TEL AVIV, 29 Nov. - (ANA) - Former Mossad director Yossi Cohen has disclosed new details about Israel's infiltration of Hezbollah and the 2008 assassination of the group's senior military commander Imad Mughniyeh, outlining the account in his new book 'The Sword of Freedom: Israel, Mossad, and the Secret War'.

 

In the book, Cohen offers an expanded narrative of how Israeli intelligence penetrated Hezbollah in the early 1990s, describing that period as a "golden gateway" for planting the agency's first human networks inside the organisation.

 

He says the process began when, early in his career, he made contact with a Lebanese man he refers to by the alias "Abdullah".

 

Cohen portrays him as a former fighter and long-time member of Hezbollah who had enjoyed the trust of senior figures and had deep access to the group’s internal circles.

 

Cohen says he adopted the cover of a Latin American businessman seeking investment opportunities in the Middle East, and that an Argentine identity allowed him to build a personal and professional relationship with Abdullah away from the attention of security services.

 

According to the account, Abdullah at the time was looking for economic opportunities abroad, which created the opening for cooperation.

 

After several meetings, Cohen writes, he told Abdullah that a company was offering payment for "research work" on Hezbollah.

 

Abdullah initially refused to take on anything targeting the group, but eventually agreed, providing what Cohen describes as some of the most accurate intelligence Mossad had ever received from inside Hezbollah.

 

Cohen says Abdullah's first task was to provide information on the fate of two Israeli soldiers captured by Hezbollah in 1986, Rahamim Alsheikh and Yossi Fink.

 

German security adviser Bernd Schmidbauer was mediating a possible prisoner swap at the time. According to Cohen, Abdullah confirmed that the two soldiers had died of their wounds, a development that shifted the direction of negotiations.

 

The former Mossad chief writes that Abdullah's greatest value emerged later when he began supplying information on the movements of Imad Mughniyeh.

 

Cohen claims the agent provided a daily map of Mughniyeh's whereabouts, his security circles, his travel patterns in Lebanon and Syria, and details on those around him.

 

The book notes that the US State Department had offered a sizeable reward for information leading to Mughniyeh's capture, and that Israel considered him one of the most dangerous strategists within Hezbollah.

 

Cohen says the 2008 assassination in Damascus was carried out according to a plan "designed by Mossad and executed by joint US-Israeli teams", though he avoids operational specifics.

 

He reiterates that Abdullah played a central role in gathering the intelligence that enabled Israel to track Mughniyeh over the years.

 

The account is placed within a broader discussion of Mossad strategy against Hezbollah and Iran. Cohen says introducing compromised equipment and technologies into Hezbollah's environment from the 1990s onwards, and later into Iran, represented a major shift in Israeli intelligence capabilities.

 

He adds that Mossad spent decades trying to dismantle Hezbollah's centres of power through human networks and cyber operations.

 

Cohen argues that Israeli infiltration of Hezbollah helped delay a wider conflict and prevented a series of attacks the group had been planning.

 

He concludes that Hezbollah remains "the largest challenge on Israel's northern border" and that countering its influence is central to Israel's ongoing intelligence war with Iran.   - (ANA) -

 

AB/ANA/29 November 2025 - - -