Whether it's CIA, Mossad, R&AW, KGB, MI6 or ISI - the tussle between world's premier spy agencies over top kept secrets has its own charm, far more intriguing then the actual war.
Spies working for these agencies always remain at war so clandestine that even their neighbours and sometimes their own family members don't know anything about. Ian Fleming cashed on this superhuman business and filled his coffers with success of James Bond series. ?
Mossad-Israel's premier agency is among the best in the business and has always bailed out its tiny country against the combined strengths of Arabs in last three wars even before actual war started. It's success rate is better than any other Arab agency because it kept dual agents who were Arabs themselves on their payrolls.
One such story is a Ashraf Marwan, Egyptian spy who worked for Israel and handed over many top secrets including the war plans which helped Israel to beat Arabs despite being numerically and resourcefully dwarf to their foes.
The joint forces of Egypt and Syria planned to launch a third and decisive assault on Israel-a tiny Jew state in the heart of the Arab world who had defeated the Arabs in previous two war fought in 1948 and 1965.
AP
Israeli author Uri Bar-Joseph in his book, 'The Angel' provides details on one of the most intriguing spy cases in the history of the Arab-Israeli conflict which resulted in yet another Arab defeat at the hand of Israel.
Marwan, code named "Angel", only alerted the Mossad 24 hours before the Arab armies' surprise attack began, his previous information on the Egyptian military's war planning and leadership deliberations made Egypt "transparent" to Israel at the time of war.
Though he informed Israel's Mossad just 24 hours before the attack and it was evident that at such a short notice it was hard for Israel to device a strategy. But Israel was swift enough to mobilize their forces and managed to thwart attack and also attacked key military of Egypt and Syria even before they actually employed those resources for attack.?
Marwan's heads up prevented Arabs from being third time lucky.
Some call him traitor. Indeed he was one. But Ashraf Marwan was an unlikely spy. He was a young man in his 20s, married to then Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser's daughter, and worked at the president's office.?
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On the surface, he had no apparent reason to sell his country's secrets to its sworn enemy, Israel. But beneath the rosy picture lied the real reason. According to the book, Marwan's father-in-law, President Gamal Abdel Nasser didn't like his son-in-law at all and never trusted him.
This is was one of the reasons why he sold top secrets his country to its arch enemy. Another reason was of course money.
According to the book, the Angel, Israel's Mossad used to pay him ?$50,000-$100,000 every time he supplied his information, once or twice a month, in addition to bonuses and gifts. Back then in 1970s, this amount was big and probably that's why he was able live his retired in London where ?he was found dead in 2007.
Marwan started his career as an Israeli spy in 1970 when he called the Israeli embassy in London offering his services to sell Egypt's top secrets.?
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The book says that initially Mossad was skeptical about him but once the information given by him proved handy and reliable, it began to trust ?him. He worked as an Israeli spy for more than 30 years until 1998 and till then, Egypt never came to know about his treachery and disservice ?he had been doing to his nation.
Bar-Joseph further tells in his book that ?Marwan found out about the attack purely by chance - deducing it from information he gleaned while abroad in London. Only then did Marwan make frantic calls to the Mossad demanding to meet its chief personally, as he had done before, to warn him about the upcoming war.
Reuters
After the Yom-Kippur war Israel rewarded Marwan with $100,000-cash bonus in appreciation for the advance warning of the impending strike which ultimately saved many Israeli lives, but resulted in the death to many of his own countrymen.