Black Ops (2012–…): Season 2, Episode 1 - Episode #1.1 - full transcript
Israeli special forces units, including the famous Sayeret Matkal, join together in a critical operation to prevent Syria from obtaining the necessary components for developing a nuclear weapon from a notorious rogue state.
A hostile country is trying
to build a nuclear bomb.
Behind the plot is a mastermind focused
on the destruction of Israel.
General Mohammad Simon hated Israelis,
hated the State of Israel.
It will take three elite black ops
units to deal with this menace.
Special forces operating deep within
enemy territory to confirm the threat.
If there was a mistake made,
that could have been war.
And elite flying unit to take it out.
They destroyed their target,
they exited, they lost nothing.
And finally an assassination unit to
deal with the man behind the threat.
Three of them came as scuba divers to his
beach house shot him and then disappeared.
This is the top-secret story,
of this railing strike against Syria.
North Korea 2004.
Deep inside this secretive
communist state a...
train travels through
a remote northern town.
Then suddenly...
In April of 2004,
there was a massive...
train explosion in
northern North Korea.
The explosion is so enormous it
registers a magnitude 3.6.
equivalent to a small earthquake.
It killed several hundred people,
destroyed a town of 10,000 people.
at 2,000 people wounded.
According to the North Korean government,
the train was carrying liquefied petroleum.
But before anyone can
discover anything more,
The regime forbids further
reporting on the incident.
A week later they banned all use
of cell phones in North Korea.
for five years.
Just what is going on in
the rogue nuclear state.
Five thousand miles away, one nation is
following the incident with great interest.
Meir Dagan is Israel's top spot.
The chief of the Israeli
intelligence agency Mossad.
Meir Dagan was a legendary figure
in the Israeli security establishment.
He had a reputation
for being very brutal.
And what he was
prepared to do in...
pursuit of israel's
national security interest.
North Korea behaving
secretly is nothing new.
But what intrigues Dagan on our intelligenc
reports that a Syrian aircraft...
has now landed in North Korea.
Contact between North Korea
and the Arab world is unusual,
and highly concerning to Israel.
And that was when these really
started to take a closer interest,
in what was going on.
The plane is supposed
to be delivering aid.
But instead it seems it is being loaded
with the bodies of victims of the crash.
And the bodies are being
transported in lead-lined coffins,
and have carried by men
wearing chemical weapon suits.
This is extremely strange.
Meir Dagan is informed that the bodies
in the lead coffins are not North Koreans.
but Syrian scientists.
There were 12 Syrian
scientists from something...
called a Syrian Scientific
Research Center.
Their covert military research
and acquisition center.
It raises a terrifying
possibility to Dagan.
Could North Korea be helping
Syria to build a nuclear weapon.
Dagan has to find out more.
It becomes a top priority for Mossad.
And will eventually lead to one of the
most extraordinary black ops of all time.
Two years later.
A woman walks into a
London hotel bar.
Her arrival is noticed by a man
who's been drinking alone.
But this is no innocent meeting.
The man is a high-ranking Syrian nuclear
official travelling to London alone.
He comes to London
resigning in a posh hotel.
He has a meeting tomorrow
morning in... in London.
But he has the night of
the evening to spend.
He goes to the bar of the hotel.
And is extremely happy, that in the bar
He meets a woman with a wonderful character.
But what the Sirian doesn't know,
is that he is under surveillance.
Mossad had been alerted
to the Syrians visited.
When he checked into a
hotel under a false name.
The Israelis dispatched
teams of people to monitor.
Unaware he is being watched,
the Syrian continues to
flirt with the woman.
And she's also pressed by him.
There's another drink,
and another drink,
and he's confident that he has a
wonderful way of spending the night.
But he is also unaware that
the woman is not as she seems.
He doesn't know that this woman
is a part of the Mossad crew.
and she was there to keep him busy.
while her team is breaking
into his hotel room.
the Mossad agents are
members of the nefud unit.
experts in covert bugging.
The team specialized in breaking
into hotel rooms.
It takes just seconds for the Nefud team
to override the hotel room security.
Once inside they realize
they have hit the jackpot.
The Syrian official has left his
laptop completely unguarded.
Immediately they go to work.
The Mossad was able to break
in get its hands on the...
laptop computer and copy his
contents off the hard drive.
The agents transfer the entire
contents of a computer...
hard drive to Masada HQ
in Aviv instantaneously.
They took all the information
from the computer.
And then they put devices
on the computer to...
monitor any future activity
from that computer.
As they leave the room the female Mossad
agent abandons the unsuspecting Syrian.
Within 15 minutes Dagan and his analysts
are looking at the files in Tel Aviv.
What they found on his computer
was really rather extraordinary.
On one folder
they found JPEG's.
That look very odd.
Appearing on the screens in
front of Dangan are hundreds...
of photos documenting the construction
of a large industrial facility.
It was this is an unknown facility,
a huge one.
The building they saw was
quite large a hundred and...
thirty feet by a hundred and
thirty feet by seventy feet tall.
Initially the building
resembles a tree house on...
stilts with pipes leading
to a pumping station.
Later photos show modifications.
And eventually the entire complex
is hidden beneath a huge roof.
Initially Dagan is unsure of
what the facility might be.
But then it begins to dawn on him
what the images are showing.
He sees large industrial
equipment inside the facility.
It is an exact replica of something
Dagan has seen before.
In intelligence images from North Korea.
They showed that it was almost
an exact replica of the...
Jung Byung nuclear weapons
facility in North Korea.
It was exactly the same reactor.
The two were perfectly matched.
Dagan has no doubt as to
what they have uncovered.
The evidence was overwhelming.
North Korea was building
a nuclear reactor in Syria.
The potential for a nuclear
weapons program in Syria,
is a direct threat to
Israel's national security.
And one that would have to
be neutralized immediately.
2006. Analysts for the Israeli
intelligence agency Mossad
have uncovered information
indicating that Syria,
with the help of North
Korea is in the process...
of developing a nuclear
weapons program.
