Report: Mossad Planted Agent Near Fakhrizadeh 27 Years Ago

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu points at Fakhrizadeh's role in Iran's arms program during presentation in April 2018. AFP
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu points at Fakhrizadeh's role in Iran's arms program during presentation in April 2018. AFP
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Report: Mossad Planted Agent Near Fakhrizadeh 27 Years Ago

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu points at Fakhrizadeh's role in Iran's arms program during presentation in April 2018. AFP
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu points at Fakhrizadeh's role in Iran's arms program during presentation in April 2018. AFP

Security sources in Tel Aviv revealed Friday that 27 years ago, the Mossad managed to plant one of its agents near Iranian nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh and was able to record his voice while talking about the military nuclear project.

The source said the agent was able to get near Fakhrizadeh, who was assassinated in Tehran last Friday, in 1993.

According to a report by expert on security affairs Ronen Bergman published in Yedioth Ahronoth on Friday, plans to launch attacks against nuclear facilities in Iran had been developed during the term of former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert in 2008, when Ehud Barak was Minister of Security.

Bergman said that at the time that Mossad obtained a recording with the voice of Fakhrizadeh, in which he talks about a secret military nuclear program. Bergman wrote that Olmert and Barak briefed former US President George W. Bush on Israeli plans to attack Iran in April 2008, when he visited Israel to participate in the celebrations of the sixtieth anniversary of its founding.

Bush had received a report on these plans from the US intelligence, and had discussed them with his national security adviser Steve Hadley.

According to the report, during a festive dinner, Bush, Olmert, Hadley and Barak entered a side room, and Barak asked to provide his army with vertical landing combat aircraft, as well as smart bombs.
“Bush pointed his finger at me, and said, 'This guy is frightening me,” Bergman quoted Barak as saying.

The US President then said: “I want you to know our official position. The United States strongly opposes the possibility that Israel will take action against the infrastructure of the Iranian nuclear program.”

Olmert tried to persuade further the US President by making him listen to a recording of Fakhrizadeh’s voice speaking of Iran's secret military nuclear program.

Bergman adds that Olmert, who realized that Bush would not provide Israel with the weapons it requested, decided to make another request, which is full intelligence cooperation between Israel and the United States.

“Bush agreed,” Bergman wrote, also quoting officials in the Israeli intelligence services as saying, "This is a structural moment: The United States and Israel have never cooperated on any intelligence issue, just as they did on the Iranian nuclear issue."

Mossad prepared a report on Fakhrizadeh in 1993. At the time, an officer in the Mossad, known as "Calan", managed to recruit an agent, who transferred to Israel information on the Iranian scientist. Bergman revealed that Calan is practically the current head of the Mossad, Yossi Cohen.

The Mossad had compiled a list of Iranian nuclear scientists, headed by Fakhrizadeh, and Olmert had approved his assassination.

However, Bergman wrote that Israel asked for the assassination to be postponed because the Iranians discovered that the Israelis were about to carry it out.

He said the issue of Fakhrizadeh’s assassination was raised again only in 2015, when the Mossad warned that the administration of US President Barack Obama was conducting negotiations with Iran on a nuclear deal.



US Aid Cuts Push Bangladesh's Health Sector to the Edge

Bangladesh slashed tuberculosis deaths from more than 81,000 a year in 2010 to 44,000 in 2023, according to the World Health Organization. Salahuddin Ahmed / AFP
Bangladesh slashed tuberculosis deaths from more than 81,000 a year in 2010 to 44,000 in 2023, according to the World Health Organization. Salahuddin Ahmed / AFP
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US Aid Cuts Push Bangladesh's Health Sector to the Edge

Bangladesh slashed tuberculosis deaths from more than 81,000 a year in 2010 to 44,000 in 2023, according to the World Health Organization. Salahuddin Ahmed / AFP
Bangladesh slashed tuberculosis deaths from more than 81,000 a year in 2010 to 44,000 in 2023, according to the World Health Organization. Salahuddin Ahmed / AFP

Bangladesh hoped to celebrate progress towards eradicating tuberculosis this year, having already slashed the numbers dying from the preventable and curable disease by tens of thousands each year.

