Tseʼelim 2 Incident, Israel, 1992

This page is subject to the extended confirmed restriction related to the Arab-Israeli conflict. Operation Bramble Bush (Hebrew: מבצע שיח אטד) was an Israeli plan to assassinate Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, in 1992. It was described in full in December 2003 by the Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth, but news reports had circulated about the plot since January 1999. The plan was conceived as retaliation for Iraqi Scud missile attacks during the Gulf War. Another motivation was the postwar revelation by UN inspectors that Iraq had been a few years away from potential nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons capability as well as the missile capability to hit Israel, and the fear that Hussein would continue trying to develop such capabilities. The plan was called off after five commandos were accidentally killed during the final rehearsal for the operation; the accident is known in Israel as the Tze'elim Bet disaster (אסון צאלים ב').