The covert pursuit of Ron Arad involved the 2006 abduction, torture, and killing of former Iranian deputy defense minister Alireza Asgari, whose body was dumped in the Black Sea. Similar operations continued in Damascus in 2021 with the abduction and torture of IRGC commander Abdullah Saberi, who was later abandoned in South Africa. Despite a joint Hezbollah-Iranian inquiry concluding Arad died around 1988, Israel carried out over 40 strikes on a cemetery in Nabi Chit, killing at least 41 people.
Key points
Israeli operatives conducted multiple overseas kidnappings and torture sessions targeting…: Israeli operatives conducted multiple overseas kidnappings and torture sessions targeting officials who ultimately possessed no information about Ron Arad.
Covert operations extended to Lebanese personnel, including the suspected December 2025 a…: Covert operations extended to Lebanese personnel, including the suspected December 2025 abduction of retired security officer Ahmad Shukr.
Decades of aggressive military and intelligence operations have failed to locate the rema…: Decades of aggressive military and intelligence operations have failed to locate the remains of the missing Israeli pilot.
Sources checked by our analysis pipeline: 1
Israel kidnapped two Iranian officials and killed one of them in a decades-long search for an Israeli pilot whose fighter jet crashed in Lebanon while bombing the country in 1986, The New York Times reported on Sunday.
Israeli pilot Ron Arad was bombing Lebanese villages in 1986 when one of his missiles malfunctioned, forcing him to eject from his fighter jet.
Since then, Israel has been on a mission to find out what happened to Arad, leaving a trail of death and destruction in its wake which has left more than 40 people dead and dozens more wounded.
The NYT said that the search for Arad was rooted in the "Jewish tradition" to bring its soldiers back to Israel.
In December 2006, Alireza Asgari, a former general in the Quds Force of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), became one of the first victims.
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Asgari, who had served as Iran's deputy defence minister, arrived in Istanbul, Turkey…
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