MI6, Mossad and CIA smuggle Iranian nuclear scientist to UK on rubber dinghy
As the Islamic Republic celebrates 40 years with chants of 'death to Israel, death to America', a secret operation was underway to help an expert escape
As thousands of Iranians took the streets to chant “death to Israel” this week, details emerged of a daring effort by British, Israeli and American spies to smuggle an Iranian nuclear scientist out.
Celebrating 40 years since the country’s Islamic revolution, crowds in Tehran shouted “death to Israel, death to the USA,” in a now-familiar refrain, but if reports are to be believed, an unnamed 47-year nuclear technician was not among them.
Instead, he was in the United States, having been extracted late last year in a joint effort between MI6, Mossad and the CIA, which took the scientist on a fraught 3,000-mile rescue mission through Turkey and finally via an inflatable boat to the UK.
In details first reported by the Mail on Sunday, Israeli Mossad agents helped the technician out of Iran to Turkey, from where he joined a flurry of other Iranians making their way across Europe to Calais.
“It was determined infiltrating him into a group of fellow migrants preparing to cross the Channel by boat offered one solution,” a British secret service official reportedly told the paper, adding that the technician has extensive knowledge of Iran’s nuclear programme, which Western powers worry could be used to build an atomic bomb.
The Trump administration withdrew from the Iran nuclear deal last year, but the UK has remained a signatory, meaning that British spies – who wanted to interview the scientist – found themselves in a politically sensitive position.
“Once in France, the question of how to get him into Britain remained,” the source is quoted as saying. “We couldn’t simply fly him in. Though unusual, it was determined infiltrating him into a group of fellow migrants preparing to cross the Channel by boat offered one solution.”
Another intelligence sources reportedly told the Sunday Express that Iran’s Revolutionary Guard swiftly dispatched a special team to tract the scientist once they realised that he was missing in October, but they were unable to track him, and instead he arrived in a dinghy on the Kent coast on New Year’s Eve.
Unconfirmed reports suggest the 47-year old, who has now been given safe haven in the US, had a hand in the 2012 assassination of Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan, the deputy head of Iran’s uranium enrichment facility at Natanz, who died when a car bomb exploded as he travelled to work.
Thank you for helping to make Jewish News the leading source of news and opinion for the UK Jewish community. Today we're asking for your invaluable help to continue putting our community first in everything we do.
For as little as £5 a month you can help sustain the vital work we do in celebrating and standing up for Jewish life in Britain.
Jewish News holds our community together and keeps us connected. Like a synagogue, it’s where people turn to feel part of something bigger. It also proudly shows the rest of Britain the vibrancy and rich culture of modern Jewish life.
You can make a quick and easy one-off or monthly contribution of £5, £10, £20 or any other sum you’re comfortable with.
100% of your donation will help us continue celebrating our community, in all its dynamic diversity...
Engaging
Being a community platform means so much more than producing a newspaper and website. One of our proudest roles is media partnering with our invaluable charities to amplify the outstanding work they do to help us all.
Celebrating
There’s no shortage of oys in the world but Jewish News takes every opportunity to celebrate the joys too, through projects like Night of Heroes, 40 Under 40 and other compelling countdowns that make the community kvell with pride.
Pioneering
In the first collaboration between media outlets from different faiths, Jewish News worked with British Muslim TV and Church Times to produce a list of young activists leading the way on interfaith understanding.
Campaigning
Royal Mail issued a stamp honouring Holocaust hero Sir Nicholas Winton after a Jewish News campaign attracted more than 100,000 backers. Jewish Newsalso produces special editions of the paper highlighting pressing issues including mental health and Holocaust remembrance.
Easy access
In an age when news is readily accessible, Jewish News provides high-quality content free online and offline, removing any financial barriers to connecting people.
Voice of our community to wider society
The Jewish News team regularly appears on TV, radio and on the pages of the national press to comment on stories about the Jewish community. Easy access to the paper on the streets of London also means Jewish News provides an invaluable window into the community for the country at large.
We hope you agree all this is worth preserving.
