Mossad chief was set to meet Assad in 2019 in bid to cut Syria-Iran ties — report
Strongman backed out at the last moment from Kremlin sit-down with Yossi Cohen, according to report, which quotes IDF intelligence unit’s years-long WhatsApp messages to Damascus
Israel reportedly maintained secret, years-long communications with the regime of Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad before he was deposed earlier this month, and had once arranged for him to meet at the Kremlin with then-Mossad chief Yossi Cohen in a bid to wean Damascus away from Tehran and Hezbollah.
The Yedioth Aharonoth daily reported Friday that Assad backed out at the last minute from the late 2019 meeting, which was said to have been arranged by Russian President Vladimir Putin. Assad’s calculations were unclear.
The Israel Defense Forces reportedly started corresponding with high-ranking Syrian officials via WhatsApp due to the growing presence of Iran, Hezbollah and Hamas in Syria since the country’s civil war began in 2011.
The messages, which the report said were sent by an IDF intelligence unit posing as a man called Musa, warned the Syrians to stop Iran’s arms transfers to Hezbollah and updated them on Israel’s strikes against the shipments. Musa was said to have written directly to members of Assad’s inner circle, including his defense minister Ali Mahmoud Abbas.
According to Yedioth, Israel’s contact with Assad — mediated by Russia, which bolstered his regime — lasted until “just days” before his ouster, which was said to have caught the IDF intelligence unit by surprise.
Israel reportedly sought to offer Assad a deal that would ease international sanctions against his regime in return for his blocking Iran’s arms shipments to Hezbollah. However, the newspaper said, it was unclear if Israel had been empowered to make that offer — the sanctions’ removal would require approval from the US Congress, which appeared largely opposed to the move.
The report cited printouts of Musa’s WhatsApp messages, which were said to have been published online by rebels who stormed Assad’s intelligence headquarters. The rebels had reportedly misconstrued the messages as evidence of an Israeli-Russian plot against Assad.
Messages quoted in the report showed Musa updating Syrian officials on Israeli strikes against Iran-aligned targets in Syria, and threatening to exact a price if Damascus failed to rend its ties with Hezbollah and the rest of Iran’s Axis of Resistance network of regional proxies.
Thus, Yedioth cited a message dated May 29, 2023, in which Musa warned the Syrian defense minister that “we won’t agree to the presence in south Syria of Hajj Hashem and his people,” using the nom de guerre of Munir Ali Naim, chief of Hezbollah’s operations in the Syrian Golan Heights, on the border with Israel.
“Cooperation with Hezbollah harms the Syrian army and its people, and you will pay the price,” read the message. “Any support on your part for the Axis and Hezbollah that can harm my country, will be met with a harsh response.”
In another message, dated June 8, 2023, Musa reportedly threatened action against Iranian arms transfers after eight airplanes — which Musa identified by tail number — had landed at Syria’s Russia-run Khmeimim air base from Iran in the space of two weeks.
“These shipments are being coordinated between you and the Iranians,” Musa accused.
In a later message, Musa said: “We’ve noticed that since July 6, Ilyushin 36 fighter jets of the Syrian Air Force’s 29th Brigade have stopped landing at Khmeimim” and delivering arms to Hezbollah and Iran’s Quds Force.
“As the people who are responsible for stopping these flights, you should know that you have prevented a conflict that is undesirable” to both Israel and Syria, wrote Musa approvingly.
A senior security official quoted in the report said Israel could see that its “message was received and passed on,” citing instances where “following [Musa’s] warning this warehouse was shuttered or that flight path was scrapped.”
“It’s true that in some cases they did it just to try and evade our surveillance and airstrikes,” the official said, “but they knew they had little chance of success.”
The official said the correspondence with the Syrian strongman served four goals: to prove to Assad’s confidants that Israel had no problem reaching their private phones; to show them “how naked they are, that they have no chance to hide anything from us”; to show them that Israel’s operations in Syria were not arbitrary, but rather “precise and incisive”; and to threaten further action.
Washington also helped Israel relay messages to Assad, Yedioth Aharonoth said. The security official cited by the newspaper said the United States had set up communications with Assad via Oman and the United Arab Emirates. According to the outlet, the Gulf Arab nations had a vested interest in taking Syria out of Iran’s sphere of influence — not least because Captagon, the drug Assad’s regime produced to bankroll its war, had effected an addiction epidemic in the Gulf states.
Israel was also said to have contacted Syrian officials through Russia, with Maj. Gen. Ronen Gofman, the top military aide to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, meeting with Russian counterparts during the regional conflict sparked by the Hamas assault last year, when thousands of terrorists stormed southern Israel to kill some 1,200 people and take 251 hostages.
Yedioth Aharonoth said Gofman’s effort harked back to the aborted 2019 bid to get Assad to meet with Cohen, the Mossad chief at the time.
Assad backed out of the meeting at the last moment, the report said, without citing a reason.
Assad’s allies, preoccupied with their own confrontations, largely abandoned him as rebels marched on Damascus in early December. After Assad fell, Israel moved troops into its border region with Syria, and struck the remains of Assad’s military and chemical weapons stores, fearing they could fall into the wrong hands.
The new Syrian government, led by jihadi leader Ahmed al-Sharaa, has accused Iran of gross interference in Syria and indicated a desire for coexistence with Israel.
