I was looking at the satellite imagery coming out of the Mezzeh district in Damascus this morning, and it is just surgical. We are talking about a high-density urban environment, full of embassies and government buildings, and yet the kinetic impact was confined to a single floor of a specific building. The level of precision we are seeing in these intelligence operations lately is honestly staggering. It is not just about the hardware; it is about the entire intelligence-to-strike loop being compressed into almost real-time execution.
It really is. I am Herman Poppleberry, and you are right to start there, Corn. That March twelfth strike was a masterclass in what the defense community calls high-frequency targeted prevention. It was not an isolated event, either. It was a data point in a much larger, much more aggressive trend. Today's prompt from Daniel is about this very topic: Israel's policy of targeted assassinations, or as they call it in the official Hebrew terminology, Sikkul Memukad.
Daniel definitely knows how to pick the heavy hitters. We have seen a massive uptick in these operations over the last three months, especially with the tensions involving Iran and their regional proxies reaching a fever pitch here in early twenty twenty-six. It feels like we have moved away from the traditional shadow war, where things were denied or whispered about, into something much more overt, frequent, and strategically loud.
The shift is undeniable. If you look at the tempo of the last few weeks, it is breathless. We had the drone strike in southern Lebanon on March fourth that took out a top-tier Hezbollah commander, and then barely a week later, we have this aerial strike in Damascus targeting a senior Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps coordinator. This is no longer just about taking out individuals to settle scores; it is about systematically dismantling the command-and-control architecture of an entire regional network in real-time. It is a diagnostic approach to warfare.
It is a wild time to be following this, and honestly, a bit overwhelming given the speed of the news cycle. But before we get into the current tactical weeds, I think we need to define the terms for the listeners. Because when most people hear the word assassination, they think of a guy in a trench coat in a dark alley or a political rival being removed. But what we are seeing is a formalized, bureaucratic state policy. How does Israel actually frame this internally?
They use the term Sikkul Memukad, which translates literally to targeted prevention. It is a very deliberate choice of words that carries heavy legal and psychological weight. By using the word prevention, they are moving the goalposts away from the idea of punishment for past deeds. It is not about revenge for what someone did five years ago; it is about the prevention of future attacks. The core argument is that these individuals are not just soldiers; they are ticking time bombs. Neutralizing them is framed as a defensive necessity rather than a judicial penalty or a criminal execution.
So it is essentially a pre-emptive strike on a human target. It is treating a person like a mobile missile launcher. I know there are three main players involved in pulling the trigger on these operations, and the division of labor is pretty specific. You have the Mossad, spelled moh-SAHD, the Shin Bet, which is sheen-BET, and the Israel Defense Forces, or the IDF. How do they actually split the responsibilities?
It is generally divided by geography and the nature of the target. The Mossad is the foreign intelligence agency, so they handle the long-range operations on international soil—places like Damascus, Tehran, or even further afield. They are the ones who handled the logistics for that March twelfth strike we just mentioned. The Shin Bet is the internal security service. Their focus is primarily on the West Bank and Gaza, dealing with immediate threats closer to home. Then you have the IDF, which provides the kinetic muscle. That includes the Israeli Air Force and elite special forces units like Sayeret Matkal, pronounced sah-YEH-ret maht-KAHL. They are the ones actually executing the mission once the intelligence has been verified by the agencies.
It is a massive machine. And when you look at the sheer volume of these operations, it is clear this isn't a new hobby for them. I was reading some of the historical data you sent over. Investigative journalist Ronen Bergman wrote that definitive book, Rise and Kill First, back in twenty eighteen. At that time, he estimated at least two thousand seven hundred of these operations had been carried out since nineteen forty-eight. But given the intensity of the conflict from twenty twenty-three through now in twenty twenty-six, that number has to be significantly higher.
The estimates now put it well over three thousand. If you think about the scale of that, it is more than any other Western country has carried out in the post-World War Two era combined. But to understand why this became such a central pillar of their security doctrine, you have to go back to the beginning. This did not start with high-tech drones and satellite imagery. It started in the mid-fifties with much more primitive tools.
Right, the fedayeen infiltrators. This was nineteen fifty-six, and the first big one was Egyptian Colonel Mustafa Hafez. He was basically the architect of these cross-border raids into Israel that were causing a lot of civilian casualties at the time. And how did they get him? It wasn't a precision missile; it was a parcel bomb.
It was incredibly low-tech compared to today, but it set the precedent. The logic was simple: if the state cannot stop every single infiltrator at the border, it has to go after the people organizing the infiltration. It was about creating a deterrent and removing the specific expertise that made the attacks possible. Then, of course, you have the massive expansion of the policy after the nineteen seventy-two Munich Olympics massacre.
