Khaled Mashal is a senior figure in Hamas’s political leadership who survived a 1997 MOSSAD assassination attempt in Amman, Jordan. The operation — in which Israeli agents sprayed Mashal with poison on a public street — failed, was politically catastrophic for Israel’s relationship with Jordan (which delivered the antidote in exchange for the release of Israeli operatives and Hamas leadership including Sheikh Ahmed Yassin), and is invoked by John Kiriakou as the canonical case of MOSSAD operations conducted in friendly third-country territory without regard for the diplomatic consequences.[1][2]
See also
- MOSSAD
- Hamas
- Mahmoud al-Mabhouh