A thorough study of the jet in the course of over 100 hours of flight testing within a 12-month period — and intelligence debriefing of Redfa — provided Israel with plenty of valuable data on the fighter’s capabilities.

On Aug. 16, 1966, Operation Diamond resulted in what is usually described as the “defection” to Israel of an Iraqi air force MiG-21-pilot, Capt. One of those Iraqi pilots, Hamid Dhahee, was reportedly shot to death in a Texas bar, in June 1965, after apparently refusing the defection proposal offered by one of the agents. Promised a new life and $1 million by the Mossad, he took his family’s fate into his own hands and made the flight to freedom.

An alternative account points to Redfa’s appointment as commanding officer of his squadron and the fact he was trusted to attend a training course at Randolph, where the possibility of defection was real. The story of how the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad brought this Iraqi jet back to Israel is an extraordinary one, the result of an intelligence coup that could itself have been lifted straight from a Bond movie. His codename was “Yusuf,” and he was an — allegedly — illiterate Iraqi Jew who would play a central role in the story. Redfa defected in 1966 in "Operation Diamond", flying a MiG-21 of the Iraqi Air Force to Israel. While an aircraft painted to resemble the ex-Iraqi MiG-21 is now on display at the Israeli Air Force Museum in Hatzerim, very few details about the subsequent life of its pilot, Munir Redfa are available. Redfa also had a family connection to the agent Yusuf, being married to his girlfriend’s sister. © document.write(new Date().getFullYear()) Acton Media Inc. All Rights Reserved. The MiG-21 fighter was evaluated by the Israeli Air Force and was later loaned to the United States for testing and intelligence analysis. Pilots Provide Fascinating Commentary On Video Of America's Secret Red Eagles MiG Squadron. According to Israeli accounts, Redfa was the most suitable candidate for Operation Diamond as he had been passed over for promotion in the past and was unhappy at having to fly combat missions against the Iraqi Kurds, another marginalized ethnic group in the country. [1] Redfa's defection was the subject of the movie Steal the Sky. He and his family shortly thereafter moved to another western country. That's because I was busy preparing for QEDCon, where I will be on a panel and giving a talk, and, of course, putting together my talk. [1], In 1966, Israeli Intelligence Convinced an Iraqi Pilot to Defect with His MiG-21 Fighter, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Munir_Redfa&oldid=985335725, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License, This page was last edited on 25 October 2020, at 10:45. Munir Redfa. At some point the Fishbed received outsized Syrian Arab Air Force markings, apparently to increase the level of realism for the dissimilar air combat training sessions staged for Israeli Air Force pilots. When touching down in Israel, the jet still wore its Iraqi Air Force markings and carried the Arabic serial number “534” on its nose. Redfa was an Assyrian, adherent of the Chaldean Catholic Church. The British Royal Navy veteran also took on many memorable roles in war and action movies including The Longest Day, A Bridge Too Far, The Hunt for Red October, and The Rock. A MiG-21F-13 painted up as the famous “007.” This particular aircraft was acquired from Indonesian stocks. Redfa and the American woman went back to Europe and from there to Iraq. At the controls was an Iraqi defector, Munir Redfa. The pilot in question, Captain Mohammad Abbas Helmy, emigrated to South America, where he was assassinated soon after, according to the account provided in Arab MiGs — Volume 2, by Tom Cooper and David Nicolle. According to Steve Davies’ account in Red Eagles: America’s Secret MiGs, Israel agreed to the transfer only on the condition that the United States would sell it F-4 Phantom II fighter jets in return. The IAF’s Twitter post is certainly the most eye-catching, however. Among those acknowledgments of Connery’s passing was an intriguing photo posted on the Israeli Air Force’s Twitter feed, which showed the late actor posing alongside a MiG-21 with the number “007” painted on the side, a reference to the fictional British super-spy James Bond, who the movie star had played in multiple films. From at least as early as 1960, Israel launched efforts to encourage Arab military pilots to defect with their aircraft, in order to fully analyze their capabilities. RIP.”. [1] Redfa's defection was the subject of the movie Steal the Sky (1988). Once in Israeli airspace, he was met by a pair of Israeli Air Force Mirage IIICJ fighters, which escorted him into Hatzor. This Presentation On America's Secret MiG Squadron By The Man Who Built It Is Incredible. ru:Редфа, Мунир He turned west, passing over Jordan at a high level, putting his MiG-21 beyond the reach of Royal Jordanian Air Force Hawker Hunter jet fighters that were reportedly sent to intercept him. Technology, performance and design delivered to your inbox. Israel did get its hands on a defecting Egyptian aircraft in 1964, but the piston-engined Yakovlev Yak-11 Moose trainer, which first entered Soviet service in the immediate aftermath of World War II. The reality was much more complex and left a bloody trail of destruction in its wake. Career In what is considered as one of the Mossad"s most successful operations, Redfa"s entire extended family was smuggled safely out of Iraq to Israel. Captain Munir Redfa (Arabic: منير ردفا‎, Syriac: ܡܘܢܝܪ ܪܕܦܐ‎), born Munir Habib Jamil Rufa (Arabic: منير حبيب جميل روفا‎, Syriac: ܡܘܢܝܪ ܚܒܝܒ ܓܡܝܠ ܪܘܦܐ‎‎) (1934 – c. 1998[1]) was an Iraqi fighter pilot. For more than a decade, the unit flew enemy aircraft against America's best fighters from a secretive and desolate base near Tonopah, Nevada. tr:Münir Redfa, People of the Central Intelligence Agency, Persondata templates without short description parameter, http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3405913,00.html, https://covert-history.wikia.org/wiki/Munir_Redfa?oldid=11367. Redfa died of a heart attack around 1998. Template:Expand Arabic Munir Redfa (Template:Lang-ar, born Munir Habib Jamil Rufa (Template:Lang-ar) (1934 – circa 1998)) was an Iraqi fighter pilot, of Assyrian ethnic origin, who defected in 1966 by flying a MiG-21 of the Iraqi Air Force to Israel. USAF Mini-Documentary Takes You Behind The Scenes Of Its Top Secret Cold War MiG Squadron. As well as providing intelligence to the Israeli Air Force, the ex-Iraqi MiG-21 also took part in the Have Doughnut program in the United States, for which Israel loaned the jet for use by the Air Force Systems Command’s Foreign Technology Division. Whatever the truth of the matter, confronted by the evidence of his affair, a generous financial incentive, offer of Israeli citizenship, and with two of his colleagues apparently already assassinated, it seems that Redfa saw little option but to defect. Repainted in high-visibility Israeli markings, it was armed with Israeli-made Shafrir air-to-air missiles. Redfa… Seeing, two of his colleagues dead, he agreed to defect. After Mossad had helped his family members’ safe evacuation to Iran, to avoid possible recriminations from the Iraqi authorities, Redfa broke off from a routine navigation training mission from Habbaniyah Air Base, west of Baghdad, on August 16, 1966. The agency’s plan reportedly involved deploying female agents to lure the Iraqi pilots in a classic “honeytrap” operation. Munir Redfa (Template:Lang-ar, born Munir Habib Jamil Rufa (Template:Lang-ar) (1934 – circa 1998[1])) was an Iraqi fighter pilot, of Assyrian ethnic origin, who defected in 1966 by flying a MiG-21 of the Iraqi Air Force to Israel. “In 1967,” the accompanying text read, “Connery visited Israel and took this historic picture with then IAF Commander Maj. Gen. Moti Hod with the background of an Iraqi MiG-21, numbered ‘007’ after Bond. ... Munir Redfa are available. How the top-secret unit came to be is so outlandish that it sounds like fiction, but as this first-hand account details, it was anything but. Knowledge obtained from analysis of the aircraft was instrumental to the successes achieved by the Israeli Air Force in its future encounters with Arab MiG-21s. The “007” jet was active in the United States between January and April 1968, completing 102 flights and 77 flying hours, operating over Groom Lake, Nevada, using the designation YF-110. Munir Redfa was an Iraqi fighter pilot of Assyrian ethnic origin who defected in 1966 by flying a MiG-21 of the Iraqi Air Force to Israel.

