Legendary Israeli general: Time to take out Iran’s leadership
Tsuri Sagi, 90, trained Iran’s special forces under the shah and helped build the Kurdish military in northern Iraq.
Kurdish leader Mustafa Barzani and IDF officer Tsuri Sagi in Kurdistan, 1966.
Brig. Gen. (res.) Tsuri Sagi participated in the Israel Defense Forces’ reprisal raids in the mid-50s (under the direct command of Ariel Sharon and Rafael Eitan) and subsequently in every major Israeli campaign up to and including the 1982 First Lebanon War.
But his most adventurous exploits took place far from Israel’s borders. Sagi trained the Iranian special forces in the days of the shah and twice helped the Kurds in northern Iraq repel an Iraqi offensive, destroying two Iraqi divisions and annihilating one of its best brigades with strikingly inferior forces.
Military historian Uri Milstein called Sagi “one of those exceptional individuals in human history who can intellectualize the battlefield without any prior experience or training. Napoleon was one such individual.”
Sagi greeted me in his humble living room in Ramat Gan, where he shares an affectionate space with his wife, Tsipah. Sitting in an armchair with an Iraq-Iran map to his right, he said: “I built Iran’s defense system in the [southwestern] Khuzestan Province.”
Talking about today’s war on Israel’s borders, he said that Jerusalem needs to stop fearing the Islamic Republic and hit it where it hurts: Kharg Island, south of Khuzestan. “That’s all,” he added.
Kharg Island is a small island (12.3 square miles), situated 16 miles off the coast of Iran in the Persian Gulf. The island’s oil terminal accounts for more than 90% of Iran’s crude exports.
“All Israel has to do is send a few drones over the island. This will send the Iranians a clear message. If they don’t get it—escalate the situation. First mildly, then severely if we must. They will order their proxies to stop firing at us. We can hold them by the balls,” he said.
At 90, Sagi carries a fragile frame. He moves and talks slowly. But the spark in his eyes and the conviction in his speech suggest that not much has changed since he was a 14-year-old boy firing wildly at the Iraqi army that invaded Israel during its War of Independence.
He does not believe Iran seeks total war with Israel. He is also skeptical that the mullahs plan to use nuclear weapons against the Jewish state. But, he added, we thought we knew Hamas’s intentions in the south, “and look what happened. No one can make predictions in this madhouse.”
Moreover, Sagi continued, Iran with an atomic bomb would lead to a nuclear arms race in the Middle East and catastrophic consequences for Israel’s security. He urged Jerusalem to take every threat seriously to avoid a repeat of Oct. 7.
He said the Iranians, whom he knows well, “are difficult to trust. But the rulers of Iran are religious and very unpopular. Israel needs to assassinate their leaders and the regime will collapse.”
Besides, he added, “the Iranian people have loved us since the days of Xerxes. Every time anti-government protests erupt, the Americans sit on the side and do nothing. The Mossad and CIA should organize underground operations to take out the Iranian leaders—and the regime will fall.”
Independent character
Sagi was born in Herzliya in 1934 as Tsuri Sheinkin to parents from Eastern Europe. He remembers most of his childhood roaming in the open fields: floating atop laundry tubs in a nearby swamp, investigating a Roman tunnel by candlelight in search of bats, climbing on a hill to the north covered in cyclamen (rakafot in Hebrew).
Later on he moved with his family to Ein Vered, a moshav east of Netanya. There he grew strong working in the fields.
In the IDF, he changed his surname to a Hebrew one, as was the custom.
One story from Sagi’s early days illustrates his independent character. When he enlisted into the Paratroopers Brigade in 1952, he feared the unit’s strict “water discipline.” He knew he could withstand any physical demand, but his body required large amounts of water.
“I found a water well nearby and held on,” he recalled in his short Hebrew-language autobiography (“My Wars alongside the Kurds in Iraq and Other Stories,” 2017). “The others didn’t drink, and fell one after the other. … That’s when I understood I needed to act according to my own thinking. It’s true that the military decides, but first you do what you think is right.”
This theme would guide Sagi throughout his military career.
(The IDF has long since abandoned “water discipline,” the effort to accustom soldiers to great physical exertion on little water.)