Further evidence from the
confiscated laptop of a...
Syrian nuclear official
confirms their greatest fear.
There were blueprints of
the nuclear power plant.
There were pictures of the
nuclear power plant.
The Israelis even had photographs of Syrians
and North Korean nuclear experts together.
It is Israel's nightmare scenario.
A hostile nuclear power on
its own doorstep.
Whoever is building this
has only one purpose,
to build to assemble a nuclear bomb.
Dagan is now certain there is a
nuclear weapons program in Syria.
But he has no idea where it is.
Intent on finding out, he orders Israeli
satellites to monitor potential sites.
Eventually they close in on a remote
area of Syria called Al Khobar.
Where some highly unusual
communications have been monitored.
They intercepted a
very unusual spike of...
telephone communications
from this location,
at Al Khobar which is in
the middle of nowhere
in the desert to Pyongyang,
North Korea.
It was very far from the capital Damascus.
It was in a remote part of...
northeastern Syria but not far from the
Euphrates River in the border with Iraq.
Israeli satellites now pinpoint a
large building at bunker Al Khobar.
When they compared them
with the stolen images...
from the Syrian laptop
it is a perfect match.
Al Khobar has to be the site of
Syria's nuclear weapons program.
Armed with the intel
on the syrian facility,
Dagan goes to see the israeli
prime minister a Ehud Olmert.
Mein Dagan came to see
Prime Minister Olmert,
and told him this dramatic news.
That Syria is an advanced stage of
developing nuclear weapon.
The Israeli prime minister immediately
recognizes the seriousness of the threat.
Olmert said one thing right at the start,
and that was the...
Syrian nuclear weapons program is
simply intolerable for Israel.
It cannot be permitted, this is an
existential threat to Israel.
This reactor has to go away.
The only way to be rid
of the nuclear weapons...
program is to blow up the reactor.
But first he has a series of
questions to Dagan.
Most importantly,
how far advanced is the reactor?
If it is already operational then a
bombing could cause a catastrophe.
If the reactor is already active,
then full destruction of
the reactor might cause...
an enormous environmental
pollution poisoning.
But Dagan doesn't know yet if
the reactor is fully operational.
The JPG's we're 15 months old.
So this facility must be more advanced.
They desperately need to find out
how advanced the construction is.
That means doing
something extremely risky.
Sending someone in to take a look.
The next step would have to be
risking the lives of operatives.
Olmert has only one group
of men capable of operating...
undetected hundreds of miles
within enemy territory.
So he calls upon israel's
elite black ops unit.
In English they are
known as "The Unit.
In Hebrew, they are the Sayeret Matkal.
Sayeret Metkal is the highest elite
commando unit of the israeli army.
Sayeret Matkal in Israel is nothing
short of legendary or mythical.
It's essentially the top unit in the army.
Their job is to go on
special operations that are...
considered beyond the scope
of your regular troops.
It's a unit model after the British SAS.
Seal teams are similar
to her Delta Force.
Is similar to her.
They're some of the most highly
trained units in the world.
The Sayeret Matkal has a
one particular special team.
Operating covertly
behind enemy lines.
The expert of Sayeret Matkal is to...
infiltrate enemy countries in silent...
intelligence gathering operations.
They've gone into Jordan,
they've gone in a Lebanon.
They've done missions in and
out of these countries undetected.
While never officially
confirmed it is believed...
that on an overcast summer night.
The selected commandos prepare
to set out on their mission.
They have deep behind
enemy lines to confirm the...
existence of the Syrian
nuclear weapons program.
The Israelis have been very secretive
about how they got there.
But certainly they are very adept at
using low-flying almost silent helicopters.
It is understood they boarded two
Sikorsky CH-53 sea stallion helicopters.
To travel at low altitude and
scross the border into Syria.
The commandos who dropped to
safe distance from the facility.
Israelis were able to get on
the ground within about...
a mile of this mystery building
in northeastern Syria.
As the commandos set off
they know that no matter
what the Syrians must not be
alerted to their presence.
Once the helicopters are gone
if the Syrians discover them,
there is no chance of being rescued.
But that was an extremely
risky Intel gathering mission.
If there is a mistake made
and they are compromised,
that could have been war.
The Sayeret Metkal commandos come
within feet of the alcove our facility.
And immediately start
intelligence gathering.
The unit it'd the Intel
collection on the ground.
raid at the site.
That was extremely dangerous.
Collecting soil and water samples
from around the facility...
is the most important
element of the mission.
It is the only way Israel can find out
for sure if the reactor is operational.
If the reactor is active,
then a very small portion not lethal,
but very very small
portion of radioactive...
substance would be
found in the water.
Once the Intel collection is complete,
the commandos hide their
tracks and prepare to depart.
But then...
They were almost caught.
They left the scene in
the very last minute.
The commandos remain undetected.
And with the mission complete,
they return to Israel with the
soil and water samples.
The results of those samples
will soon set into motion...
a series of even more dangerous
covert missions into Syria.
Israel's elite black ops unit,
the Sayeret Metkal,
have successfully retrieved soil and water
samples from behind enemy lines in Syria.
In a government
laboratory in Tel Aviv,
the samples are now tested for
nuclear contamination.
The results of the exhaustive tests
are delivered to Olmert and Dagan.
The soil and water samples do contain
traces of nuclear contamination.
But crucially not at levels that indicate
the reactor is fully operational.
The samples prove that
the reactor is still inactive.
This is critical news.
It means Olmertt can
now give the order.
To take it out.
Olmert calls a meeting of Israel's
top military and intelligence chiefs.
They are all in agreement
on one thing.
However this reactor got started and
whenever it got started the end is clear.
The reactor is intolerable.
We're not going to allow it,
and it's going to go away.
Olmert's only option is
to strike from the air.
Air power is an advantage.
it can come like a light,
it's very speedy,
It's can do the job with a lot ordnance.
and disengage before the enemy
understand what happened.
the Prime Minister gives
the order to prepare...
for an aerial assault
on the Syrian reactor.
it will be known as
Operation Orchard.