If true, this seems like an extraordinary risk to have taken, should the Iraqi authorities have found out once he returned to his country. Ephraim Kahana contends that the relationship between Redfa and the female Mossad agent was set up in Europe, where the two holidayed together in July 1966. Like many other Assyrians, his family fled to Iraq as part of the Christian migration from southeast Turkey and the northwestern mountains of Iran following the Assyrian Genocide. In what is considered as one of the Mossad's most successful operations, Redfa's entire extended family was smuggled safely out of Iraq to Israel. According to Iraqi Air Force accounts, this pilot was assassinated after making excessive financial demands in exchange for his defection. That the country was happy to at least reference the cloak-and-dagger approach to securing the jet is made clear by the application of the “007” serial number sometime before Connery’s November 1967 visit to Israel. Sean Connery died in his sleep on October 31, 2020, after a period of illness. Redfa was then flown to meet Major General Mordechai “Mottie” Hod, the commander of the IAF to discuss the strategy and flight path. In this account, the agent encouraged Redfa to fly with him to Israel, where he was “given VIP treatment” and offered citizenship and a reward of $1 million. With a storied past, 116 Squadron becomes the second combat-coded “Adir” unit in the Israeli Air Force. The death of the actor Sean Connery at the age of 90 this weekend saw accolades from across the worlds of cinema, celebrity, politics, and more. In what is considered as one of the Mossad's most successful operations Redfa's entire extended family was smuggled safely out of Iraq to Israel. The death of the actor Sean Connery at the age of 90 this weekend saw accolades from across the worlds of cinema, celebrity, politics, and more.