Ali Mamlouk, Head of the Syria's National Security Directorate, is described as the intelligence’s Joker card, whose relations with international intelligence have served Bashar al-Assad's regime.
A description that corroborates the story of the watch of Israel's most famed spy Eli Cohen, which has been recovered by the Israeli government in July 2018 after 53 years since Cohen’s was caught and hanged in Damascus.
Zaman Al-Wasl got exclusive information from a Military Intelligence source, who said that the watch was kept at the External Security Division branch 236, in Damascus.
“The watch had been in The 236th Branch since the 1970s. The branch is one of the Secret Military Intelligence whose activities are concentrated outside Syria, thus keeping it outside media coverage over the past years.”
The watch, which the Egyptian-born Jew wore until the day he was captured in 1965, was kept in the branch archives, on the second floor in the penultimate room on the left side, and was stored in two boxes.
Branch 236 consists of two floors and a ground floor. Most of the training of security officers of the armed forces used to take place the training halls in the first floor, before the opening of the National Institute for Security Studies, while the second floor contains branch officers, archives, etc.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that the watch was recovered “in a special Mossad operation” in Syria, while Cohen’s wife said that the watch was purchased online. According to our source, both stories are false. “On April 22, 2018, Maj. Gen Mohamed Mahala, the Head of the Military Intelligence Division, paid a surprise visit to the Branch 236, going directly to the room where the watch was kept, later leaving the building with it. We learned then that he would be handing it to Maj. Gen Ali Mamlouk personally.”
According to the source, after the news that the watch was returned to Israel, old volunteers of branch 236 spread the information that the regime’s delegate to the UN, Bashar Jaafari, had a role in delivering the watch to Israel, but without any detailed information about the place and time of its delivery.
The Cohen watch is not the first deal between the regime and Israel, and will certainly not be the last. In fact, an Israeli tank, which the regime previously claimed was gifted to Russia, was also returned; as well as the remains of IDF soldier Zachary Baumel, who was killed in Sultan Yaqoub battle in 1982 and was buried in Yarmouk camp cemetary, which were handed to Israel through Russian mediation and not through an intelligence operation, as Israeli media claimed.
Masquerading as Kamal Amin Taabet, a fictitious Syrian businessman, Eli Cohen made multiple trips to Syria from 1962. He befriended influential political, business and military figures and become increasingly trusted, according to BBC.
The mystique of his story is such that it is oft-reported that he was even considered for the position of Syrian deputy defence minister, though this has not been backed up by evidence.
Zaman Al Wasl
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