And for it to succeed Olmert alerts
another of Israel special forces units.
squadron 69 known as the Patishim.
The hammer squadron.
There is no squadron
better suited for a...
mission to destroy an
enemy nuclear program.
That's because they
have done a quick.
25 years earlier,
8 hammer squadron pilots...
flew into Iraq,
to bomb a nuclear...
facility being built
by Saddam Hussein.
I was a fighter pilot, a major.
Deputy squadron commander.
Who propelled himself...
to destroy the nuclear reactor.
Evading Iraq air defenses,
they take out...
the facility in a clinical strike.
the OL operation from takeoff to the
attack was one hour 43
minutes and 30 seconds.
But a quarter century later an...
attack on Syria is a
much harder prospect.
For decades Syria has been...
developing one of the most formidable
anti-aircraft defense
systems in the world.
They have installed the Russian
built tor m1 air defense system.
And have a multiple
surface-to-air missiles ready
to launch against any air attack.
Nothing is easy when it
comes to attacking a...
country that has anti-aircraft systems.
And so the Israelis worked hard
on their countermeasures.
The hammer squadron has aircrafts...
specifically designed to
evade such air defenses.
The US-made F-15 and F-16
fighters bombers.
The F-16 is well
equiped to...
cope with a lock-on of alpha
missile battery and we can break the
lock we can use some ECM flares against
guided missiles and some electronic
warfare against the same batteries.
They also carry electronic
countermeasures
that can fool the syrian air defense
system and allow the attacking craft to
enter Syrian airspace undetected.
A date has yet to be decided for
operation Orchard.
But then Prime
Minister Olmert receives intelligence
that forces his hand.
Mossad has detected
activity on the Syrian Coast.
Noth Korean ships were
arriving at the port
of Tartus in Syria.
these ships are carrying the final
materials the Syrians need for the all
Al Kibar reactor to
become fully operational.
Olmert has to act now.
At exactly 11:59 at night 10 hammer
squadron pilots are
ordered to take off.
Even now they have no idea
what their target is.
There were two sets
of planes that took...
off around midnight.
in early September.
the F-16s and F-15s
take off 20 seconds apart.
armed with 500-pound agm-65 bombs
They head out to sea of
nearly 600 miles an hour.
and follow a route designed to
avoid detection by Syrian air defenses.
What the Israeli Air
Force did was map a
route that would take
planes to the west
over the Mediterranean then north then
East over Turkish airspace.
Israel's prime minister and senior
military commanders gather in the
Israeli Air Force's underground command
center known as the pit.
Here they monitor the rout
of the fighter bombers.
Once it is established
that there are no
technical faults with
any of the planes.
Three of the F-15s are
ordered to return to home.
The remaining seven continue on the
planned route at low altitude.
They flew up the Mediterranean
and then on the
east on the Syrian Turkish border.
This is only now that the
pilots are told that
this is a live mission
and that they are...
flying into heavily defended
Syrian airspace.
These elite pilots are trained
to suppress nerves.
As a fighter pilot develop some
mechanism and techniques how to decrease
the fear I'm not telling you that there
is no fear. If somebody
will tell you is
not afraid, he's lying to you.
It's always there,
it is always with you.
The fact that you can be killed.
the hammer squadron
is now just minutes...
from entering Syrian airspace, and
straight into the crosshairs of Syria's
formidable air defenses.
September 6, 2007.
operation orchard is in effect and
Israel's special forces unit the hammer
squadron prepares for an aerial assault
on their target,
a Syrian nuclear reactor.
As the planes approach Syrian airspace
it is now that they will encounter their
enemies air defense systems.
The militay side of the
operation involved somehow
evading the Syrian radar so it's not to
alert the Syrians to their presence
using codes allegedly sold to them by
Russia.
the Israelis are able to make the Syrian
air defenses suddenly display hundreds
of enemy planes.
Then just as suddenly
the Syrian system detects no enemy
planes at all to the Syrians it appears
like a brief technical glitch.
So the Israelis actually
made the Syrian system
think that everything was normal as
though the radar screens were absolutely
fine but the Israeli planes were
invisible the Syrians didn't even know
they were under attack.
Now in enemy airspace
they move on to
the next stage.
precise coordinates of the Al Kibar
complex are sent to the Israeli pilots
onboard computers and the plane swing
south to begin their bombing.
so this is the risky time
this is where your
breathing become much
more in any high polls.
As the pilots focus on the target they
are at their most vulnerable
You have one minute
that you are exposed
to everybody,
and you are not defending
yourself because you are concentrating
on aiming on the target this is the one
minutes that the most
difficult of the fly.
As they begin their bombing run the
pilot suddenly detect
anti-aircraft rockets.
Back in the Pit, in tel-aviv,
they have no
idea what is going on.
Has the target been hit?
And the pilots been shot down?
Then comes a radio transmission.
It's the single word Arizona,
the code word
that confirms the bombs
have found their target.
Not a single Israeli
plane has been lost.
and the reactor has
been totally destroyed.
there was nothing left really but a
smoking ruin at the reactor.
The most dangerous part
of the mission is over.
When you release the bombs you
are much lighter now you can maneuver
much stronger and you go back too long
to a low level and
then you start to relax.
The pilots exit Syrian
airspace at high speed.
The mission is a complete success.
They destroyed their target.
They exited.
They lost nothing.
Ehud Olmer immediately
telephones the White House.
To tell President Bush that's something
that never existed doesn't exist anymore.
Now there is a tense wait
for the Syrian response.
Olmert confident that the
Syrians won't risk reacting publicly.
But he cannot be certain.
Immediately after the
raid he had sent a...
message to Syrian President Bashar
al-assad saying that Israel would not
openly take credit for the raid.
They calculated that if
they didn't make too...
much noise about it.
Claimed responsibility for it didn't
boast about it that it might be in a
sense best interest,
simply to ignore it.
Sure enough, the gamble pays off.
Syrian state news announces
that Israeli planes...
had been repelled
from Syrian airspace.
It is a lie.