Operation Wrath of God. That is probably the most famous campaign in the history of intelligence. The Mossad spent years hunting down the members of the Black September organization across Europe and the Middle East. It was cinematic, but it was also incredibly controversial because of the risks of collateral damage and mistaken identity. You had the Lillehammer affair in nineteen seventy-three, where they accidentally killed an innocent Moroccan waiter in Norway because they thought he was Ali Hassan Salameh. That was a huge wake-up call regarding the limits of intelligence.
It was the turning point where targeted killing became a global tool of Israeli statecraft, but it also showed the world the messy reality of these operations. As the policy grew, so did the legal scrutiny, both domestically and internationally. This is where it gets really interesting from a policy perspective. Most countries try to keep these things in the shadows and never admit to them. Israel, however, eventually brought it before their own Supreme Court to create a legal framework.
Which is a very bold move for a security service. Most agencies would run for the hills if a judge started asking to see their kill lists or their decision-making process.
It happened in two thousand six. The case was brought by the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel. The court had to decide if these operations were legal under international law. They came back with a landmark ruling that basically said targeted killings are not inherently illegal, but they are subject to very strict, four-part criteria.
I remember this. It is essentially a legal test that the military has to pass for every strike. First, you need rock-solid, reliable intelligence that the person is an active combatant. You cannot just target someone because they are a member of a political group or have a bad resume; they have to be currently involved in planning or executing attacks.
Precisely. And the second part is that you can only use lethal force if there is no less harmful way to stop them. If you can arrest them safely, you have to arrest them. The third part is proportionality—making sure the civilian risk does not outweigh the military advantage. And the final part is a retrospective investigation. Every strike has to be reviewed after the fact to ensure those first three conditions were met. It is an attempt to bring the rule of law into the theater of war.
It sounds great on paper, but critics argue that the definition of an active combatant is way too broad in practice. They look at Article two, section four of the United Nations Charter and say this is a clear violation of state sovereignty and the right to life. They call them extrajudicial executions because there is no trial, no defense, and no jury.
And that is the core of the international controversy. Israel counters that by using what they call the Active Defense doctrine. They argue that under Article fifty-one of the United Nations Charter, every state has an inherent right to self-defense. If a commander in Damascus is actively directing a missile barrage that is going to land on Tel Aviv tomorrow, Israel argues that waiting for the missiles to launch before acting is a suicide pact. They view these targets as unlawful combatants who have forfeited their civilian protections by participating in hostilities.
It is a pragmatic approach to a really ugly reality. But as we have discussed before, Israel is not the only one doing this. The United States has been all over this since the early two thousands. We actually covered the technical side of the hardware they use back in episode thirteen forty-four, titled The Israeli Drone Model: From Secret Tech to Global Power. But the policy side in the United States is remarkably similar to the Israeli model.
The United States really ramped it up under the Bush, Obama, and Trump administrations. Think about the strike on Ayman al-Zawahiri in twenty twenty-two or Qasem Soleimani in twenty twenty. Those were high-profile, state-sanctioned targeted killings. The United States uses a different legal framework called the Authorization for Use of Military Force, but the logic is identical. If someone is a clear and present threat to national security and you cannot capture them, you neutralize them.
Even Russia does it, though they are much more cloak-and-dagger about it. They have the poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko in two thousand six and the Skripal incident in twenty eighteen. The difference there is that Russia officially denies it every single time. They want the benefit of the assassination—the removal of the target and the intimidation of others—without the accountability of the policy.
That is a key distinction. Israel and the United States have essentially normalized the idea of the targeted strike as a legitimate, if controversial, tool of counter-terrorism. Russia uses it more as a tool of political intimidation and shadow warfare. But what we are seeing in twenty twenty-six is a normalization of the tempo. It used to be a major news event if a high-ranking official was taken out. Now, it happens twice a week, and it is just another data point in the sky.
We actually talked about those data points in episode eleven seventeen, which was our situation report on the March twelfth Damascus event. It is becoming this highly synchronized, diagnostic experiment. But I want to go back to that March twelfth strike. This killed a senior Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps coordinator in the Mezzeh district. Why take that risk in such a sensitive area?
It is about the Iranian strategy of strategic depth. Iran has been using Damascus as a hub to coordinate their proxies in Lebanon and Syria for years. By hitting a coordinator in a high-profile area like Mezzeh, Israel is sending a message that no location is a safe haven. It follows the precedent set by the April twenty-four strike on the Iranian consulate in Damascus back in twenty twenty-four that killed General Mohammad Reza Zahedi. That strike was the one that triggered the massive direct missile attack from Iran.
Which was a massive escalation. It feels like the rules of engagement have been completely rewritten since then. Before twenty twenty-four, there was this unspoken agreement that you do not hit diplomatic facilities or top-tier generals directly unless you want a full-scale war. Now, it seems like those red lines are being tested every single day.