Instead, it is reeling from a $48 million snap aid cut by US President Donald Trump's government, which health workers say could rapidly unravel years of hard work and cause huge numbers of preventable deaths, AFP said.

"Doctors told me I was infected with a serious kind of tuberculosis," laborer Mohammed Parvej, 35, told AFP from his hospital bed after he received life-saving treatment from medics funded by the US aid who identified his persistent hacking cough.

But full treatment for his multidrug-resistant tuberculosis requires more than a year of hospital care and a laborious treatment protocol -- and that faces a deeply uncertain future.

"Bangladesh is among the seven most TB-prevalent countries globally, and we aim to eradicate it by 2035," said Ayesha Akhter, deputy director of the formerly US-funded specialized TB Hospital treating Parvej in the capital Dhaka.

Bangladesh had made significant progress against the infectious bacteria, spread by spitting and sneezing, leaving people exhausted and sometimes coughing blood.

TB deaths dropped from more than 81,000 a year in 2010, down to 44,000 in 2023, according to the World Health Organization, in the country of some 170 million people.

Akhter said the South Asian nation had "been implementing a robust program", supported by the US Agency for International Development (USAID).

"Then, one fine morning, USAID pulled out their assistance," she said.

Starving children

More than 80 percent of humanitarian programs funded by USAID worldwide have been scrapped.

Tariful Islam Khan said the International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research Bangladesh (ICDDR,B) had, with US funding, carried out mass screening "improving TB case detection, particularly among children" from 2020 to 2024.

"Thanks to the support of the American people... the project has screened 52 million individuals and diagnosed over 148,000 TB cases, including 18,000 children," he said.

Funding cuts threatened to stall the work.

"This work is critical not only for the health of millions of Bangladeshis, but also for global TB control efforts," he said.

Growing rates of infectious diseases in one nation have a knock-on impact in the region.

Cuts hit further than TB alone.

"USAID was everywhere in the health sector," said Nurjahan Begum, health adviser to the interim government -- which is facing a host of challenges after a mass uprising toppled the former regime last year.

US aid was key to funding vaccines combatting a host of other diseases, protecting 2.3 million children against diphtheria, measles, polio and tetanus.

"I am particularly worried about the immunization program," Begum said.

"If there is a disruption, the success we have achieved in immunization will be jeapordised."

Bangladeshi scientists have also developed a special feeding formula for starving children. That too has been stalled.

"We had just launched the program," Begum said. "Many such initiatives have now halted".

Pivot to China

US State Department official Audrey M. Happ said that Washington was "committed" to ensuring aid was "aligned with the interests of the United States, and that resources are used as effectively and efficiently as possible".

Bangladesh, whose economy and key garment industry are eyeing fearfully the end of the 90-day suspension of Trump's punishing 37 percent tariffs, is looking for other supporters.

Some Arab nations had expressed interest in helping fill the gap in Muslim-majority Bangladesh.

China, as well as Türkiye, may also step into Washington's shoes, Begum said.

Jobs are gone too, with Dhaka's Daily Star newspaper estimating that between 30,000 and 40,000 people were laid off after the United States halted funding.

Zinat Ara Afroze, fired along with 54 colleagues from Save the Children, said she worried for those she had dedicated her career to helping.

"I have seen how these projects have worked improving the life and livelihoods of underprivileged communities," she said, citing programs ranging from food to health, environmental protection to democracy.

"A huge number of this population will be in immediate crisis."

Babies dying

Those with the least have been hit the hardest.

Less dollars for aid means more sick and dead among the Rohingya refugees who fled civil war in their home in neighboring Myanmar into Bangladesh since 2017.

Much of the US aid was delivered through the UN's WHO and UNICEF children's agency.

WHO official Salma Sultana said aid cuts ramped up risks of "uncontrolled outbreaks" of diseases including cholera in the squalid refugee camps.

Faria Selim, from UNICEF, said reduced health services would impact the youngest Rohingya the hardest, especially some 160,000 children under five.

Masaki Watabe, who runs the UN Population Fund (UNFPA) in Bangladesh working to improve reproductive and maternal health, said it was "trying its best to continue".

Closed clinics and no pay for midwives meant the risk of babies and mothers dying had shot up.

"Reduced donor funding has led to... increasing the risk of preventable maternal and newborn deaths," he said.