But both countries are...
content to pretend that the
bombing never happened.
It seems Olmert has successfully
safeguarded Israel's future.
But one thing still bothers
Ehud Olmert undergone.
How had Syria managed to develop a
nuclear weapons program
in complete secrecy.
For seven years Israel didn't
know about the number
one project that
the Syrians were engaged with.
Now a nuclear reactor is
not something that
it's easy to hide.
It's a huge facility.
So Mossad begins
investigating how Syria...
has managed to keep the
Al Kibar facility a secret.
What they uncover is...
that the Syrians had developed a
networking system
that avoided all...
electronic communications.
They took a flight back in time.
They said let's in the most
sensitive issues
let's not use any sort of
electronic transmission.
Every time we want to send
a message we will
print the hard copy,
put it in an envelope.
Seal it with wax...
right top secret and
build a network of...
couriers that would take these envelopes
- from place to place.
- And at the heart of...
this communication system is a man
renowned for his hatred of Israel and
one of the most
powerful men in Syria.
general Mohammad Suleman.
Mohammad Suleman
was the most powerful
closest advisor to the current leader of
Syria Assad.
His office was just across
the hall from the office of the...
president in the presidential
palace in Damascus.
Because of his closeness to the
president Suleiman is known
as Assad shadow.
This is the mastermind behind
serious top secret nuclear program.
Suleiman he had credit for the
compartmentalization within the Syrian
government that allowed him to undertake
this project for years.
And no one knows far.
But Mossad has uncovered some
even more worrying intelligence.
The intelligence was that Suleiman
had not gotten the message.
After the destruction of the nuclear
power plant Israelis received
intelligence that the Syrians were
resuming their efforts
to build another
nuclear power plant.
The Syrians may have
to start from scratch.
But with Suleiman in charge,
it seems that the Syrian
nuclear weapons...
program could soon be
up and running again.
You know technically when you
destroy a nuclear program,
within five years
and the countries that have
done it can do it again.
If you have enough money,
enough determination and know-how.
And you start from zero
your nuclear program.
In five years you
can have the bomb.
the Israelis conclude that so long as
Suleiman is in charge
they remain under threat.
He and his talented bureaucratic and
organizational
capabilities are still run.
So what do you do?
For Israel there
seems no other option.
They have to kill him.
Israeli Special Forces have...
successfully neutralized
the threat of a...
Syrian nuclear weapons program.
But to ensure it does not return.
They must now...
take out its mastermind Syrian general
Mohammad Suleman.
But eliminating Suleiman
will be a much...
harder task than
striking at a static...
building in the desert.
The Syrian general is
an incredibly cautious man.
His movements are a
closely guarded secret.
Known only to a few.
In Damascus he is
under armed guard.
Getting to him there
will be impossible.
But in the summer
of 2008, Mossad...
discovers that Suleiman
is planning to...
spend a weekend a
his second home.
An Villa in the Syrian
coastal city of Tartous.
Security in Tartous
is far more relaxed.
If they're going
to kill the general,
this is the time
and place to do it.
But it will require
another of israel's...
black ops units to carry it out.
This group is called the kidon.
Kidon means bayonets.
They were known within
the Mossad for
assassinations but also knew how to slip
- in and out of countries.
- Among even their...
enemies they are
respected as extremely
talented and well trained in the
operations theater.
the Kidon is the most secretive of all
of Israel's elite units and almost no
operational details of their missions
have ever been released
by any Israeli government.
They are notorious for one
specialized activity.
Assassinating Israel's enemies,
wherever they may be.
As the Kidon kid on
study Suleiman's villa.
They realized that although
well guarded from.
the street from the sea the rear of the
villa is totally exposed.
The Israelis then discovered
that when staying at his Villa.
Suleiman hosts his guests on the
balcony overlooking the sea.
Initially they consider bringing a boat
close enough to the shore for a sniper
to target Suleiman from the boat.
But it seems this plan is rejected.
They will only have one
chance and a long-range
shot from a moving boat.
Is just too risky.
The further out the shot the
When harder it is to get a headshot.
You're taking a shot from a bowl of a
guy on land it's a little bit
of a harder mission.
The only other option is
to send someone on to shore.
A yacht sails up the
Mediterranean coast...
towards Tartous.
It is registered to a
wealthy businessman.
But today the crew is
believed to be carrying
two kidon snipers.
They sent in a one of their
intelligence assassination teams, in a
ship off the coast of Tartous off the
coast of Syria.
About a mile off the coast the yacht
drops its sails and the assassins make
their way to shore.
Snipers from the ship
came as scuba divers
to his beach house.
At the same time general Suleiman
arrives at his weekend home.
As the Sun sets the
snipers supposedly...
emerge from the water.
They watch the guests as
they mingle on the terrace.
Eventually Suleiman appears.
He was having dinner at his country home.
Along the sea his friends and family were
sitting around the dinner table.
As the general entertains
his guests, the two...
snipers line him up
in their crosshairs.
They get ready
to take the shot.
But then their target is obscured.
They move to a new position.
the two snipers relocate.
And aim their rifles.
They have earpieces
enabling them to...
hear an electronic countdown.l
This wil ensure they
fire simultaneously.
It was a difficult shot,
but they did...
- shoot until he was down.
- And the mission...
was over and they
got away with it.
Both bullets had found their target.
One in the head one in the neck.
Like the bombing of the reactor Israel
will never officially admit to the
assassination of general Suleiman.
The Israelis do not
talk publicly about...
killing people overseas because it's
actually against the rules.
But they do...
say things,
including in this incident,
they referred to it as
a very happy accident.
That was actually
an official statement.
Taking out the threat of a...
Syrian nuclear weapons
program has been...
an extraordinary accomplishment.
Calling upon three elite
Special Forces units.
The Sayeret Matkal
to identify the threat.
The hammer squadron
to take it out.
And the Kidon on to ensure
that it cannot return.
Thanks to these operations a...
dangerous and volatile
regime has been...
stopped from acquiring the most
dangerous of all weapons
of mass destruction.
the importance of that has only been
made more evidence since 2011.
