Mossad agents abducted Iranian Generals in hunt for Ron Arad, despite no evidence of Iranian involvement -report
A New York Times investigation details secret interrogations driven by the belief that Iran held the missing navigator, while an Iran-Hezbollah report concluded he died in Lebanon in 1988
A secret report compiled by Iran and Hezbollah concluded that missing Israeli air force navigator Ron Arad died in 1988 in the eastern Lebanese village of Nabi Sheet and was likely buried nearby, according to a New York Times investigation published Sunday.
The report was prepared after Israel agreed in 2004 to release a Lebanese prisoner in exchange for genetic evidence that could shed light on Arad’s fate. Hezbollah’s then-leader, Hassan Nasrallah, sought Tehran’s assistance, prompting Iran to send Revolutionary Guards commander Abdallah Sabri to coordinate the search.
The findings were considered so significant that former Iranian President Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani sent one of his children to Germany to deliver them personally, according to the investigation.
The newspaper also reported that Israeli agents abducted two Iranian generals during efforts to establish Arad’s whereabouts. Ali-Reza Asgari was allegedly abducted roughly two decades ago, interrogated and killed despite having no information about Arad. In September 2021, agents posing as furniture movers reportedly seized Sabri in Damascus and took him to Israel for questioning.
For years, Israeli intelligence officials gave considerable weight to the theory that Arad was being held in Iran. That assessment gained traction in 1992, when an Iranian doctor claimed to have treated him in Tehran and Lebanon, despite inconclusive polygraph results.
The theory persisted after Israeli commandos abducted Mustafa Dirani from Lebanon in 1994 during Operation Venomous Sting. Dirani told interrogators that his men had left the house in Nabi Sheet where Arad was being held one night and found him missing when they returned.
His interrogator, Doron Zahavi, rejected that account. “It was impossible to reason with Dirani,” he recalled. “The only thing that worked was force.”
People interviewed for the investigation described an intelligence process shaped by confirmation bias. Avi Kalo, a retired senior military officer who authored a 2016 report that found no evidence of Iranian involvement, called it a collective “blind spot,” describing Iran as the “bogeyman” in Israeli assessments.
After years of searches and intelligence operations, the prevailing view among those involved is now that Arad was never held in Iran and that Tehran was not involved in his disappearance, according to the investigation.
German mediator Gerhard Conrad told the newspaper that Hezbollah and Iranian officials had made extensive efforts to locate Arad’s body. Former Iranian Vice President Mohammad Ali Abtahi said Israel had become fixated on the possibility of Iranian involvement. He also said Pope John Paul II delivered a letter from Arad’s wife to Iranian President Mohammad Khatami in 1999.
Raz Zimmt, a former Israeli Military Intelligence analyst who helped write an influential 2005 report implicating Tehran, acknowledged that the assessment was likely wrong. He attributed it to a tendency within Israeli intelligence to blame the Iranian regime.