Introduction
The 5th of September, 1972 looked like an ordinary night for Israeli Olympic team in the Olympic village at 31 Connollystrasse. Everything was normal as each member contemplated on his strategies to ensure that they emerged victors in their respective sports. However, things changed at exactly 4: 00 a.m. in the morning when armed Arab terrorists scaled the fence of the stadium and held nine of the team’s members hostage after having killed two. Although the German forces outlined a rescue plan, the final result was pathetic as it left 11 of the team members dead. This prompted an aggressive retaliation plan from Israel that led to execution of 12 Arabs believed to have organized the attack (Becker, 1985). Given this scenario, this paper intends to analyze the decision of Israel to employ the retaliation measure and ascertain the effectiveness of the approach.
Terrorist activities are, without doubt, among the central concerns of most of the developed countries. Militia groups and extremist Muslim organizations have time and again organized attacks or offered threats in order to compel governments to act according to their demands. This has thus led to great losses both economically, socially and politically. For instance, the 9/11 attack on the twin towers left more than 2000 people dead. This is cue enough to trigger response through counter terrorism measures. Equally, Israel had to react to the Munich Olympic attack by its own counter terrorist approach of which was dubbed the wrath of God.
The Attack
On that fateful day, Fadayeen terrorists sneaked their way over the fence and forced entry into apartments one and three of 31 Connollystrasse Olympic village at Kusoczinskidamm stadium and captured nine Israeli athletes alive. During the commotion, the terrorists had been forced to kill two athletes, Moshe Weinberger and Yossef Romanno who had staged a spirited resistance against the attackers. As a result of the battle and the unexpected resistance by the team members, the terrorists allowed eight more Israeli athletes to escape because the attackers failed to complete their searches in rooms two, four and five (Morris, 1999).
By five am, the terrorists had already written their demands to the Israeli and German governments. To prove their seriousness, the Palestinian based group Black September Organization dropped the body of Moshe Weinberger in the streets. The main theme in their demands was release of certain Arab and German prisoners under Israel and West German custody. The next logical step was a discussion between West German Chancellor Willy Brandt and his counterpart, the Israeli Premier, Golda Meir. The discussion did not end up fruitful as Meir clearly stipulated that her government would, by no means, negotiate with terror groups. The only way German would accept cooperation between the two governments was allowing specially trained Israeli sniper group called Sayeret to carry out a rescue operation. Again, the German government refused to offer Israel this privilege and offered to use their own less experienced snipers to rescue the nine captives held in a helicopter (Black & Morris, 1991).
The German operation was very poorly executed. The five snipers were not adequate to bring down eight terrorists who were holding the Israelis hostage. In addition, the police officers around the airport who were also actively engaged in the operation did not have radios. This completely cut the communication between them and other participants in the operation. Further still, the initial shorts fired by the snipers were way off targeting allowing the terrorists to retaliate hence triggering a gun battle between the two groups. This also gave the terrorists time to deal with the hostages. One of the terrorists casually took a hand grenade and threw it in one of the helicopters holding their captives. This resulted in an explosion that left all the Israeli captives dead. Another terrorist had ample time to casually march into the second helicopter holding the remaining four captives and short all of them dead. The increased gun battle resulted later in the death of all the terrorists except two who were later interrogated and gave vital information that allowed Israeli government to identify the organizers of the attack and hence formulate an approach with which they would retaliate. The formulation led to a clear assassination plan against 12 Arabs by MOSSAD.
The Israeli Counter Terrorism Approach
It is necessary to evaluate the approach used by Israel to counter the Arab attacks in Munich. Cobban (1984) argues that evaluation of a counter terrorism approach by analyzing its pros and cons allows the international security policy makers to determine its effectiveness and hence recommend whether such approaches should be used for further wars against terrorism or not.
The Munich attack was not the only terrorist attack against Israel. It is clear that the country has been faced by consistent attacks since its formation in 1948. As a result, the country has come up with a comprehensive approach to counter terrorism through the use of Human Intelligence, otherwise known as HUMINT. Through this approach, Israel has succeeded in collecting information from abroad through the “Institute of coordination (Ha Mossad le Teum) otherwise known as Mossad” (Brzezinski, 1985, p. 32). The Israeli government further promotes its HUMINT approach to counter terrorism by the help of Shin Bet and Aman whose roles are collecting domestic and military intelligence respectively.