When Syria began its descent
into a vicious Civil War.
Subtitles: Kilo
to build a nuclear bomb.
Behind the plot is a mastermind focused
on the destruction of Israel.
General Mohammad Simon hated Israelis,
hated the State of Israel.
It will take three elite black ops
units to deal with this menace.
Special forces operating deep within
enemy territory to confirm the threat.
If there was a mistake made,
that could have been war.
And elite flying unit to take it out.
They destroyed their target,
they exited, they lost nothing.
And finally an assassination unit to
deal with the man behind the threat.
Three of them came as scuba divers to his
beach house shot him and then disappeared.
This is the top-secret story,
of this railing strike against Syria.
North Korea 2004.
Deep inside this secretive
communist state a...
train travels through
a remote northern town.
Then suddenly...
In April of 2004,
there was a massive...
train explosion in
northern North Korea.
The explosion is so enormous it
registers a magnitude 3.6.
equivalent to a small earthquake.
It killed several hundred people,
destroyed a town of 10,000 people.
at 2,000 people wounded.
According to the North Korean government,
the train was carrying liquefied petroleum.
But before anyone can
discover anything more,
The regime forbids further
reporting on the incident.
A week later they banned all use
of cell phones in North Korea.
for five years.
Just what is going on in
the rogue nuclear state.
Five thousand miles away, one nation is
following the incident with great interest.
Meir Dagan is Israel's top spot.
The chief of the Israeli
intelligence agency Mossad.
Meir Dagan was a legendary figure
in the Israeli security establishment.
He had a reputation
for being very brutal.
And what he was
prepared to do in...
pursuit of israel's
national security interest.
North Korea behaving
secretly is nothing new.
But what intrigues Dagan on our intelligenc
reports that a Syrian aircraft...
has now landed in North Korea.
Contact between North Korea
and the Arab world is unusual,
and highly concerning to Israel.
And that was when these really
started to take a closer interest,
in what was going on.
The plane is supposed
to be delivering aid.
But instead it seems it is being loaded
with the bodies of victims of the crash.
And the bodies are being
transported in lead-lined coffins,
and have carried by men
wearing chemical weapon suits.
This is extremely strange.
Meir Dagan is informed that the bodies
in the lead coffins are not North Koreans.
but Syrian scientists.
There were 12 Syrian
scientists from something...
called a Syrian Scientific
Research Center.
Their covert military research
and acquisition center.
It raises a terrifying
possibility to Dagan.
Could North Korea be helping
Syria to build a nuclear weapon.
Dagan has to find out more.
It becomes a top priority for Mossad.
And will eventually lead to one of the
most extraordinary black ops of all time.
Two years later.
A woman walks into a
London hotel bar.
Her arrival is noticed by a man
who's been drinking alone.
But this is no innocent meeting.
The man is a high-ranking Syrian nuclear
official travelling to London alone.
He comes to London
resigning in a posh hotel.
He has a meeting tomorrow
morning in... in London.
But he has the night of
the evening to spend.
He goes to the bar of the hotel.
And is extremely happy, that in the bar
He meets a woman with a wonderful character.
But what the Sirian doesn't know,
is that he is under surveillance.
Mossad had been alerted
to the Syrians visited.
When he checked into a
hotel under a false name.
The Israelis dispatched
teams of people to monitor.
Unaware he is being watched,
the Syrian continues to
flirt with the woman.
And she's also pressed by him.
There's another drink,
and another drink,
and he's confident that he has a
wonderful way of spending the night.
But he is also unaware that
the woman is not as she seems.
He doesn't know that this woman
is a part of the Mossad crew.
and she was there to keep him busy.
while her team is breaking
into his hotel room.
the Mossad agents are
members of the nefud unit.
experts in covert bugging.
The team specialized in breaking
into hotel rooms.
It takes just seconds for the Nefud team
to override the hotel room security.
Once inside they realize
they have hit the jackpot.
The Syrian official has left his
laptop completely unguarded.
Immediately they go to work.
The Mossad was able to break
in get its hands on the...
laptop computer and copy his
contents off the hard drive.
The agents transfer the entire
contents of a computer...
hard drive to Masada HQ
in Aviv instantaneously.
They took all the information
from the computer.
And then they put devices
on the computer to...
monitor any future activity
from that computer.
As they leave the room the female Mossad
agent abandons the unsuspecting Syrian.
Within 15 minutes Dagan and his analysts
are looking at the files in Tel Aviv.
What they found on his computer
was really rather extraordinary.
On one folder
they found JPEG's.
That look very odd.
Appearing on the screens in
front of Dangan are hundreds...
of photos documenting the construction
of a large industrial facility.
It was this is an unknown facility,
a huge one.
The building they saw was
quite large a hundred and...
thirty feet by a hundred and
thirty feet by seventy feet tall.
Initially the building
resembles a tree house on...
stilts with pipes leading
to a pumping station.
Later photos show modifications.
And eventually the entire complex
is hidden beneath a huge roof.
Initially Dagan is unsure of
what the facility might be.
But then it begins to dawn on him
what the images are showing.
He sees large industrial
equipment inside the facility.
It is an exact replica of something
Dagan has seen before.
In intelligence images from North Korea.
They showed that it was almost
an exact replica of the...
Jung Byung nuclear weapons
facility in North Korea.
It was exactly the same reactor.
The two were perfectly matched.
Dagan has no doubt as to
what they have uncovered.
The evidence was overwhelming.
North Korea was building
a nuclear reactor in Syria.
The potential for a nuclear
weapons program in Syria,
is a direct threat to
Israel's national security.
And one that would have to
be neutralized immediately.
2006. Analysts for the Israeli
intelligence agency Mossad
have uncovered information
indicating that Syria,
with the help of North
Korea is in the process...
of developing a nuclear
weapons program.
Further evidence from the
confiscated laptop of a...
Syrian nuclear official
confirms their greatest fear.
There were blueprints of
the nuclear power plant.
