« Israel’s Mossad helped to disrupt 12 plots to commit terrorist acts against Israeli citizens in Turkey in the last two years, Israeli media reported on Saturday » says Ahval News.
Israel’s foreign intelligence agency, worked together with Turkey’s National Intelligence Organisation (MİT) to foil planned attacks by the Islamic State operatives who hoped to target Israeli tourists in the country. Israel’s Channel 12, the network that produced the report, did not cite any sources.
The report follows Turkish media coverage earlier this week of a foiled plot to assassinate an Israeli businessman through a joint Turkish-Israeli operation. The alleged assassination plan is said to be linked to Iran, which aimed to avenge the assassination of Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, an operation widely believed to have been conducted by the Mossad in 2020.
Tehran has also conducted kidnappings and has been linked to other attacks on Iranian dissidents on Turkish soil in the past.
Turkey has been signaling that it is ready to embrace a thaw in its relationship with Israel which has been cold for most of the last decade.
Israel’s President Isaac Herzog is expected to visit Turkey in mid-March, the first visit by an Israeli head of state since Ariel Sharon met with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in Ankara in 2007.
Ahval News, February 13, 2022