Israeli spy agency Mossad acted within hours, used Assad's officers to locate Eli Cohen's documents

A day after Israel announced it retrieved over 2,500 documents and personal items belonging to legendary Israeli spy Eli Cohen from Syria, riveting details have emerged about how the spy agency Mossad acted within hours of Bashar al-Assad's regime collapse. 

Mossad officials used officers from the Assad regime to locate the documents, and everything happened within hours of Assad fleeing the country. "Israel had obtained the location of Cohen’s documents from Assad regime officers," a Syrian government official told Turkish newspaper Türkiye Today, adding that the new Syrian government has nothing to do with this case, as the operation took place before it gained control of the country,'' he added.

The source added explained why Israel waited till Sunday to make the announcement. "I think the delay in announcing the Cohen documents is because they were still searching for his remains," he said, adding that Israel's bombing of the Syrian army's depots in the first hours of the regime's collapse also coincided with this. 

"We all witnessed how Israel bombed most of the army’s depots in the first hours of the regime’s collapse—some had provided the locations of weapons and storage sites," he told Türkiye Today. 

The unnamed source added that the delay in announcing the details of the operation could also be related to ensuring the safety of the Israeli spies in Syria.

Israel has said that it was still searching for the remains of Cohen. Mossad Director David Barnea said it was "another step toward locating our man in Damascus’ burial place."

Israel had recovered documents, photographs, and personal effects belonging to Eli Cohen. Over 2500 items, including Cohen’s handwritten will, interrogation files, letters to family, notebooks, forged passports, and photos with Syrian officials, were brought back to his widow, Nadia Cohen.

Cohen, a Mossad spy, operated in Syria between 1961 and 1965 under the alias Kamel Amin Thaabet. He managed to infiltrate Syria's military and political elite and assisted in Israel's smuggling of Egyptian Jews to Israel and potentially taking part in the Lavon Affair, a failed Israeli covert operation. He obtained intelligence that became instrumental in Israel's stunning success in the 1967 Six-Day War, particularly in the capture of the Golan Heights. He was tried and executed by the Syrian government for espionage on May 18, 1965. 

Middle East