Information disasters shaking Korea

As the spy agency’s motto says, intelligence defines national competitiveness.

Chung Jae-hongThe author is an international, diplomatic, and security news editor of the JoongAng Ilbo. The assassination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh through a detonated explosive device shed fresh light on the capabilities of the Israeli intelligence service Mossad. Despite the grave consequences from committing terrorism in another state — Iran — and further destabilizing the Middle East by providing a cause for a tit-for-tat attack and jeopardizing ceasefire talks, the Israeli secret service for its part had successfully carried out its mission.

According to foreign media reports, Haniyeh had returned to his heavily-guarded guesthouse in Tehran on July 30 after attending the inauguration of Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian. Around 2 a.m. the following day, an AI-controlled explosive device planted in a room was detonated remotely, instantly killing the leader and his bodyguard. The bomb is suspected to have been stashed in the guesthouse in Tehran two months earlier.

How Israeli agents were able to sneak into the residence heavily guarded by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and keep the bomb hidden for weeks and how Mossad closely kept tabs on Haniyeh’s whereabouts underscore Mossad’s composite and precision intelligence capabilities — HUMINT (intelligence-gathering through human sources), SIGINT (intelligence gathering by signals and communication/weapons systems) and IMINT (image intelligence). Mossad Director David Barnea in January said the intelligence agency was “obliged” to track down the leaders of Hamas responsible for the Oct. 7 attacks in Israel. The assassination has bewildered the Iranian Revolutionary Guards who had been oblivious to the bomb’s existence until it went off.

The Mossad also had spearheaded the airstrike in Lebanon’s capital that killed Fuad Shukr, a top-ranking Hezbollah commander, just before it killed the Hamas leader. The “elimination strike” targeted a fortified residential building in a densely populated suburb in southern Beirut.

The Mossad shows a remarkable track record in covert operations. In 1960, it hunted down former Nazi leader Adolf Eichmann living in Argentina with a false identity and smuggled him to Israel to be tried and executed. It led the 1976 rescue operation for an Air France flight hijacked by Palestinian terrorists. The Mossad also led a covert operation in the 1950s and 1960s to support the Israeli nuclear weapons effort after France stopped supplying uranium fuel for the Dimona nuclear reactor.

South Korea’s intelligence service is amateurish compared to the Mossad. Sue Mi Terry — a former CIA employee and a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations — was indicted last month for working as an unreported secret agent for Korea’s National Intelligence Service (NIS). The Korean American was charged with frequently meeting with “handlers,” or Korean intelligence officers, who naively parked cars with diplomatic plates in front of the State Department to receive nonpublic documents from Terry and openly accompanied her to buy her luxury gifts. It makes us wonder if these officials had really received training as secret agents.

On July 30, a civilian employee at the Korea Defense Intelligence Command (KDIC) was arrested for delivering information on Korea’s undercover military agents operating overseas to the Chinese government. The Korean Chinese is suspected of handing over such sensitive information to the Chinese authorities. Agents in China, Russia and other parts of Asia had to stop their espionage activities and quickly return home.

They were ordered to eliminate their files and leave their homes and businesses behind to rush back to South Korea through a third country due to safety concerns. The disgrace of the KDIC spilled over amid conflicts between its commander and a brigadier general in charge of anti-North Korea espionage.

Korea’s loss of the Busan bid for 2030 World Expo last November also stems from an intelligence failure. Despite the all-out campaign led by President Yoon Suk Yeol and corporate leaders, the southern port city drew just 29 votes against 119 votes rallying behind Riyadh, Saudi Arabia’s capital. The Korean intelligence authority could have saved face for the president if it had accurately and timely briefed the president about Saudi’s lobbying edge from oil money.

These intelligence pratfalls suggest a deficiency in our country’s intelligence-gathering capacity and discipline in security. Hundreds of rank-and-file members of the NIS are replaced to meet the political tastes of the sitting power every time it changes. Because senior members are seated to cater political ideology, intelligence officers lack command, aptitude and expertise. Inept officers are stationed at the frontline to be easily exposed in advanced countries like the United States, where foreign agents come under watch 24/7.

Intelligence disasters should not be further tolerated. Misinformation during the tumultuous strategic contest between the United States and China can jeopardize Korea. The NIS should be free from political influence to regain respect from the public. As the spy agency’s motto says, intelligence defines national competitiveness.