Israeli internal security agency, 'Shin Bet' busts 250 terror plots in 5 months, informs the agency chief, Nadav Argaman

Jerusalem: Nadav Argaman, Chief of the Israeli security service Shin Bet, informed that the agency has busted a staggering 250 plots of attacks in the last five and a half months. The terrorist attacks thwarted by Shin Bet include suicide bombings, abductions, firing and lone wolf attacks, said Argaman. A balance between the work-efficiency of secret agents and cyber capabilities, enabled Shin Bet to thwart the plots on such a large scale, claimed Argaman.

Since the last two months, there are violent Palestinian protests being held near the Israeli border and the action by the Israeli military has resulted in the death of more than 129 protestors. The Israeli agencies have claimed that there were also terrorists among these protestors. While the violent protests at the border continue, information given by the Shin Bet Chief reveals that there are also efforts being made to carry out large scale terrorist attacks inside Israel.

The terrorist organisations like the Hamas, IS, Hezbollah, al-Qaeda and Islamic Jihad have consistently threatened to carry out terror attacks in Israel. It is believed that the US President Donald Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and the subsequent relocation of the US embassy has increased the intensity of the threats of these terror attacks. In spite of this, the terrorist organisations have not succeeded in carrying out any terror attack in Israel.

The terror attacks against Israel have been busted in the initial stages itself and efforts of the Israeli intelligence agency and Shin Bet, the internal security service, have largely contributed to this. This matter became clear from the information given by the Shin Bet Chief at the ‘Jerusalem International Conference on Terrorism’.

‘Shin Bet has succeeded in busting the possible terror attacks on Israel. These include suicide bombings, abductions and firing. Cyber technologies were widely used for this purpose. Shin Bet has been successful in striking a balance between the capabilities of its human secret agents and its cyber capabilities. In the last few years, Shin Bet has improved its capacity to fight terrorism with the use of technology and 25% of the agency’s workforce is equipped with this knowledge,’ said the Chief of Shin Bet, Nadav Argaman.

At this time, Argaman also presented the statistics of the terror attacks busted by Shin Bet. Shin Bet succeeded in busting 344 terror attacks in 2016. In 2017, more than 400 terror attacks were busted, which included 13 suicide attacks, clarified Argaman.

The Shin Bet Chief also claimed that the threats and related challenges are changing continuously and therefore several difficult fronts have to be tackled at the same time. He also pointed out that the proportion of the Lone Wolf attacks is on the rise in the West Bank and Israel.