In the case of the Munich attach, the then Israel premier, Golda Meir devised a novel policy of counter terrorism. The policy entailed assassination of all individuals involved in the terrorist attack. This HUMINT intensive approach successfully ensured that 12 Arab masterminds of the Munich attack were assassinated. To retaliate on the terror attack, the Israeli premier, Golda Meir formed a committee referred to as “Committee X” whose role was to ensure that all the masterminds of the Munich attack were assassinated. With the advice from terrorism advisor Aharon Yariv, and the then chief of Mossad, Zwi Zamir, committee X organized itself in effective units that played coordinated roles. Although the committee was a secret, journalist Yoel Marcus as quoted by Dawisha (1986) clearly made public the role of Committee X through his article in 1985 that said, “the most effective means to make a clear statement that Israel would not tolerate terrorist activities was to authorize assassination of any Black September terrorists involved in the Munich incident” (p. 4).
Given the role of ensuring that the plan was well implemented, Harari ensured that the whole implementation unit was made up of smaller assassination units that played different roles that all led towards the main objective. The wide variety of roles was well coordinated and each had a unique operational method. The approach was also very compartmentalized to the extent that the teams barely knew the existence or operational methods of the other. The principle idea was to ensure that the team amassed enough information that would assist them identify and prosecute the terrorists. It also assisted the filling of gaps where one team would have failed (Klein, 2005).
The several assassination units operated under two major umbrellas. One was operations by Mossad whose every development and operation was carried out at the Mossad headquarters. The other operational arm was referred to as ‘Avner’ and it was independent of government operations. They were not directly linked to the government. The only point of contact they had with the committee was Harari. Their funding was also done covertly through discreet accounts. It was this arm that received names and information of people who were suspected as masterminds of the Munich incidence (Porath, 1996).
In their first attempt on Ali Hassan Salameh, committee X’s operations were carried out by Mossad agents that operated from the headquarters. Their poorly planned operation was a failure in that they did not assassinate Salameh. In addition, they ended up killing an innocent Norwegian civilian of Moroccan descent and also left almost half of the team in the hands of police. The whole operation was blown up.
However, Harari reconvened and reorganized the operation using a different approach. This time, he used the Avner. This was a special unit headed by Avner as the team leader and hence the name. this team was made up of five highly skilled men who possessed different but coordinative skills. Although each member had a special role to play as pertains his skills, the five members had the ability of performing any function. The roles they played include formulation of fake documents, ability to acquire vehicles, ability to develop explosives, business skills, operational security et cetera. The most conspicuous character of this unit was the fact that they operated without bureaucratic ranking or the normal military doctrines. By formulating the doctrines that guided thus group, Harari knew that following military doctrines to the letter would impede on their operations and result to failure as witnessed in the first attempt on Salameh. The fundamental principle was to cut leadership from the terror group. He believed that without charismatic leadership, the whole group would be transformed into a big mess. Any attempts of replacing the cut leaders would be frustrated by continuous assassination of leaders until the whole group was completely destroyed (Reeve, 2001).
Reeve (2001) points out the Israeli approached the issue using different arms of differently skilled forces within the Mossad to identify, track and assassinate the masterminds of the Munich attack. For efficient execution of the operation, the Avner unit did not operate within the formal military protocol. Independent assassination teams were deployed all over regions that the suspected terrorists were believed to have settled. The different teams hence played roles of collecting necessary information on the whereabouts of the terrorists prior to the assassination operations. Other teams acted as strategists. They played the role of identifying the operational design. The teams also consisted of top class snipers whose role was executing the assassination operation. The role of developing alias documents which were necessary for travelling and other activities was imparted on another team. Finally, there was a team involved in generation and retention of sources e.g. Le Groupe, a Paris based group that availed the team with every information that they needed concerning the suspected terrorists.
Credit to the Approach
One question remains though, was the Israeli approach appropriate for the counter terrorism attack. This is to say, was the approach effective and hence could be replicated elsewhere? Without a doubt, this approach was very effective. Appropriate implementation of such a counter terrorist approach can greatly reduce consistent terrorist attacks as fear engulfs them forcing them to withdraw their active participation in organization of such activities. This was evident in the assassination of the Munich attack masterminds.