There were pictures of the
nuclear power plant.
The Israelis even had photographs of Syrians
and North Korean nuclear experts together.
It is Israel's nightmare scenario.
A hostile nuclear power on
its own doorstep.
Whoever is building this
has only one purpose,
to build to assemble a nuclear bomb.
Dagan is now certain there is a
nuclear weapons program in Syria.
But he has no idea where it is.
Intent on finding out, he orders Israeli
satellites to monitor potential sites.
Eventually they close in on a remote
area of Syria called Al Khobar.
Where some highly unusual
communications have been monitored.
They intercepted a
very unusual spike of...
telephone communications
from this location,
at Al Khobar which is in
the middle of nowhere
in the desert to Pyongyang,
North Korea.
It was very far from the capital Damascus.
It was in a remote part of...
northeastern Syria but not far from the
Euphrates River in the border with Iraq.
Israeli satellites now pinpoint a
large building at bunker Al Khobar.
When they compared them
with the stolen images...
from the Syrian laptop
it is a perfect match.
Al Khobar has to be the site of
Syria's nuclear weapons program.
Armed with the intel
on the syrian facility,
Dagan goes to see the israeli
prime minister a Ehud Olmert.
Mein Dagan came to see
Prime Minister Olmert,
and told him this dramatic news.
That Syria is an advanced stage of
developing nuclear weapon.
The Israeli prime minister immediately
recognizes the seriousness of the threat.
Olmert said one thing right at the start,
and that was the...
Syrian nuclear weapons program is
simply intolerable for Israel.
It cannot be permitted, this is an
existential threat to Israel.
This reactor has to go away.
The only way to be rid
of the nuclear weapons...
program is to blow up the reactor.
But first he has a series of
questions to Dagan.
Most importantly,
how far advanced is the reactor?
If it is already operational then a
bombing could cause a catastrophe.
If the reactor is already active,
then full destruction of
the reactor might cause...
an enormous environmental
pollution poisoning.
But Dagan doesn't know yet if
the reactor is fully operational.
The JPG's we're 15 months old.
So this facility must be more advanced.
They desperately need to find out
how advanced the construction is.
That means doing
something extremely risky.
Sending someone in to take a look.
The next step would have to be
risking the lives of operatives.
Olmert has only one group
of men capable of operating...
undetected hundreds of miles
within enemy territory.
So he calls upon israel's
elite black ops unit.
In English they are
known as "The Unit.
In Hebrew, they are the Sayeret Matkal.
Sayeret Metkal is the highest elite
commando unit of the israeli army.
Sayeret Matkal in Israel is nothing
short of legendary or mythical.
It's essentially the top unit in the army.
Their job is to go on
special operations that are...
considered beyond the scope
of your regular troops.
It's a unit model after the British SAS.
Seal teams are similar
to her Delta Force.
Is similar to her.
They're some of the most highly
trained units in the world.
The Sayeret Matkal has a
one particular special team.
Operating covertly
behind enemy lines.
The expert of Sayeret Matkal is to...
infiltrate enemy countries in silent...
intelligence gathering operations.
They've gone into Jordan,
they've gone in a Lebanon.
They've done missions in and
out of these countries undetected.
While never officially
confirmed it is believed...
that on an overcast summer night.
The selected commandos prepare
to set out on their mission.
They have deep behind
enemy lines to confirm the...
existence of the Syrian
nuclear weapons program.
The Israelis have been very secretive
about how they got there.
But certainly they are very adept at
using low-flying almost silent helicopters.
It is understood they boarded two
Sikorsky CH-53 sea stallion helicopters.
To travel at low altitude and
scross the border into Syria.
The commandos who dropped to
safe distance from the facility.
Israelis were able to get on
the ground within about...
a mile of this mystery building
in northeastern Syria.
As the commandos set off
they know that no matter
what the Syrians must not be
alerted to their presence.
Once the helicopters are gone
if the Syrians discover them,
there is no chance of being rescued.
But that was an extremely
risky Intel gathering mission.
If there is a mistake made
and they are compromised,
that could have been war.
The Sayeret Metkal commandos come
within feet of the alcove our facility.
And immediately start
intelligence gathering.
The unit it'd the Intel
collection on the ground.
raid at the site.
That was extremely dangerous.
Collecting soil and water samples
from around the facility...
is the most important
element of the mission.
It is the only way Israel can find out
for sure if the reactor is operational.
If the reactor is active,
then a very small portion not lethal,
but very very small
portion of radioactive...
substance would be
found in the water.
Once the Intel collection is complete,
the commandos hide their
tracks and prepare to depart.
But then...
They were almost caught.
They left the scene in
the very last minute.
The commandos remain undetected.
And with the mission complete,
they return to Israel with the
soil and water samples.
The results of those samples
will soon set into motion...
a series of even more dangerous
covert missions into Syria.
Israel's elite black ops unit,
the Sayeret Metkal,
have successfully retrieved soil and water
samples from behind enemy lines in Syria.
In a government
laboratory in Tel Aviv,
the samples are now tested for
nuclear contamination.
The results of the exhaustive tests
are delivered to Olmert and Dagan.
The soil and water samples do contain
traces of nuclear contamination.
But crucially not at levels that indicate
the reactor is fully operational.
The samples prove that
the reactor is still inactive.
This is critical news.
It means Olmertt can
now give the order.
To take it out.
Olmert calls a meeting of Israel's
top military and intelligence chiefs.
They are all in agreement
on one thing.
However this reactor got started and
whenever it got started the end is clear.
The reactor is intolerable.
We're not going to allow it,
and it's going to go away.
Olmert's only option is
to strike from the air.
Air power is an advantage.
it can come like a light,
it's very speedy,
It's can do the job with a lot ordnance.
and disengage before the enemy
understand what happened.
the Prime Minister gives
the order to prepare...
for an aerial assault
on the Syrian reactor.
it will be known as
Operation Orchard.
And for it to succeed Olmert alerts
another of Israel special forces units.
squadron 69 known as the Patishim.
The hammer squadron.