After serving for two years as the commander of the fabled 890th Paratrooper Battalion, in July 1965 he traveled to Tehran on an IDF mission to train the Iranian special forces.
In those days, the Israelis and Iranians shared similar interests. The government of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi was a friend of the West. The Iranians, mostly Shi’ite ethnic Persians, were at odds with the Arab-Sunni world, which was at war with Israel. Egypt’s President Gamal Abdel Nasser led a campaign to rename the Persian Gulf the “Arabian Gulf” and claimed Khuzestan, a region in southwestern Iran, as an Arab province due to its Arab-Sunni majority.
Khuzestan is also the source of most of Iran’s oil.
The British first developed the oil fields in Khuzestan in 1909, via the Anglo-Persian Oil Company. The region became indispensable to Iran’s economy. The Iranians feared the pan-Arabism movement that sought to unify Arab countries, with Iraq the nearest threat to Khuzestan’s riches.
“I taught the Iranians tactics that my friends and I specialized in during the reprisal raids. The cadets learned numerous combat doctrines such as guerrilla raids, urban warfare, sabotage tactics and more,” Sagi recalled.
‘Bring me the Kurds’ commanders’
Then the Iranians asked Sagi if they could assist the Kurds in northern Iraq in their uprising against the Ba’ath government in Baghdad. Again, the interests converged. The Kurds sought autonomy. The Jews in Israel, who could relate to the cause of an oppressed minority, would benefit from Iraq—a sworn enemy—focusing its attention elsewhere. The Iranians had the same interest.
“I told them: Why should you? Bring me the Kurds’ commanders, I will analyze their situation, and I will train them,” Sagi related.
After receiving the green light from the Mossad, Sagi went to work. The problem was that his training methods were irrelevant to the Kurds’ needs. They could not wage a guerrilla war against the Iraqi military, equipped as it was with Soviet weapons including tanks and fighter jets. Six Iraqi brigades were waiting down the mountain slopes in Geli Ali Beg, 80 miles north of Erbil, for the snow to melt, in preparation for their advance on the Kurds.
The IDF battalion commander had to devise a plan from scratch. Local Kurdish commanders of the Peshmerga militia were brought to Tehran and each was assigned a defense position. Sagi knew they had no chance in direct combat with the Iraqi military, as the Peshmerga were vastly outnumbered and ill-equipped. He based his plan on the Kurds’ competent shooting capacity, using old Brno rifles (good for long-range aim) and the high mountainous terrain over which he spread the Peshmerga forces. A special attacking force of 1,000 men was to hide in two channels for an ambush.
After three months of preparations, Sagi felt it was time to carry out live drills. The shah refused permission. The Mossad agreed to bring the Kurd commanders to Israel, where they practiced live drills near Daliyat al-Karmel (a Druze town on Mount Carmel). They commanded puzzled IDF troops who were not let in on the secret.
Meir Amit, the head of the Mossad, asked Sagi if he would go to northern Iraq to assist the Kurds. Sagi welcomed the challenge and entered the war zone with Mossad agent Maki Evron, who spoke fluent Persian. With his mustache and dark tan, Sagi blended in naturally in the Kurdistan Region. He met with Mustafa Barzani (1903-1979), also known as Mullah Mustafa, the leader of the Kurds and a national hero.
Sagi recalled that Barzani could not understand the plan. Although the Kurdish leader knew every ravine and every bulge in the region, he could not read a map.
“We would meet every day in my tent in Kurdistan. Before entry, the commanders would leave their shoes outside. So I gave each commander a shoe, which represented a mountain. After my ‘shoe briefing,’ they had to take their shoes with them until next time, … and that’s how my plan slowly won over Barzani—with shoes!” Sagi said.
The First Iraqi-Kurdish War
In May 1966, the Iraqis launched their offensive.
Several days of intense fighting ensued, and the Kurds’ defense positions began to collapse. An ammunition convoy from Iran took the wrong route and never arrived. Things looked grim. Sagi received an order from Israel to return home.
He responded: “’Me? The 890th Battalion commander fleeing the battlefield? No way!’
“I decided to at least exact a heavy price from the Iraqis before leaving. I asked Maki: ‘Which is the best Iraqi brigade?’ He told me: ‘The 4th Brigade.’