First, screening the operations from cabinet members was an appropriate step towards success of the operation. Terrorism is an intricate activity that could involve even individuals within the government. This could lead to leakage of vital information that would hence alert the targets. Furthermore, active participation of the government would lead to protocols and bureaucratic expectations that would lead to complications in the operation. Screening of the operation involves also not involving Mossad. It should be noted that all the five members of the Avner unit were former members of Mossad who intentionally resigned from their positions in Mossad in order to ensure that should there be problems, Mossad would not be implicated. This is important because it would help avoid international wrangles between Israel and other countries as witnessed in the first incident where the attempt to assassinate Salameh went futile with all leads pointing towards Mossad.
HUMINT theoretical model of approach to intelligence operations outlines four integral pillars that characterize a successful intelligence approach (Ostrovsky, 1990). The four pillars include collection of relevant information, anticipation of the enemy or target’s next move, transmission of this information and finally development of mechanisms to ensure that the opponent is not in position to undertake the three mentioned pillars. However, collection of information plays the axial role (Ostrovsky, 1990).
Before the Munich attack, Mossad intelligence collection mechanisms were only placed in enemy countries. It was wrongly believed that suspect countries were the greatest sources of threat. However, this led to failure as Mossad failed to thwart the Munich terror attack. It was found necessary to have collection mechanisms even in friendly countries. This new discovery is well implemented in Harari’s approach. the assassin teams were deployed in almost every country including friendly countries like Norway and France. In fact, French collecting mechanisms was the core to the whole operation as they provided all needed information. This was acquired through formation of sources. Le Groupe, for instance provided Avner with all necessary information. Appropriate information collection was necessary for correct identification of targets. Poor approach had earlier led to blowing up of the whole operation in the Salameh attempt. Adequate information on positive identification of targets allowed the team to assassinate twelve terrorists (Klein, 2005).
Through proper information collection, the second pillar can be automatically met. For instance, the Avner operation, through proper information collection mechanisms was able to predict the movements of their targets and hence be able to strategize on the best approach. they knew the whereabouts of each member, where he goes, what he does, what he likes doing, where he frequents for entertainment, et cetera. Ti was through this information that the terrorists were identified and assassinated. In the case scenario, there is also a clear identification of the fourth pillar that requires the intelligence organization to ensure that the opponent does not collect information or anticipate the intelligence’s next move. The Avner unit had its operation as discreet as would be. Information was only communicated between the five members of the unit, Harari and the members of committee X. No other entity was accessible to the information. Not even top cabinet members knew what was going on. Furthermore, the assassination units did not even know about the existence of other units. Each team thought that it was the only team. This could surely frustrate the target’s ability to collect information on Avner’s moves (Klein, 2005).
Given the above arguments, it is clear that Israel’s approach to Munich terror attack was good and recommendable. First it aimed at assassinating leaders of the terror group leaving the groups in a mess. Second, it instilled fear in the terrorists as they knew that involvement in terror attacks against Israel was like signing a death sentence for one self. The operation also reduced military protocols that would have impeded on the progress. Through screening of their activities from government and Mossad, they were able to ensure that information leakage was minimized. Above all, the operations and organization of its activities clearly fell within the specifications of HUMINT model. As a result, these facts point out that more of such approaches should be used in order to stem out terrorism.
Reference List
Becker, J. (1985). The PLO. New York: St. Martin’s Press.
Black, I. and Morris, B. (1991). Israel’s secret wars: A history of Israel’s Intelligence Services. New York: Grove Press.
Brzezinski, Z. (1985). Power and Principle: Memoirs of the National Security Adviser. NY: Farrar, Strous, Giroux.
Cobban, H. (1984). The Palestine Liberation Organisation. London: Cambridge University Press.
Dawisha, A. (1986). The Arab Radicals. New York: Council on Foreign Relations.
Klein, P. (2005). Striking Back: The 1972 Munich Olympics Massacre and Israel’s Deadly Response. New York: Random House, Inc.
Morris, B. (1999). Righteous Victims: A History of the Zionist-Arab Conflict 1881–1999. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.
Porath, Y. (1996). The Emergence of the Palestinian-Arab National Movement. London: Frank Cass, 1996.
Reeve, S. (2001). One Day in September: The Full Story of the 1972 Munich Olympics Massacre and the Israeli Revenge Operation “Wrath of God.” New York: Arcade Publishing.
Ostrovsky, V. (1990). By way of deception: The making and unmaking of a mossad officer. New York: St. Martin’s Press.