A radio frequency, encrypted messages and an unidentified transmitter were the only clues available when a Syrian military signals unit began tracking what would eventually lead it to Israeli spy Eli Cohen.

More than six decades later, retired Syrian officer Said Jawish has provided a detailed account of the operation, describing how Signal Company 134 followed the transmissions for three years before locating Cohen’s apartment in Damascus.

Jawish presented his account in a multipart interview with Saudi Arabia-based Al Majalla magazine. The first installments were published on Sept. 30 and Oct. 1.

Cohen lived in Syria under the identity Kamel Amin Thabet between 1962 and 1965. Posing as a wealthy Syrian businessman who had returned from abroad, he developed relationships with senior political and military figures and transmitted information to Israel.

Idea born from wartime radio signal Jawish said the operation had its origins in 1956, when he was teaching students at the Military Academy in Homs how to operate a Canadian radio set dating from World War II. During one lesson, he intercepted military call signs that he identified as Israeli.

The discovery prompted him to ask why the Syrian army was not systematically monitoring Israeli military communications. His initial proposal was dismissed by senior commanders, but Jawish continued seeking support.

An officer who had previously served in the Signal Corps eventually backed the plan, leading to Jawish’s formal assignment on Sept. 30, 1957. Jawish established an initial listening position at Na’ran in the Golan Heights, operating under a cover story intended to conceal the post’s real purpose.

After spending about a year monitoring and recording communications, he trained 44 noncommissioned officers in Israeli radio procedures.

Listening stations were subsequently established at Skoufia, Na’ran and Zaoura in the Golan Heights, as well as in Damascus.

Together, they formed Signal Company 134, which operated under the army’s Signal Corps rather than its intelligence services.

The company monitored Israeli military communications, radio broadcasts and news agencies. It also intercepted anonymous Morse-code transmissions composed of five-letter or five-number groups.

Although the unit could record the signals, Jawish said it could not break the Israeli encryption system.

Following unknown transmitter for 3 years The unit intercepted the first message later connected to Cohen in 1962, but investigators did not know the sender’s identity, location, or the contents of the transmission.

Each unknown transmitter was assigned a code, while its frequency and transmission dates were recorded.

Copies of intercepted messages were sent to one team attempting to decipher them and another using Soviet direction-finding equipment to locate their source.

Over three years, the search area was gradually narrowed from Damascus to a section of the Abu Rummaneh district and then to a single residential building. Investigators initially suspected a Syrian Airlines pilot of Greek origin who lived there.

His travel records appeared to correspond with interruptions in the transmissions: The signal was generally absent when he traveled and returned when he was in Damascus. Using a drug investigation as cover, Jawish and his team searched the pilot’s apartment.

They also searched the homes of a foreign officer attached to an international monitoring mission and a Turkish Embassy diplomat in the same building but found no radio equipment. The searches generated complaints and prompted Jawish’s commander to close the investigation. Rooftop antenna provides breakthrough Jawish nevertheless continued working on the case.

He returned to the building and inspected its roof, where he found an antenna that appeared to have been professionally installed and differed from the improvised aerials used by other residents.

A black coaxial cable led from the antenna to a fourth-floor apartmented under the name Kamel Amin Thabet.

The following morning, Jawish’s team returned at around 7 am, when the unknown operator was expected to transmit. When the signal began, Jawish cut the electricity to the apartment three times using an exterior circuit breaker. The three interruptions appeared in the unit’s recording, confirming that the transmission originated inside the apartment.

Fearing the interruption might alert the signal’s recipients and allow the operator to escape, Jawish and two colleagues forced their way inside. They found Cohen in a sparsely furnished room.

An initial search produced nothing, but Jawish noticed a dark object inside a wooden curtain pelmet above a window.

A Kodak film container concealed there held a small Morse key and a radio device.

According to Jawish, Cohen then disclosed that the equipment was a backup transmitter. The main transmitter was hidden inside a green leather-covered document case on a table.

Investigators also found frequency crystals, an emergency frequency, a notebook containing daily cipher information and objects resembling colored soap bars that contained explosive detonators.

Jawish said Cohen cooperated after the equipment was discovered and told investigators that he had initially encrypted messages using a French edition of The Three Musketeers as a codebook.

Cohen was subsequently prosecuted in Syria and executed in Damascus on May 18, 1965.

Al Majalla’s interview series is expected to provide further details about the interrogation, intercepted messages and wider counterintelligence operation in its remaining installments.