In July, Mossad Director Yossi Cohen noted that his agency has thwarted a large number of terror attacks, especially on airliners, across the world.
By YONAH JEREMY BOBThe flag of Denmark(photo credit: REUTERS)
The Mossad was behind successful efforts by Denmark to nab a cell of 20 terrorists planning a wave of attacks, Channel 12 reported Saturday night.According to the report, Danish security officials arrested the terrorists and seized a variety of weapons.While Israel previously disclosed that it had provided the intelligence to obstruct an ISIS plot to bomb a United Arab Emirates Etihad Airways flight from Sydney to Abu Dhabi, Netanyahu revealed that the intelligence that broke the case was obtained through cyber tools.He said that while he could not give specifics, the audience could “multiply by about 50” the Sydney airline terrorist plot, and that would be the number of terrorist plots worldwide (mostly by ISIS) that Israel has helped to prevent thanks to its cyber intelligence powers.“The plane from Sydney to Abu Dhabi was not going to be hijacked, but exploded in midair,” he said. “We used our cyber tools to discover that ISIS was going to do this, and so we alerted the Australian police, and they stopped it before it could happen.“This particular incident I can talk about because it was leaked to the media,” Netanyahu said. “If you multiply that by 50, it will give you an idea of the contribution that Israel has made to prevent major terrorist operations, especially from ISIS, in dozens of countries. Most of those cases were foiled because of our cybersecurity operations.”In July, Mossad director Yossi Cohen noted that his agency had prevented a large number of terrorist attacks, especially on airliners, across the world.In June, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told a conference in Tel Aviv that Israel had used its cyber intelligence capabilities to stop around 50 ISIS terrorist attacks in dozens of countries worldwide.Cohen is half-way through his term, which he started in early 2013, and has achieved a reputation as a bold and daring leader ready to take risks to get high-value intelligence and bring benefits to Israeli allies.In other news, the Turkish Navy deported an Israeli research ship near Cyprus two weeks ago, the National Infrastructure, Energy and Water Ministry confirmed on Saturday.
Bat Galim, a vessel belonging to the Israel Oceanographic and Limnological Research, had researchers from Ben-Gurion University of the Negev aboard, as well as a Cypriot geologist, who were doing research approved by the Government of Cyprus in Cyprus’ territorial waters.Turkey does not have jurisdiction over the area of the Mediterranean Sea in which the researchers were working, but its navy demanded that Bat Galim move further south, as first reported on Channel 13.The incident took place several weeks after Turkey and Libya signed an agreement dividing up authority over the areas of the Mediterranean between their two countries, which ignores Cyprus’ and Greece’s economic rights in the sea, granting them to Turkey.The Turkish Foreign Ministry summoned Israel’s top diplomat in Ankara earlier this week to inform him that Israel’s plan to lay down a natural gas pipeline to Europe in that part of the Mediterranean Sea, in cooperation with Greece and Cyprus, would require Turkey’s approval, Channel 13 reported.