Mossad Stole Iran’s Nuclear Files And Smuggled Them Back To Israel In One Night
Graphic by Angelie Zaslavsky
(JTA) — Israel’s Mossad intelligence service broke into the anonymous Tehran building that housed Iran’s secret nuclear files and smuggled half a ton of documents and compact discs back to Israel the same night.
The New York Times in an article posted on its website Monday night quoted a senior Israeli official who spoke on condition of anonymity as saying that the Mossad discovered the warehouse in February 2016 and kept the building under surveillance since then.
Mossad operatives broke into the building in January, took the original documents, and returned to Israel the same night, the official told the Times.
In his nationally televised broadcast, first in English, on Monday night, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu described the hiding place of the documents. “This is where they kept the atomic archives,” Netanyahu said. “Now, from the outside, this was an innocent looking compound. It looks like a dilapidated warehouse. But from the inside, it contained Iran’s secret atomic archives locked in massive files,” he said.
On stage with Netanyahu were shelves of binders and a moveable wall of CDs.
“And here’s what we got. Fifty-five thousand pages. Another 55,000 files on 183 CDs. Everything you’re about to see, is an exact copy of the original Iranian material,” he said, adding: “You may want to know where are the originals? Well, I can say they’re now in a very safe place.”
Netanyahu said during his presentation that the information had been shared with the United States and that “the United States can vouch for its authenticity.”
President Donald Trump is set to decide by the middle of next month whether it will remain in the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, as the deal is known.
In a meeting with reporters shortly after Netanyahu’s presentation, Trump said that the disclosure “showed that I was 100% right” in criticizing the Iran nuclear deal. He declined to say what he would decide on the Iran nuclear deal.
“The United States is aware of the information just released by Israel and continues to examine it carefully,” the U.S. Press Secretary said in a statement.
This is a moment of great uncertainty. Here’s what you can do about it.
We hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, we’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s independent Jewish news this Passover. All donations are being matched by the Forward Board - up to $100,000.
This is a moment of great uncertainty for the news media, for the Jewish people, and for our sacred democracy. It is a time of confusion and declining trust in public institutions. An era in which we need humans to report facts, conduct investigations that hold power to account, tell stories that matter and share honest discourse on all that divides us.
With no paywall or subscriptions, the Forward is entirely supported by readers like you. Every dollar you give this Passover is invested in the future of the Forward — and telling the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
The Forward doesn’t rely on funding from institutions like governments or your local Jewish federation. There are thousands of readers like you who give us $18 or $36 or $100 each month or year.
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
