Gordon Thomas - Gideon's Spies

Dagan’s men were polite to officers from the CIA, MI6, and other European services, and paid lip service to the atrocity’s having been committed within Kenya’s jurisdiction. But for the team, the dead and injured were Israelis. That made it their job.

In Tel Aviv, Dagan waited. He knew his operatives had melted into the region’s multiethnic population.

To this day, no one knows for certain what success the Mossad team had. But sources in a number of other intelligence services say it did kill several suspected terrorists and dumped their bodies in crocodile-infested swamps. If so, that would fit into Mossad’s way of doing things. The reality of their world is a different one from that of others.

And while his agents carried out their ruthless safari against al-Qaeda, Meir Dagan was immersing himself in the struggle against another, equally fearsome enemy: the suicide bombers who continued to terrorize Israel in the closing weeks of 2002.

The first suicide bomber had struck in Israel on a warm spring day in April 1993. Others soon followed, killing hundreds and wounding thousands. Men, women, and children had died on buses, in shopping malls and cafés, and on the way to school. Each death had one common purpose: to wreck any hope of bringing peace to the region. Most of the bombers had come from a terrorist group known as the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade. For Israelis, it was more feared than Hezbollah and Hamas.

Each potential bomber was recommended to the Martyrs Jihad Committee. So far the combined resources of Israel’s intelligence community had failed to locate its members. All that was known was that they communicated important decisions through handwritten notes.

Long before a candidate was approached, careful checks were made into the family background. A critical decision in the selection process was the religious standing of any bomber. The imam, the prayer leader of the mosque where a candidate worshiped, was consulted on how well the person knew the Koran, how regular was his attendance at Friday prayers. There were other preconditions before a person was accepted for martyrdom. No bomber was selected who was the sole wage earner in the family, if two brothers volunteered, only one was chosen.

Having passed those basic requirements, a candidate was invited to meet the Martyrs Jihad Committee. These meetings were often held in public places, like crowded cafés, to reduce the risk of electronic surveillance.

The first meeting focused on a candidate’s religious knowledge. Next he was questioned about his political commitment. If his answers were satisfactory, he was placed on the list of suicide bombers. No one knew its size. But it was believed to number hundreds.

Meir Dagan had found the details in Mossad files. But he wanted to know more. And so, in every spare moment, he had dug deeper into the close world of the bombers and the men who prepared them.

The preparations for martyrdom were conducted in a mosque, usually in a back room away from prying eyes. The iman was assisted by a member of the Martyrs Jihad Committee. They spent up to eight hours a day with a candidate, the time divided between silent prayer and reading portions aloud from the Koran.

An important task at this stage was to give the candidate repeated assurances, that on the Day of Judgment, he or she—for women were eligible to become bombers—would be allowed, upon entering paradise, to choose seventy relatives to also enter; that in heaven a male bomber would have at his disposal seventy-two houris, the celestial virgins who are reputed in Islamic folklore to live there.

These promises were interspersed with checks to see that a bomber’s belief in martyrdom never wavered. The imam and his assistant repeated time and again the same exhortation. “You die to achieve Allah’s satisfaction. You have been chosen by Allah because he has seen in you all that is good.”

The first sign to a bomber that he was about to go to his death came when he was joined by two “advisers” who replaced the assistant. Older men, steeped in Islamic extreme dogma, their task was to ensure that a bomber did not waver in his readiness to die. They focused on the “glory” waiting in paradise of being finally in the presence of Allah, of being allowed to meet the prophet Muhammad.

As the time grew closer to a mission, the bomber was moved to a specially prepared room. Its walls were inscribed with verses from the Koran. Between the verses were painted green birds flying in a purple sky, a reminder that they carry the souls of martyrs to Allah. The indoctrination became more focused. The bomber was told paradise was very close. When the time came, all he must do was press the detonator button to enter the promised world.

For hours the advisers and the human bomb continued to pray and fast together. In between, the practical side of his departure to paradise was taken care of. All of the bomber’s earthly debts were settled by the Martyrs Jihad Committee. He was told his family would become honored members of their community.

There were constant checks to ensure that the bomber showed no signs of fear. Reassured, the advisers then conferred on him the title al shaheed al hayy, the living martyr.

In the final stages, the bomber placed a copy of the Koran inside his clothes. Over it went the body suit. A wire to the detonator button was taped to the palm of his right hand.

The advisers escorted the bomber close to the target area. They bade farewell with the promise given to all human bombers: “Allah is with you. Allah will give you success so that he can receive you in paradise.”

Later, as the bomber pressed the button, he cried out, “Allah akbar.” Allah is great. All praise to Allah.

Almost certainly these were the last earthly words Wafa’a Ali Idris spoke.

Meir Dagan had made a close study of the young woman who had chosen to die. She was assured of her place in the pantheon of Islamic martyrdom. She was the first woman suicide bomber to launch herself against unsuspecting Israelis, doing so on a fine spring morning in 2002—the kind of morning that Israelis liked to remind themselves was why they called this troubled land the Promised Land.

On that Sunday morning Wafa’a was close to her thirty-second birthday. Her proudest gift was a signed, framed photo of Yasser Arafat, personally given to her by the chairman of the PLO. She had been a member of his Fatah organization since, as a teenager, she threw her first stones against Israeli soldiers on the West Bank.

At eighteen, she had married a distant cousin who was a blacksmith. Ten years later his mother forced the couple to divorce because Wafa’a had been unable to produce a child.

She joined the Red Crescent Society after the divorce, working as a paramedic for Islam’s equivalent of the Red Cross.

“She was in the thick of the fighting. She would help the injured and often carry the badly wounded and dying children,” her mother later said with pride. “At the end of a long day in the front line, my daughter would cry in my arms as she recalled the terrible things she witnessed.”

Wafa’a’s circle of friends started to change. In the back street cafés she sipped coffee with members of Hamas, founded in 1987 during the first Intifada, in which she had participated. She listened to their plans to create an Islamic state. She also began to mix with Hezbollah, an equally extreme group. They filled her mind with more fanaticism.

Israel’s Shin Bet—its internal security force—later established that she became involved with Palestinian Islamic Jihad. It was another step into the world of ruthless militancy that now permeated her life. During the month of Ramadan, 2001, she met a recruiter for the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade.