Kidon’s teams succeeded in tracking down and killing only some
of the targets on the list: Zwaiter on 6 October 1972; Hamshari on 8
October 1972; al-Chir on 24 January 1973; Kubaisi on 6 April 1973;
and Boudia on 28 June 1973. After killing al-Chir, Ziad Muchassi
replaced him as the PLO contact with the KGB and was later added
to the target list. He was killed on 12 April 1973.
As for the other targets listed by Committee-X, six terrorists re-
mained at large. Haddad was not traced by Israel, but he died of can-
cer on 28 March 1977 in an East Berlin hospital. Abu Daoud was ar-
rested in Germany in March 1973 and confessed to his involvement
in the Munich massacre. Adwan, Nasser, and Abu Yussef were killed
in the Spring of Youth Operationby a covert commando raid on 9
April 1973, carried out as a joint Mossad-IDF mission. Salameh was
killed on 22 January 1979 by a car bomb in Beirut by another Mossad
team after two failed attempts, one in Lillehammer, Norway (8 De-
cember 1972), in the so-called Lillehammer Affair, and the other on
11 November 1974.
The hunt for the terrorists in the 1970s was conducted mainly in
Europe. However, on 16 January 1976, urgent intelligence was re-
ceived about a terrorist plot to fire a Strela surface-to-air missile at an
El Al airliner due to make a stopover in Nairobi en route from South
Africa to Israel. The airline was instructed to delay the plane’s take-
off from South Africa without giving any reason. The terrorists were
two Germans, Thomas Reuter and Birgitte Schultz, age 25, who had
undergone training with the terrorist PFLP organization. Carrying
false Cypriot passports, they were sighted and identified by Mossad
operatives. In cooperation with the Kenyan police, the Germans were
arrested and taken secretly to Israel, where they were tried by a mil-
itary court and sentenced to 10 years’ imprisonment. Later the Israeli
chief of the General Staff reduced their sentence to five years, and
they were released in 1980 (see alsoMACKENZIE, BRUCE).
A high price for the Wrath of God Operation was paid by the
Mossad personnel who collected intelligence data about those
marked for elimination. For example, following an arranged meeting
with a Palestinian in a café in Madrid, Baruch Cohen was shot by an-
other Palestinian as he was leaving the café. Likewise, Zadok Ophir
was gravely wounded in Brussels at his meeting with a dubious in-
former. Other members of the team that mistakenly killed Ahmad308 • WRATH OF GOD OPERATION06-102 (04) Q-Z.qxd 3/24/06 7:26 AM Page 308