Secret Mossad Raqqa raid led to laptop ban on planes

A secret Israeli operation in the Syrian desert is behind the ban on laptops being carried in passenger plane cabins.

Teams in Sikorsky CH-53 helicopters spied on Islamic State jihadis.

A ban on laptops being carried in passenger plane cabins was the result of a secret Israeli operation, according to a report.

Two helicopters flew commandos from Israel’s elite Sayeret Matkal force, its equivalent of the SAS, and a team of Mossad technical operatives into the desert near the Syrian city of Raqqa.

The commandos fanned out while the Mossad team, driving jeeps in the colours of the Assad regime army, placed a listening device in or near a room in which an Islamic State team were talking about bomb-making.

The bug picked up the team discussing a technique, thought to be the work of Ibrahim al-Asiri, al-Qa’ida’s master bombmaker, by which a device big enough to destroy an airliner could be fitted into a laptop.

The revelation, passed on by Mossad to western intelligence, led Britain and the United States to ban laptops from the cabins of several airlines travelling from Middle Eastern cities. The US has since introduced new screening and lifted the ban but Britain has kept it for flights from some airports.

The Mossad operation also became the focus of a row between the Trump administration and Israel, after the US president revealed part of it to Sergey Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, and Sergey Kislyak, the ambassador to Washington. Israel’s intelligence service was said to be furious that by revealing an outline of the operation Mr Trump had endangered the Israeli agent who was presumed to have provided the tip-off about the safe house.

According to Vanity Fair, whose reporter was briefed by two experts on Israeli intelligence operations, the raid took place in February, about a month after President Trump’s inauguration.

It has previously been reported that Mossad agents in Washington were warned by their CIA counterparts before Mr Trump took office that they thought Russia had “leverage” over him, and that the Israelis should be careful what they shared with him. Russia has been working closely in the Middle East with Israel’s great regional enemy Iran, particularly over Syria.

However, the Washington agents were deemed by their superiors to be exaggerating, and they had no qualms about passing on the information gleaned in the raid.

The Mossad team was ferried into the desert in two Sikorsky CH-53 helicopters, according to the magazine. They flew low up the Euphrates valley. By the time the squad returned to Israel the bug was already picking up conversations, although it was several days before the bomb-making team was overheard discussing the laptop device.

John Kelly, the US homeland security secretary, subsequently admitted that he had been sceptical about the ability of such a small bomb to bring down a plane. However, his staff developed and tested their own such device on a plane on the ground.

“We tested it, on a real airplane, on the ground, pressurised,” Mr Kelly, a former Marine general, said. “To say the least, it destroyed the airplane.”

Mr Trump’s conversation with Mr Lavrov and Mr Kislyak took place in May, on what seemed to be a routine visit to the White House. However, a transcript of the meeting was later leaked in which, it was claimed, Mr Trump had given away operational details while boasting about the quality of intelligence he received on Isis.

Given the direct involvement in Syria of the Russians, they would have had an interest in trying to work out who the Isis mole might be. Russia’s allies Syria and Iran would also be keen to know.

“Trump betrayed us,” an Israeli military official is quoted as saying. “And if we can’t trust him, then we’re going to have to do what is necessary on our own if our back is up against the wall with Iran.”

The Times