By Way of Deception

BY WAY OF DECEPTION 303came upon Libyan submarines. Normally, a sub would go "ding,ding, ding, ding," and go down. But these subs would steam backto port making their escape.The Israelis have a listening substation on Sicily, which they enjoythrough liaison with the Italians, who also have a listening stationthere. But it's not enough, because the Libyans, with their supportof the PLO and other subversive activities, endanger the Israelishoreline. Israel regards its shoreline as its "soft belly," the mostvulnerable border to attack, home to most of its population andindustry.A considerable amount of the arms and ammunition supplied tothe PLO comes via ship from Libya, much of it passing throughCyprus on the way — or going by what is called the TNT route:from Tripoli, Libya, to Tripoli, Lebanon. The Israelis were gatheringsome information about Libyan activities at the time through theCentral African Republic and Chad, which was engaged in seriousborder clashes with Kadhafi's forces.The Mossad had some "naval observers," usually civiliansrecruited through their stations in Europe simply to takephotographs while ships were entering the harbor. There was noreal danger involved, and it gave some visual indication of whatwas going on inside the harbors. But while they did catch armsshipments — more by luck than anything else — there was a clearneed to have access to specific in- formation about traffic comingin and out of Tripoli and Benghazi.At a meeting involving Mossad's PLO research department and thehead of the Tsomet branch dealing with France, the UnitedKingdom and Belgium, it was decided to try to recruit a harbortrafficcontroller, or someone else working in the harbormaster'soffice in Tripoli who would have access to more specificinformation on the names and whereabouts of ships. Though theMossad knew the names of the PLO ships, they did not knowwhere they were at any given time.If you want to sink or apprehend them, you have to find them.That's hard with a ship if you don't know its route or exactly whenit sailed. Many of them keep close to shore — the Mossad called it"shore scratching" — and avoid going