assassination of a British family in the

ANONYMOUS, deadly and astonishingly effective – The Mossad is the world’s most feared official assassination unit.

Israel’s foreign intelligence agency, The Mossad’s prime mission is to seek out anyone or anything that threatens Israel – and DESTROY it.

Uniquely, The Mossad – Hebrew for “The Institute” – is said to have only 30 to 35 men working around the globe at any one time.

The majority of them will be former members of the Israeli military.

The main reason for this small number of active foreign agents is the significant and loyal cadre of the worldwide Jewish community beyond Israel – the sayanim, or “assistants”.

The Mossad has now become embroiled in the mysterious murders of British-Iraqi Saad al-Hilli, who along with his wife and mother-in-law and a passing cyclist were shot dead on a holiday in France last month.

Horrific

All four adults died in a blaze of automatic gunfire close to Lake Annecy which also left Mr al-Hilli’s eldest daughter Zainab, seven, with horrific head and shoulder injuries.

Her four-year-old sister, Zeena, survived by hiding under her mother’s corpse on the floor of the family’s bullet-riddled BMW.

Mr al-Hilli, an engineer who had worked on many sensitive projects, was a staunch opponent of Israel – even suggesting the nation had orchestrated the 9/11 attacks on the Twin Towers.

The Mossad’s No.1 enemy is the Arab world – which is largely hell-bent on eradicating Israel – but if the organisation did take out Mr al-Hilli and the other victims, it’s likely we’ll never know.

It is said that the first the world will know if The Mossad has been successful is after it has happened.

Here, we look at some of the organisation’s other blood-soaked missions.