There is no squadron
better suited for a...
mission to destroy an
enemy nuclear program.
That's because they
have done a quick.
25 years earlier,
8 hammer squadron pilots...
flew into Iraq,
to bomb a nuclear...
facility being built
by Saddam Hussein.
I was a fighter pilot, a major.
Deputy squadron commander.
Who propelled himself...
to destroy the nuclear reactor.
Evading Iraq air defenses,
they take out...
the facility in a clinical strike.
the OL operation from takeoff to the
attack was one hour 43
minutes and 30 seconds.
But a quarter century later an...
attack on Syria is a
much harder prospect.
For decades Syria has been...
developing one of the most formidable
anti-aircraft defense
systems in the world.
They have installed the Russian
built tor m1 air defense system.
And have a multiple
surface-to-air missiles ready
to launch against any air attack.
Nothing is easy when it
comes to attacking a...
country that has anti-aircraft systems.
And so the Israelis worked hard
on their countermeasures.
The hammer squadron has aircrafts...
specifically designed to
evade such air defenses.
The US-made F-15 and F-16
fighters bombers.
The F-16 is well
equiped to...
cope with a lock-on of alpha
missile battery and we can break the
lock we can use some ECM flares against
guided missiles and some electronic
warfare against the same batteries.
They also carry electronic
countermeasures
that can fool the syrian air defense
system and allow the attacking craft to
enter Syrian airspace undetected.
A date has yet to be decided for
operation Orchard.
But then Prime
Minister Olmert receives intelligence
that forces his hand.
Mossad has detected
activity on the Syrian Coast.
Noth Korean ships were
arriving at the port
of Tartus in Syria.
these ships are carrying the final
materials the Syrians need for the all
Al Kibar reactor to
become fully operational.
Olmert has to act now.
At exactly 11:59 at night 10 hammer
squadron pilots are
ordered to take off.
Even now they have no idea
what their target is.
There were two sets
of planes that took...
off around midnight.
in early September.
the F-16s and F-15s
take off 20 seconds apart.
armed with 500-pound agm-65 bombs
They head out to sea of
nearly 600 miles an hour.
and follow a route designed to
avoid detection by Syrian air defenses.
What the Israeli Air
Force did was map a
route that would take
planes to the west
over the Mediterranean then north then
East over Turkish airspace.
Israel's prime minister and senior
military commanders gather in the
Israeli Air Force's underground command
center known as the pit.
Here they monitor the rout
of the fighter bombers.
Once it is established
that there are no
technical faults with
any of the planes.
Three of the F-15s are
ordered to return to home.
The remaining seven continue on the
planned route at low altitude.
They flew up the Mediterranean
and then on the
east on the Syrian Turkish border.
This is only now that the
pilots are told that
this is a live mission
and that they are...
flying into heavily defended
Syrian airspace.
These elite pilots are trained
to suppress nerves.
As a fighter pilot develop some
mechanism and techniques how to decrease
the fear I'm not telling you that there
is no fear. If somebody
will tell you is
not afraid, he's lying to you.
It's always there,
it is always with you.
The fact that you can be killed.
the hammer squadron
is now just minutes...
from entering Syrian airspace, and
straight into the crosshairs of Syria's
formidable air defenses.
September 6, 2007.
operation orchard is in effect and
Israel's special forces unit the hammer
squadron prepares for an aerial assault
on their target,
a Syrian nuclear reactor.
As the planes approach Syrian airspace
it is now that they will encounter their
enemies air defense systems.
The militay side of the
operation involved somehow
evading the Syrian radar so it's not to
alert the Syrians to their presence
using codes allegedly sold to them by
Russia.
the Israelis are able to make the Syrian
air defenses suddenly display hundreds
of enemy planes.
Then just as suddenly
the Syrian system detects no enemy
planes at all to the Syrians it appears
like a brief technical glitch.
So the Israelis actually
made the Syrian system
think that everything was normal as
though the radar screens were absolutely
fine but the Israeli planes were
invisible the Syrians didn't even know
they were under attack.
Now in enemy airspace
they move on to
the next stage.
precise coordinates of the Al Kibar
complex are sent to the Israeli pilots
onboard computers and the plane swing
south to begin their bombing.
so this is the risky time
this is where your
breathing become much
more in any high polls.
As the pilots focus on the target they
are at their most vulnerable
You have one minute
that you are exposed
to everybody,
and you are not defending
yourself because you are concentrating
on aiming on the target this is the one
minutes that the most
difficult of the fly.
As they begin their bombing run the
pilot suddenly detect
anti-aircraft rockets.
Back in the Pit, in tel-aviv,
they have no
idea what is going on.
Has the target been hit?
And the pilots been shot down?
Then comes a radio transmission.
It's the single word Arizona,
the code word
that confirms the bombs
have found their target.
Not a single Israeli
plane has been lost.
and the reactor has
been totally destroyed.
there was nothing left really but a
smoking ruin at the reactor.
The most dangerous part
of the mission is over.
When you release the bombs you
are much lighter now you can maneuver
much stronger and you go back too long
to a low level and
then you start to relax.
The pilots exit Syrian
airspace at high speed.
The mission is a complete success.
They destroyed their target.
They exited.
They lost nothing.
Ehud Olmer immediately
telephones the White House.
To tell President Bush that's something
that never existed doesn't exist anymore.
Now there is a tense wait
for the Syrian response.
Olmert confident that the
Syrians won't risk reacting publicly.
But he cannot be certain.
Immediately after the
raid he had sent a...
message to Syrian President Bashar
al-assad saying that Israel would not
openly take credit for the raid.
They calculated that if
they didn't make too...
much noise about it.
Claimed responsibility for it didn't
boast about it that it might be in a
sense best interest,
simply to ignore it.
Sure enough, the gamble pays off.
Syrian state news announces
that Israeli planes...
had been repelled
from Syrian airspace.
It is a lie.
But both countries are...
content to pretend that the
bombing never happened.
It seems Olmert has successfully
safeguarded Israel's future.
