On 15 February 1999 a Falcon 900 executive jet landed at
Nairobi’s Wilson Airport. The pilot told the airport authorities that he
had come to pick up a group of businessmen. In fact, Öcalan was by
some means placed aboard the jet. According to some reports, Öcalan
had been drugged by the Mossad agents. Other versions maintain that
capturing Öcalan was a joint venture by the Central Intelligence
Agency and the Mossad.
Öcalan was flown to Turkey for trial. After his capture, he declared
a “peace offensive” and the 15-year rebellion ceased, although there
were several isolated incidents, often by groups posing as the PKK.
Öcalan has been held in solitary confinement on Imrali Island in the
Turkish Sea of Marmara since his capture. Though initially sentenced
to death, this sentence was commuted to life imprisonment when the
death penalty was conditionally abolished in Turkey in August 2002.
Although no one has publicly admitted that the Mossad was involved
in the Öcalan affair, the Mossad as a result lost a Kurdish spy network
in Iraq. The Öcalan case reveals how the Mossad sometimes works as a
contractor for other governments, as in the Ben-Barka Affair.OFEQ SATELLITES.The Scud missiles launched against Israel dur-
ing the Gulf War in 1991 underlined the country’s need of indepen-
dent early-warning capabilities. Israeli technology enabled it to de-
velop intelligence satellites, whose development had begun in the
1980s but accelerated after Desert Storm. The purpose of the satel-
lites is to allow better and more effective tracking of targets, particu-
larly in the so-called third circle of threats to Israel: Iran and other
distant countries. Israel seeks to increase the transparency of these
countries’ weapons capabilities and deployment to reduce the risk of
a surprise attack. So far, Israel is the only country in the Middle East
with an independent intelligence satellite capability—a fact that
yields many benefits. It provides an independent capability, for in-
stance, to acquire information while avoiding exposure of the field of
interest.
In 1988 Israel launched the Ofeq-1 satellite, and in 1990 the Ofeq-- These devices were actually launched for research purposes, to ex-
amine various features of intelligence satellites. Israel’s first opera-
tional intelligence satellite was Ofeq-3, which was launched in April
1995 by the Israeli-made Shavit-1 satellite launcher.
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