Mossad Kidnapped Iranian Generals in Search for Missing Navigator Ron Arad

The Israeli Mossad intelligence agency kidnapped two senior Iranian generals over the years in its efforts to locate the fate of missing navigator Ron Arad, according to a report in The New York Times. One general was eventually released, while the other died.

Abdullah Sabri was reportedly abducted in Damascus, Syria, in 2021 inside a refrigerator box. He was interrogated for weeks and later released in Johannesburg, South Africa. The second general, Ali-Reza Askari, disappeared in Istanbul, Turkey, in 2006. Former senior U.S. officials cited in the report stated that Askari was interrogated for weeks aboard a yacht, ultimately died, and his body was thrown into the Black Sea, never to be recovered.

Despite extensive efforts, the prevailing assessment among Israeli security officials today is that Ron Arad was never held in Iran, and that Iran and Hezbollah were not involved in his disappearance. Sources involved in the case over the years describe repeated intelligence errors, including confirmation bias and "collective blindness," that led investigators down the wrong path. Iran allegedly provided Germany with a secret joint report with Hezbollah stating Arad died in 1988 in or near the village of Nabi Sheet in southern Lebanon, but Israel did not find the report credible.

Israeli search efforts are currently focused on Lebanon. In December 2025, Ahmed Shokr, a retired Lebanese security officer involved in guarding Arad during his captivity, disappeared, with Lebanese suspicions pointing to Israeli involvement. The central hypothesis in Israel is that Arad was executed in revenge for the 1988 death of Shokr's brother. In March 2026, the IDF raided Nabi Sheet village and excavated the area in an attempt to find Arad's remains, apparently without success.

Ron Arad was captured by the Amal organization in Lebanon in October 1986 after his plane was shot down. Israel has spent decades trying to determine his fate and bring him home for burial. The recent publication highlights that these efforts included unusual and dangerous Mossad operations that did not yield the desired results.