But one thing still bothers
Ehud Olmert undergone.
How had Syria managed to develop a
nuclear weapons program
in complete secrecy.
For seven years Israel didn't
know about the number
one project that
the Syrians were engaged with.
Now a nuclear reactor is
not something that
it's easy to hide.
It's a huge facility.
So Mossad begins
investigating how Syria...
has managed to keep the
Al Kibar facility a secret.
What they uncover is...
that the Syrians had developed a
networking system
that avoided all...
electronic communications.
They took a flight back in time.
They said let's in the most
sensitive issues
let's not use any sort of
electronic transmission.
Every time we want to send
a message we will
print the hard copy,
put it in an envelope.
Seal it with wax...
right top secret and
build a network of...
couriers that would take these envelopes
- from place to place.
- And at the heart of...
this communication system is a man
renowned for his hatred of Israel and
one of the most
powerful men in Syria.
general Mohammad Suleman.
Mohammad Suleman
was the most powerful
closest advisor to the current leader of
Syria Assad.
His office was just across
the hall from the office of the...
president in the presidential
palace in Damascus.
Because of his closeness to the
president Suleiman is known
as Assad shadow.
This is the mastermind behind
serious top secret nuclear program.
Suleiman he had credit for the
compartmentalization within the Syrian
government that allowed him to undertake
this project for years.
And no one knows far.
But Mossad has uncovered some
even more worrying intelligence.
The intelligence was that Suleiman
had not gotten the message.
After the destruction of the nuclear
power plant Israelis received
intelligence that the Syrians were
resuming their efforts
to build another
nuclear power plant.
The Syrians may have
to start from scratch.
But with Suleiman in charge,
it seems that the Syrian
nuclear weapons...
program could soon be
up and running again.
You know technically when you
destroy a nuclear program,
within five years
and the countries that have
done it can do it again.
If you have enough money,
enough determination and know-how.
And you start from zero
your nuclear program.
In five years you
can have the bomb.
the Israelis conclude that so long as
Suleiman is in charge
they remain under threat.
He and his talented bureaucratic and
organizational
capabilities are still run.
So what do you do?
For Israel there
seems no other option.
They have to kill him.
Israeli Special Forces have...
successfully neutralized
the threat of a...
Syrian nuclear weapons program.
But to ensure it does not return.
They must now...
take out its mastermind Syrian general
Mohammad Suleman.
But eliminating Suleiman
will be a much...
harder task than
striking at a static...
building in the desert.
The Syrian general is
an incredibly cautious man.
His movements are a
closely guarded secret.
Known only to a few.
In Damascus he is
under armed guard.
Getting to him there
will be impossible.
But in the summer
of 2008, Mossad...
discovers that Suleiman
is planning to...
spend a weekend a
his second home.
An Villa in the Syrian
coastal city of Tartous.
Security in Tartous
is far more relaxed.
If they're going
to kill the general,
this is the time
and place to do it.
But it will require
another of israel's...
black ops units to carry it out.
This group is called the kidon.
Kidon means bayonets.
They were known within
the Mossad for
assassinations but also knew how to slip
- in and out of countries.
- Among even their...
enemies they are
respected as extremely
talented and well trained in the
operations theater.
the Kidon is the most secretive of all
of Israel's elite units and almost no
operational details of their missions
have ever been released
by any Israeli government.
They are notorious for one
specialized activity.
Assassinating Israel's enemies,
wherever they may be.
As the Kidon kid on
study Suleiman's villa.
They realized that although
well guarded from.
the street from the sea the rear of the
villa is totally exposed.
The Israelis then discovered
that when staying at his Villa.
Suleiman hosts his guests on the
balcony overlooking the sea.
Initially they consider bringing a boat
close enough to the shore for a sniper
to target Suleiman from the boat.
But it seems this plan is rejected.
They will only have one
chance and a long-range
shot from a moving boat.
Is just too risky.
The further out the shot the
When harder it is to get a headshot.
You're taking a shot from a bowl of a
guy on land it's a little bit
of a harder mission.
The only other option is
to send someone on to shore.
A yacht sails up the
Mediterranean coast...
towards Tartous.
It is registered to a
wealthy businessman.
But today the crew is
believed to be carrying
two kidon snipers.
They sent in a one of their
intelligence assassination teams, in a
ship off the coast of Tartous off the
coast of Syria.
About a mile off the coast the yacht
drops its sails and the assassins make
their way to shore.
Snipers from the ship
came as scuba divers
to his beach house.
At the same time general Suleiman
arrives at his weekend home.
As the Sun sets the
snipers supposedly...
emerge from the water.
They watch the guests as
they mingle on the terrace.
Eventually Suleiman appears.
He was having dinner at his country home.
Along the sea his friends and family were
sitting around the dinner table.
As the general entertains
his guests, the two...
snipers line him up
in their crosshairs.
They get ready
to take the shot.
But then their target is obscured.
They move to a new position.
the two snipers relocate.
And aim their rifles.
They have earpieces
enabling them to...
hear an electronic countdown.l
This wil ensure they
fire simultaneously.
It was a difficult shot,
but they did...
- shoot until he was down.
- And the mission...
was over and they
got away with it.
Both bullets had found their target.
One in the head one in the neck.
Like the bombing of the reactor Israel
will never officially admit to the
assassination of general Suleiman.
The Israelis do not
talk publicly about...
killing people overseas because it's
actually against the rules.
But they do...
say things,
including in this incident,
they referred to it as
a very happy accident.
That was actually
an official statement.
Taking out the threat of a...
Syrian nuclear weapons
program has been...
an extraordinary accomplishment.
Calling upon three elite
Special Forces units.
The Sayeret Matkal
to identify the threat.
The hammer squadron
to take it out.
And the Kidon on to ensure
that it cannot return.
Thanks to these operations a...
dangerous and volatile
regime has been...
stopped from acquiring the most
dangerous of all weapons
of mass destruction.
the importance of that has only been
made more evidence since 2011.
When Syria began its descent
into a vicious Civil War.
Subtitles: Kilo