“So I planned to trap this brigade on Mount Handrin. I ordered a Kurdish battalion to retreat four kilometers into the mountains. It was not easy to persuade these proud fighters to retreat … but in the end, they obliged. My attacking force of 1,000 men hid in two sideway channels. The Iraqi brigade took the bait and charged forward. It was hit on all sides. In one hour, the 4th Brigade was gone.”
According to several accounts, 3,000 Iraqi soldiers died in the May 1966 Battle of Mount Handrin. The Iraqis, who at first did not realize what had happened, sent two more brigades into the ambush zone. They suffered heavy blows and retreated.
Sagi told Barzani of the latest development and proposed taking 2,000 Kurdish fighters up to Mount Korek to encircle the Iraqi forces. The Kurdish leader agreed, and the Iraqis came forth with white flags, willing to negotiate.
“Barzani asked me: ‘Should I declare independence?’ I told him I was only a battalion commander and could not advise on such matters. When an Israeli delegation arrived in Tehran for the talks, they reprimanded me: ‘Who do you think you are—Ben Gurion?’” Sagi said with a coy smile.
Before Sagi returned to Israel, Barzani thanked him and said: “‘You are like a son to me.’ I replied: ‘If you need me, just say and I’ll come.’”
The Second Iraqi–Kurdish War
In 1974, Barzani called again for Sagi. Iraq set out once more to conquer the Kurdish lands and the Kurds were in trouble. This time, however, the Peshmerga were better trained and better equipped. The IDF and the Mossad trained them for eight years and the militia’s manpower grew significantly. But it was still inferior to the Iraqi military.
Under Sagi’s guidance and careful planning, the Kurds repelled four Iraqi attack waves and inflicted heavy losses on the two Iraqi divisions, including the killing of top generals. The fighting ended in the wintertime, the snow casting a cold breath on the hot battlefields.
South Sinai
Milstein said that Sagi was the type of commander who “could read war with precision, managing it to an optimal degree. [He] deserved to be a major general and chief of the General Staff, but Israel and the IDF wasted his talent, because of his modesty and honesty and because of his opposition to the 1982 Lebanon War, an initiative of [Defense Minister] Sharon and Raful [IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Rafael Eitan].”
In his autobiography, Sagi remarked: “Unlike in the IDF, in Kurdistan I felt complete independence to do what I thought was right.”
In 1977, Sagi was ready to leave the military, which gave him more freedom to do as he saw fit. He was stationed as a commander in South Sinai, in Sharm el-Sheikh (Israel controlled the entire Sinai Peninsula from 1967 to 1982). Eitan was Israel’s top general, and following the failures of the IDF in the Yom Kippur War, Sagi suspected that he would set a trap for him.
“I formed four 81 mm mortar platoons with female soldiers who were deployed in the base. One of my officers trained them. I asked for ammunition and fortification materials, but was refused. So I took the ammo from the emergency warehouses. I organized a company of tankmen and drilled them with live shells that were also taken from the emergency warehouses,” Sagi said.
“The principles that guided me were reason and need, even if those deviated from the bureaucratic rules of the IDF,” he explained.
“When Raful arrived, he said: ‘You’re under attack, what do you do?’ I answered: ‘Let’s sound the siren.’
“All the soldiers ran to their positions. The gals immediately hit the supposed enemy territory with 95 mortar shells. Raful and the accompanying General Staff generals were stunned. Troops positioned in fortifications fired away and a tank company charged for the counterattack. When the drill was over, I unraveled my preparation methods. Raful asked: ‘What do you need?’ I replied: ‘A late approval of all the ammunition I took without permission.’”
Eitan gave him the approval and sent IDF officers from all over the country to learn how Sagi built his defense plans in Sharm el-Sheikh.
Dr. Shaul Webber, who co-authored Sagi’s autobiography, wrote in the epilogue that what he had learned from the protagonist was that “one can climb the IDF ranks and remain an individualist who thinks and acts outside the box, while staying true to one’s principles.”
When I asked Sagi about his relationship with the Kurds, he said he missed them greatly.
“They are my friends. I would love to visit them even today. But Israel won’t let me. They say it is too dangerous for me.”
1 comment:
Some very smart guy once said that you should never do your enemy a small hurt. It just makes them irritated. Either leave them alone or take them out.
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