MOSSAD

Description:

Mossad, a shortening of the Hebrew name 'The Institute for Intelligence and Special Operations', is Israel's foreign intelligence service. Notorious for its conduct of assassinations, it has had its share of failure and success. In 1997 it attempted to assassinate a Jordanian based Hamas commander Khaled Mashal by pouring poison in his ear. Two of the Mossad operatives were captured after administering the poison and embarrassingly the head of Mossad was forced to fly to Jordan to hand over the antidote in person. More recently, in 2010 it allegedly killed Mahmoud al-Mabhouh a senior Hamas military commander in his hotel room in Dubai. According to the Dubai police he was drugged then suffocated with a pillow.

PRIMAL Assessment:

Don't judge Mossad on the occasional botched mission, for every operation gone wrong you can be sure there are a dozen that have been successful. It's also worth noting that occasionally an assassination credited to Mossad is actually conducted by military forces such as Sayeret Matkal or Shayetet 13.