When journalist and critic of the Saudi government Jamal Khashoggi went to collect documents for his planned wedding at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in October 2018, he was effectively signing his own death certificate sentence. Already in the consulate itself, Khashoggi was killed by a special unit of the Saudi secret services. His doppelgänger subsequently puts on the victim's clothes and leaves the building – but the distraction plan is poorly organized - the fake Khashog” is wearing different shoes.
A few months later, Saudi Arabia was forced to admit that it was connected to the murder, ARD recalls. Riyadh then called it “arbitrary” secret service operation. The investigation is led by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman himself, although he is believed to have ordered the murder. Ultimately, five death sentences were handed down.
“Licensed to Kill"
Exploded pagers in Lebanon have now brought the discussion about the role of the secret services back on the agenda. However, such operations have long been a part of the daily life of those secret services that have a “license to kill” in their countries.
The Israeli foreign intelligence service Mossad has been among them for decades, writes ARD. Kidnappings, murders and technical sabotages are all done but rarely commented on publicly. There have been other attacks in the past where specially prepared mobile phones exploded.
France and Great Britain also use similar opportunities, but do so relatively rarely. In France, however, such an operation by the secret services caused a huge scandal – it was the bombing of the “Greenpeace” in New Zealand in 1985, when one of the crew members also died.
The USA also often uses similar tactics, writes ARD. They attack from the air with drones - for example, against leaders of terrorist organizations or carry out special actions, as in the killing of the leader of al-Qaeda Osama bin Laden in Abbottabad, Pakistan, in May 2011.
Russian operations - including in Germany
The portfolio of Russian covert operations is even larger and includes the use of banned nerve agents to poison opponents of the regime, as well as blowing up airplanes – like that unexplained accident in which the mercenary leader from “Wagner” died in August 2023. Yevgeny Prigozhin – after he had taken action against the Russian military leadership. Regardless of the alleged reconciliation with President Putin, Prigozhin died together with some of his entourage in a plane crash.
Remarkable from a German point of view was the contract killing of a Georgian of Chechen origin in Berlin in 2019: it was a targeted operation by the Russian secret services to kill an opponent of the regime – for "wet order", i.e. an operation in which blood is shed. Not only the cold-blooded murder in broad daylight in the center of the long list of poisoned critics of the Berlin Kremlin, carried out by the Russian agent Vadim Krasikov, made this act special, writes ARD. The fact that Russia asked to get back the very convicted murderer who was exchanged for political prisoners from Russian prisons was telling enough.
For the German services, all such operations are strictly prohibited. That is why, in the world of secret services, Germans are known as “vegetarians”.