Missing mobile bugs Mossad bosses

The ultra-secretive Mossad spy agency - credited as Israel's first line of defence against its enemies - has spent the last month locked in an unusual pursuit.

Mossad: only its logo can be disclosed

Highly trained Mossad operatives, more often on the hunt for Muslim extremists and Nazi war criminals, have been frantically looking for their boss' mobile phone.

Moshe Dagan, the retired general in charge of Mossad, became a victim himself though it is not known if it was by the hands of an opportunist criminal or shady operatives wanting to know the secrets of the spy network.

Mr Dagan apparently left his mobile phone in his car - only to find it missing when he came back.

Israeli police confirmed the theft took place last month in Tel Aviv.

Exposure risk

Media were banned from reporting the crime while efforts to recover the handset were ongoing.

But a month of investigations has failed to yield any information about the phone's whereabouts.

To be on the safer side, Mossad ordered the phone company to remotely erase the memory on Mr Dagan's phone.

"There were quite a few numbers of agents and secret service heads stored there. We did not want embarrassing exposure for them too," a source told the Reuters agency.