Iranian General Abdullah Saberi's 2021 Kidnapping in Syria

Israeli intelligence officers kidnapped Gen. Abdullah Saberi in September 2021 from an upscale diplomatic quarter of Syria's capital, according to The New York Times. Saberi is an Iranian commander and a veteran of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, a military force in Iran.

The operation, as described in that account, relied on deception. The officers posed as movers and slipped past security checkpoints. Once inside, they restrained and drugged Saberi, placed an oversized refrigerator box over his head, and pushed him into a white van.

Saberi was then taken to Israel for interrogation. His interrogators questioned him about Ron Arad, an Israeli airman who vanished about four decades ago. The Israeli military says Arad is its only service member classified as missing in action, a military term for someone whose fate is unknown.