Israel’s former Mossad chief Yossi Cohen said he had drawn up plans to assassinate Iranian Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani, but the idea was abandoned over fears it would trigger a war with Tehran. Soleimani was later killed in a US drone strike in Iraq in 2020.
Speaking to Channel 12, Cohen said: “I always wanted to be proactive, identify threats, neutralize them. But the prevailing approach was avoidance—‘Oh, what will happen next?’ For example, I had a full plan to eliminate Qassem Soleimani in Syria. Everything was ready—intelligence, surveillance, logistics—but I was told I couldn’t carry it out because it would spark a war with Iran.”
During the interview, aired Saturday evening, he recalled then US President Donald Trump accusing Netanyahu of cowardice for backing out of the strike.
Cohen said Israeli reluctance “wasn’t because of the prime minister -- but because [Netanyahu] accepted the army and military intelligence’s position,” referring to then chief of staff Aviv Kohavi.
He recalled a security meeting in which he proposed that the IDF strike a site linked to Qassem Soleimani that the military had itself labeled a serious strategic threat, without giving a date. “The chief of staff opposed me, right there,” he said. “I told the prime minister: ‘Instruct him.’ But no directive was given.”
Cohen said Netanyahu sided with the generals, a stance he described as a “policy of consequences.”
Asked if the generals intimidated the premier, he said: “Absolutely.”
On June 13, Israel launched surprise attacks on Iran, killing many senior military leaders and nuclear experts, and triggering a 12-day war that brought destruction to both sides.
After Cohen’s remarks were aired Saturday evening, Kohavi issued a statement saying the IDF had opposed a different operation proposed by Cohen to kill Soleimani, and had backed what proved to be a successful operation.
Asked if Netanyahu might have acted differently in another environment, Cohen replied: “Yes, absolutely.”
Under Cohen's tenure, from 2016-2021, Operation House of Cards saw Israel target dozens of Iranian targets in Syria in 2018.
During his Saturday interview, Cohen said one of his major successes was acquiring Iran’s nuclear archive.
He said he devised the “exploding beepers” tactic used against Hezbollah last year, when pagers and walkie-talkies belonging to the Iran-backed group were rigged to detonate simultaneously, killing and wounding hundreds of its fighters across Lebanon.
“I’m the father of the concept," the long-time agent said. "In 2004, I told then-Mossad chief Meir Dagan I wanted a special operations center that would also handle equipment sales.”
