The most recent relationship to be substantiated is the MOSSAD–Barzani connection.
MOSSAD is the State of Israel’s secret intelligence agency. Who would have believed it had previously been claimed that the organisation maintained relations with the Kurdish leader Mullah Mustafa Barzani?
Barzani’s relationship with the CIA has now been documented. No one can deny that it existed. Although the CIA–Barzani relationship was well known, the MOSSAD–Barzani relationship was not.
MOSSAD’s relations with Barzani are presented in the book Israel’s Secret Wars: A History of Israel’s Intelligence Services, published in London and Sydney.
The book was written by Ian Black, who had served as the Tel Aviv correspondent of the British newspaper The Guardian since 1984, and Benny Morris, a scholar at the Brookings Institution in Washington. The MOSSAD–Barzani relationship is described based on correspondence between the Israeli Foreign Ministry and MOSSAD. The foreword states that Israeli military officials also reviewed the book before publication.
The book records that MOSSAD established relations with “the Kurds” following the 1967 Arab-Israeli War (p. 327). It also notes that the renowned Egyptian journalist Mohamed Hassanein Heikal stated in 1971 that Israeli officers had established radio links from Iraq through the Kurds, and that Israel had also planned the March 1969 attack on the Kirkuk oilfields.
Following the Soviet-Iraqi Treaty of Friendship signed in 1972, and after the Shah of Iran held a secret meeting with US President Richard Nixon, the CIA transferred $16 million to Barzani’s Kurdistan Democratic Party over three years. During the years when Barzani rebelled against the Iraqi regime, the United States, Iran and Israel supported the uprising.
The Secretary of State Henry Kissinger managed Barzani’s relations with the United States. MOSSAD’s relations with Barzani were conducted through Israel’s military attaché in Tehran, Yaakov Nimrodi. The task undertaken by Nimrodi was particularly interesting: ensuring that Soviet weapons reached Barzani’s forces (pp. 328–329).
Citing US sources, the book states that MOSSAD provided the Kurds with $50,000 each month (p. 328).
Do these relationships dating from the 1970s continue today? According to the book, they do. The relationship was revived during the Gulf War, after Iraqi Scud missiles struck Tel Aviv (p. 521).
The relationship initially established with the father, Mullah Mustafa Barzani, now continues with his son, Masoud Barzani. MOSSAD maintains this support by handing Barzani cheques in European “cafés.” Masoud Barzani secretly travels to Israel to request assistance.
These relations continue, and it appears that they will continue further still. They will continue through both covert and overt channels. The interest is clear. So is the relationship.
We learn that Kurds also live in Israel from Birgit Ammann’s article titled “Kurdish Jews in Israel,” published in the book Kurds in Exile by the Berliner Institut (pp. 231–233).
The Middle East is a volatile environment in which multinational interests give rise to surprising “alliances.” The principal cause of the wars arising in this unstable environment is the region’s oil resources. For years, Western governments and oil companies have shaped—and sought to shape—the Middle East.
The determining force is the “petrodollar.” It is this petrodollar that turns peoples against one another.
If the Kurds are waging a war of independence against colonialism, what are the CIA and MOSSAD doing among them?
Or are the CIA and MOSSAD themselves fighting an anti-imperialist war, while the world remains unaware of it?