It is a high-stakes game of chicken. The current leadership in Israel—people like Mossad Director David Barnea, Shin Bet Director Ronen Bar, and IDF Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi—they seem to have calculated that the cost of inaction is higher than the cost of retaliation. They are betting that by taking out the architects of the proxy networks, they can degrade the threat faster than Iran can rebuild it. They are essentially trying to outpace the recruitment and training cycle of their adversaries.
But does it actually work in the long run? You kill one commander, and another one steps up. It is like that game at the arcade where you hit the mole with a hammer and two more pop up. Does this policy actually lead to stability, or is it just a way to manage the chaos while the underlying problems get worse?
That is the million-dollar question. If you look at the historical data, there is evidence that it can disrupt specific operations and demoralize organizations. When you take out a guy with twenty years of specialized knowledge in logistics or explosives, you cannot just replace that overnight. It creates a vacuum. But on the flip side, it can also radicalize the next generation and lead to these cycles of retaliation that we are seeing right now. It is a tactical success that often struggles to find a strategic conclusion.
I think the most interesting part for the average person following this is how transparent it has become. You do not have to be an intelligence officer to track this anymore. You can follow open-source intelligence accounts on social media that are posting geolocated footage of the strikes within minutes. We did a situation report on this back in episode eleven seventeen, and the speed of information is just incredible.
It really changes the diplomatic landscape. When a strike happens, the whole world knows about it instantly. This puts immense pressure on governments to respond. In the past, a state might have waited days or weeks to confirm a loss. Now, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has to acknowledge it almost immediately because the photos of the wreckage are already on Telegram and X.
So, what are the practical takeaways for our listeners? If you are seeing these headlines about targeted prevention or aerial strikes in Syria and Lebanon, what should you be looking for to make sense of it?
First, look at the seniority of the target. Taking out a tactical field commander is one thing, but when you see coordinators or generals being targeted, that indicates a shift in strategic intent. Second, watch the location. Strikes in urban centers or near diplomatic zones are high-risk, high-reward moves that signal a willingness to escalate. And third, pay attention to the official language. When the IDF or the Prime Minister's office acknowledges a strike, it is a move toward overt deterrence rather than shadow warfare.
It is basically a public declaration of capability. It is saying, we know where you are, we can reach you, and we are not afraid of the consequences. It is a very aggressive posture, but from their perspective, it is the only way to survive in a neighborhood where the threats are constant and existential.
And it is not just about the kinetic strike itself. It is about the intelligence failure that allowed the strike to happen. For every one of these operations to succeed, there has to be a massive breach in the target's security. Someone talked, someone's phone was hacked, or someone was followed. The psychological impact of knowing your inner circle is compromised is often more damaging than the loss of the individual commander. It sows deep paranoia.
That is a great point. It sows distrust within the entire organization. You start looking at your lieutenants and wondering which one of them is the reason there is a drone hovering over your house. It is a form of psychological warfare that is baked right into the kinetic operation.
We saw that play out after the twelve-day war in twenty twenty-five. There was all this internal sabotage within Iran's air defenses. We dug into that in episode seven thirty-eight, and it really highlights how these targeted operations are just the tip of the spear. There is a whole world of cyber-warfare and human intelligence working behind the scenes to make that one-minute aerial strike possible.
It is a multi-dimensional chess game. And while we can debate the legality and the ethics of it all day, the reality is that targeted prevention has become a permanent feature of modern conflict. It is not going away. If anything, as drone technology and artificial intelligence continue to advance, these strikes are going to become even more precise and even more frequent. We are moving toward a world where the individual is the primary unit of warfare.
I think you are right. We are entering an era where the individual is the battlefield. It is no longer just about capturing territory or moving front lines; it is about neutralizing the specific people who have the will and the skill to cause harm. It is a very different kind of war than the ones our grandfathers fought. It is cleaner in terms of collateral damage, but perhaps more terrifying in its implications for sovereignty and the rule of law.
It is definitely more personal. And probably more terrifying if you are on the wrong side of that list. I think we have covered a lot of ground here, from the parcel bombs of the fifties to the high-tech strikes of twenty twenty-six. It is a grim topic, but a necessary one to understand if you want to make sense of the headlines coming out of the Middle East right now.
It really is. The evolution of Sikkul Memukad is basically a history of modern Israel's security challenges. It reflects their transition from a struggling new state to a global technological powerhouse that is willing to project force far beyond its borders to ensure its survival. Whether it works in the long term remains the defining question of the region.
Well, I think that is a good place to wrap this one up. We have hit the history, the law, the agencies, and the current state of play. Herman, I hope you have enough espresso left to get through the rest of the open-source intelligence feeds today.
I will manage. There is always more research to do, and the feeds never really sleep.
That they do not. Big thanks to our producer, Hilbert Flumingtop, for keeping the wheels on this bus and making sure we don't wander too far off-topic. And a huge thank you to Modal for providing the GPU credits that power this show. We literally could not do this without them.
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