NYT: Mossad allegedly abducted and killed General Asgari — Jerusalem Post
In Turkey, Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency allegedly abducted former Iranian Deputy Defense Minister Ali Reza Asgari, questioned him for weeks about the disappearance of Israeli military navigator Ron Arad, and later killed him. This is stated in a New York Times investigation, reported by the Jerusalem Post.
The investigation is based on interviews with dozens of Israeli, Iranian and U.S. officials, as well as people involved in the search for Arad. One of three former senior U.S. officials who told the NYT about the operation claimed that Asgari was interrogated aboard a ship and that his body was dumped into the Black Sea.
According to Asgari’s wife, he disappeared from a hotel in Istanbul in December 2006. Asgari was a general in the Quds Force of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, maintained contacts with Hezbollah leaders, and arrived in Lebanon shortly after Arad disappeared. Israel denied involvement in Asgari’s disappearance for many years. At the same time, according to a former U.S. official, during subsequent negotiations with the United States, Israeli representatives told the U.S. delegation that Asgari was dead.
Operation in Damascus
The NYT also described the September 2021 abduction of Iranian General Abdullah Saberi. Iranian officials close to Saberi and a Syrian source who viewed video of the abduction said that Israeli operatives disguised as porters passed through checkpoints in Damascus’s diplomatic quarter.
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According to their claims, the agents seized Saberi during a morning run, drugged him, covered his head with a refrigerator box, and drove him away in a white commercial van. Iranian sources said he was interrogated in Israel exclusively about Ron Arad, and after a lengthy interrogation was left on a street in Johannesburg, South Africa. Saberi later alleged torture.
The search for Ron Arad
Former Mossad director David Barnea said at the time that he had authorized the operation to obtain information about Arad, calling it bold but unsuccessful. After that, Mossad focused its search on the village of Nabi Shit in eastern Lebanon.
According to the NYT, Israeli intelligence assessments later changed. A 2006 review concluded that information about Arad’s possible transfer to Iran was based on unreliable information or analytical errors. Another review in 2016 found that Arad likely died in 1988 in the Nabi Shit area. In March 2026, the Israeli military opened a grave in the village cemetery while searching for his remains, but this yielded no results.
