The Squirrel

Prior to the war, the Israeli intelligence service, Mossad, was actively recruiting spies who would not only pass on military secrets, but also the smallest details of everyday life in Egypt.

However, Egyptian intelligence was on the alert, and managed to foil several major Israeli spying operations.

The latest escapade to be revealed was described in Al-Ahram this week by Ibrahim Nafie, board chairman and chief editor. The operation, code-named Al-Sa'eqa, dates back to the beginning of 1972.

In a three-part series, Nafie recounted the story of a young Egyptian who agreed to sell his country for money. Yet the plot backfired: while Mossad thought Hisham Ali Mahgoub was providing them with valuable insights, Egyptian intelligence was using him to feed false information to the enemy.

Mahgoub, 31, was code-named "the Squirrel" by the Egyptian secret services. He was a ground control officer for the national airline, EgyptAir. His job entailed travelling regularly to London on business trips. He came from a middle class family.

The turning point in Mahgoub's life came when his father fell seriously ill, and he had to foot an enormous bill for medical treatment. On one of his journeys to London, he spoke to an Egyptian hotel manager about his problem. The manager, known as Raafat, was actually a Mossad agent. His job was to recruit new spies. Mahgoub was an easy target.

Raafat introduced Mahgoub to a Lebanese Christian businessman named Edward Kosher. Hearing of Mahgoub's problems, Kosher offered him a job representing a Belgian truck company in Egypt, with a monthly salary of $600 -- a very large sum of money at the time. In this way, Kosher was able to test Mahgoub's skill at gathering information, on land prices, the best locations for business, what kinds of trucks are used in Egypt, etc. Besides the money, Kosher also introduced his prey to the lavish London night life, taking him to posh clubs and expensive restaurants. Before long, Mahgoub was so in thrall to his new master, he was ready to do anything he asked.

The next time Mahgoub returned to London, Kosher took him to the Israeli Embassy on Palace Green Street. There, he confronted him, telling him that he now had no choice but to work for Israel. If he refused, Mossad had enough compromising material to denounce him to Egyptian intelligence.

Unbeknownst to Mahgoub and his Israeli contacts, however, Egyptian intelligence already knew all about him. They had been following him ever since he first spoke to Raafat. Now, they could finally go to work. Through Mahgoub's colleagues and friends, they "leaked" false information to him concerning Egypt's war preparations. Thus, he was informed of shortages in crucial spare parts for Soviet aircraft. He was also told that the Egyptian leadership was serious in announcing that army officers could travel to Saudi Arabia for the 'umra, or minor pilgrimage to Mecca. They hoped in this way to reassure Israel that Egypt had no intention of going to war in the near future.

On Saturday 6 October 1973, Mahgoub was walking in a downtown Cairo street, when to his stupefaction, he heard the first military communiqué announcing that Egyptian forces had crossed the Suez Canal.

Yet even after Egypt had won the war, Mahgoub was undeterred. He travelled to Israel, where he received advanced training, returning with a device hidden in a wooden bar to use when delivering more of his "hot" information. Egyptian intelligence, however, were able to disable this machine before he could use it.

Mahgoub then returned to Israel where he was given another device, this time hidden in a small refrigerator. It was then that Egyptian intelligence decided it was time to close the "squirrel's" file.

Mahgoub was arrested, tried and condemned to death. He died in prison before he could be executed. "But the reality," writes Nafie, "is that he had died a long time before that. He died when he first met the enemy with a dead heart and a dead conscience."