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US Angered by Failed Mossad Operation in Arab Country

The Pentagon in Washington, US, is seen from aboard Air Force One, March 29, 2018. (Reuters)
The Pentagon in Washington, US, is seen from aboard Air Force One, March 29, 2018. (Reuters)
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US Angered by Failed Mossad Operation in Arab Country

The Pentagon in Washington, US, is seen from aboard Air Force One, March 29, 2018. (Reuters)
The Pentagon in Washington, US, is seen from aboard Air Force One, March 29, 2018. (Reuters)

The US Army was angered with the Israeli intelligence agency, the Mossad, for a failed operation it had carried out in a Middle Eastern country and which undermined both parties, revealed political sources in Tel Aviv.

The Mossad failed because it did not coordinate the operation with US forces deployed in that country, reported a high-ranking official in the Israeli army.

According to a report published on Tuesday by Amir Oren, a writer for Walla News, the Israeli army fears a setback in the close relations with its American counterpart and the Pentagon.

Some of the first signs of this setback emerged recently and impacted ties between the Israeli military and Mossad director Yossi Cohen due to the latter’s actions.

An official in the army accused the Mossad of having a flaw in its performance that is jeopardizing the delicate ties with the National Security Agency (NSA) in Washington and the region.

Oren spoke of a “hidden” tensions between the Israeli army and Mossad on leading contacts with the American security agencies and the recent dispute with the US aggravated them.

Daily contacts are made via the Israeli army, namely the department of operations and planning and the military attache in Washington. While the Mossad carries on its communication through its director with the CIA envoy in Tel Aviv, and also through head of the Mossad Mission at the Israeli Embassy in Washington with the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) at the CIA’s headquarters. Occasionally, direct contact is made between Cohen and CIA Director Gina Haspel.

Oren added that the issue of Israeli-American coordination was brought up after the Israeli army carried out an operation in a region of operation of the US Central Command.

This could be understood as a hint of Israeli involvement in the recent blasts that took place in Iraq and that targeted Popular Mobilization Forces positions.

The Central Command is critical about violating the sovereignty of countries in its area of operations, which does not border Israel.

The Israeli operation, therefore, angered the Pentagon and it has rejected all excuses and apologies.

This tension coincides with another debate between Tel Aviv and Washington on American-Iranian ties.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been very concerned with signs that US President Donald Trump was ready to open a new chapter in relations with Iran and abandoning the hardline policy adopted by the premier, revealed the sources.

These concerns increased on Monday when French President Emmanuel Macron announced a plan to hold a summit between Trump and his Iranian counterpart Hassan Rouhani.

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Arab World

Sudan’s Humanitarian Crisis Worsens amid Escalating Violence

FILE - People prepare local crops of sugar cane and watermelons for sale, at Abu Shouk refugee camp, where they live on the outskirts of El Fasher, North Darfur, Sudan, Oct. 8, 2010. (AP Photo/John Heilprin, File)
FILE - People prepare local crops of sugar cane and watermelons for sale, at Abu Shouk refugee camp, where they live on the outskirts of El Fasher, North Darfur, Sudan, Oct. 8, 2010. (AP Photo/John Heilprin, File)
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Sudan’s Humanitarian Crisis Worsens amid Escalating Violence

FILE - People prepare local crops of sugar cane and watermelons for sale, at Abu Shouk refugee camp, where they live on the outskirts of El Fasher, North Darfur, Sudan, Oct. 8, 2010. (AP Photo/John Heilprin, File)
FILE - People prepare local crops of sugar cane and watermelons for sale, at Abu Shouk refugee camp, where they live on the outskirts of El Fasher, North Darfur, Sudan, Oct. 8, 2010. (AP Photo/John Heilprin, File)

Fighting in Sudan's Kordofan region that has killed hundreds and ongoing violence in Darfur — the epicenters of the country's conflict — have worsened Sudan's humanitarian crisis, with aid workers warning of limited access to assistance.

The United Nations said more than 450 civilians, including at least 35 children, were killed during the weekend of July 12 in attacks in villages surrounding the town of Bara in North Kordofan province.

“The suffering in Kordofan deepens with each passing day,” Mercy Corps Country Director for Sudan Kadry Furany said in a statement shared with The Associated Press. “Communities are trapped along active and fast changing front lines, unable to flee, unable to access basic needs or lifesaving assistance.”

Sudan plunged into war after simmering tensions between the army and its rival, the Rapid Support Forces, or RSF, escalated to fighting in April 2023. The violence has killed at least 40,000 people and created one of the world’s worst displacement and hunger crises, according to humanitarian organizations. In recent months, much of the fighting has been concentrated in the Darfur and Kordofan regions.

On Thursday, the UN human rights office confirmed that since July 10, the RSF has killed at least 60 civilians in the town of Bara, while civil society groups reported up to 300 people were killed, the office said.

A military airstrike on Thursday in Bara killed at least 11 people, all from the same family, according to the UN office. Meanwhile, between July 10 and 14, the army killed at least 23 civilians and injured over two dozen others after striking two villages in West Kordofan.

An aid worker with Mercy Corps said his brother was fatally shot on July 13 during an attack on the village of Um Seimima in El Obeid City in North Kordofan, Grace Wairima Ndungu, the group’s communications manager told AP.

Furany said that movement between the western and eastern areas of the Kordofan region is “practically impossible.”

The intensified fighting forced Mercy Corps to temporarily suspend operations in three out of four localities, with access beyond Kadugli, the capital of South Kordofan, now being in “serious doubt,” Furany said, as a safe sustained humanitarian corridor is needed.

Mathilde Vu, an aid worker with the Norwegian Refugee Council who is often based in Port Sudan, told the AP that fighting has intensified in North Kordofan and West Kordofan over the past several months.

“A large number of villages are being destroyed, burned to the ground, people being displaced,” she said. “What is extremely worrying about the Kordofan is that there is very little information and not a lot of organizations are able to support. It is a complete war zone there.”

Marwan Taher, head of mission with humanitarian group Doctors Without Borders, told the AP that military operations in Kordofan heightened insecurity, prompting scores of people to flee to Darfur, a region already in a dire humanitarian situation.

The NRC said that since April, Tawila has already received 379,000 people escaping violence in famine-hit Zamzam Camp and Al Fasher.

Meanwhile, the International Organization for Migration recently reported that over 46,000 people were displaced from different areas in West Kordofan in May alone due to clashes between warring parties.

Taher said those fleeing El Fasher to Tawila walk long distances with barely enough clothes and little water, and sleep on the streets until they arrive at the area they want to settle in. The new wave of displacement has brought diseases, including measles, which began spreading in parts of Zalingi in Central Darfur in March and April as camps received people fleeing Kordofan.

Aid workers also warned about ongoing fighting in Darfur. Vu said there have been “uninterrupted campaigns of destruction” against civilians in North Darfur.
“In Darfur there’s been explicit targeting of civilians. There’s been explicit execution,” she said.

Shelling killed five children Wednesday in El Fasher in North Darfur, according to UN spokesperson Stephanie Tremblay. Meanwhile, between July 14 and 15, heavy rains and flooding displaced over 400 people and destroyed dozens of homes in Dar As Salam, North Darfur.

With a looming rainy season, a cholera outbreak and food insecurity, the situation in Darfur is “getting worse every day and that’s what war is,” said Taher.