut in 1983.7
Official US policy seems confounded by the turn of events. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin was reportedly warned on Tuesday that an operation was coming, but not its nature.8 Biden advisor Amos Hochstein was in Israel to warn against an escalation in Lebanon only a day before the pager attack.9
It would be wrong to read the operation as direct rebuke to US advice. It easy to over-interpret the political timing of covert operations, and this one was clearly long in the planning. The layers of Hungarian and Bulgarian front companies uncovered by investigative journalists this week are testimony to that.10
Intelligence scholar Rory Cormac notes that covert actions in themselves rarely start wars.11 Yet the wider policy context is deeply troubling. According to the Wall Street Journal, ‘senior U.S. officials are now privately acknowledging they don’t expect Israel and Hamas to reach an agreement before the end of President Biden’s term.’12 That removes the clearest route to a peaceful de-escalation on the Israeli-Lebanese border.
According to Barak Ravid, ‘the Biden administration is "extremely concerned" about the risk of an all-out war between Israel and Lebanon, but hopes to use growing Israeli military pressure on Hezbollah to get a diplomatic deal to return civilians to their homes on both sides of the Israel-Lebanon border.’13
There is no doubt that the pager attack was a devastating security blow to Hezbollah, and to the wider network of Iranian allies which is still reeling from the assassination of Hamas spokesman Ismail Haniyeh. Nevertheless Israeli intelligence journalist Yossi Melman argues that both operations exposed intelligence capabilities prematurely.14
Even if further escalation can be avoided, the ineffectiveness of US diplomacy may still have consequences.
Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) said on Wednesday that Saudi Arabia would not recognize Israel without a Palestinian state, dealing a blow to American hopes of a 'grand bargain' in the region.15
While MBS is a mercurial figure, deadlock with Israel could push him down an alternative path of détente with Iran. Such a course might be the more welcome in Tehran given the blows it has suffered in recent months. One obvious beneficiary would be China, which has become a key mediator between the two countries.16
Greg Miller, ‘The intelligence coup of the century’, Washington Post, 11 February 2020.
Dr Luca Trenta, Nowhere to Hide: Israel’s Pager Attacks on Hezbollah, RUSI, 22 September 2024.
David DiMolfetta, Device detonations reveal ‘incredible’ intelligence abilities: ex-NSA chief, NextGov, 19 September 2024.
William H. Boothby, Exploding Pagers and the Law, Articles of War, 18 September 2024.
Exploding pagers and radios: A terrifying violation of international law, say UN experts, Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, United Nations, 19 September 2024.
Rich Johnson, ‘The Israelis are going to go in’: Former CIA Officer Robert Baer, NewsNation, 18 September 2024.
Hugo Bachega and Malu Cursino, Top Hezbollah commanders killed in Israeli strike on Beirut, BBC News, 20 September 2024.
Henry Moore, Israel warned US a Lebanon operation was coming but gave no details, officials say, LBC, 20 September 2024.
Andrew Roth, Exploding pager attack in Lebanon is another blow for US peace hopes, Guardian, 17 September 2024.
Hungarian intelligence agency interviewed CEO linked to exploding Hezbollah pagers, Reuters, 21 September 2024.
1.6m euros passed through Bulgaria to fund pagers used in Lebanon attack — TV report, Reuters/Times of Israel, 19 September 2024.
Alexander Ward, U.S. Officials Concede Gaza Cease-Fire Out of Reach for Biden, Wall Street Journal, 19 September 2024.
Barak Ravid, U.S. fears war in Lebanon but hopes Israeli attacks push Hezbollah to a deal, Axios, 21 September 2024.
Yossi Melman, Why Hasn't Israel Assassinated Hamas Leader Yahya Sinwar in Gaza? Haaretz, 18 September 2024.
Yossi Melman, Priming Hezbollah Pagers to Explode Is a Genius Move. But It's Also an Israeli Failure, Haaretz, 19 September 2024.
Saudi Arabia will not recognize Israel without Palestinian state, says Crown Prince, Al Arabiya English, 18 September 2024.
China-brokered Saudi-Iran deal driving 'wave of reconciliation', says Wang, Al Jazeera, 21 August 2023.