Operation Wrath of God The Secret History of European Intelligence and Mossad's Assassination Campaign
Book contents
- Operation Wrath of God
- Operation Wrath of God
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Timeline of Main Events
- Acronyms
- Introduction: Intelligence that Kills
- Part I Preparing for God’s Wrath
- Part II Europe’s Covert War against the Palestinian Armed Struggle
- 3 A Firing Squad in Rome and Four Black September Attacks
- 4 A Bomb in Paris and Two Attacks in Bangkok and Rome
- 5 Assassinations in Nicosia and Madrid, Attacks in Jordan and Sudan
- 6 A ‘Battle of the Spooks’ in Paris, Beirut, Nicosia, and Rome
- 7 A Car Bomb in Paris, a Firing Squad in DC, a Thwarted Attack near Vienna
- Part III Blunder and Cooperate
- Acknowledgements
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
3 - A Firing Squad in Rome and Four Black September Attacks
from Part II - Europe’s Covert War against the Palestinian Armed Struggle
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 12 August 2025
Book contents
- Operation Wrath of God
- Operation Wrath of God
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Timeline of Main Events
- Acronyms
- Introduction: Intelligence that Kills
- Part I Preparing for God’s Wrath
- Part II Europe’s Covert War against the Palestinian Armed Struggle
- 3 A Firing Squad in Rome and Four Black September Attacks
- 4 A Bomb in Paris and Two Attacks in Bangkok and Rome
- 5 Assassinations in Nicosia and Madrid, Attacks in Jordan and Sudan
- 6 A ‘Battle of the Spooks’ in Paris, Beirut, Nicosia, and Rome
- 7 A Car Bomb in Paris, a Firing Squad in DC, a Thwarted Attack near Vienna
- Part III Blunder and Cooperate
- Acknowledgements
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
Chapter 3 starts with Operation Wrath of God’s first targeted assassination: the shooting of Wael Zwaiter in Rome on 16 October 1972. After the killing, Italian intelligence asked for help from its Club de Berne partners to find Zwaiter’s assassins. The absurdity of this, of course, is that one of the partners who was supposed to help identify the murderer, was the murderer. This chapter analyses intelligence cooperation around four attempted or perpetrated Black September terrorist attacks, some of which will be revealed for the first time in this book. The chapter further highlights that several cables also served a second purpose for intelligence agencies. For example, agencies wanted to appear as powerful, relevant, well networked, and knowledgeable as possible about Palestinian conspiratorial activities as a way to cultivate their image in the eyes of their partners. The chapter outlines a few cases of such covert diplomacy where, through intelligence-sharing, agencies tried to change how they and their governments were perceived by other governments.
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- Operation Wrath of GodThe Secret History of European Intelligence and Mossad's Assassination Campaign, pp. 53 - 84Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2025
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