A HIT GONE WRONG

By LISA BEYER/JERUSALEM

When the whole astonishing affair began, Khaled Meshal didn't even realize he'd been targeted. The Jordanian-based political chief of the radical Palestinian group Hamas was walking from his car to his office in Amman when two pedestrians passed close by. Meshal's driver and bodyguard, Mohammed Abu Saif, though, saw one of the men put some kind of device wrapped in cloth up to Meshal's head. And so Abu Saif jumped into the car, caught up to the two and fought them viciously until a passing police patrol arrested all three. The driver's story seemed so unlikely--Meshal appeared to be unharmed--that at first the episode was dismissed as a traffic squabble between Abu Saif and the two men, who claimed to be Canadian tourists out shopping.

But an hour later, Meshal began to feel ill. He checked into a hospital, vomiting, dizzy and with breathing problems that necessitated a respirator. When local doctors could not determine the cause of his trauma, Jordanian officials began to suspect what was in fact the truth: the two men weren't tourists at all, nor were they Canadians; they were agents of Israel's spy agency Mossad, dispatched to Amman to assassinate Meshal by contaminating him with a chemical agent, apparently in retaliation for suicide bombings in Jerusalem in July and September that had taken the lives of 21 Israelis.

The bungled hit has had consequences far beyond those envisioned by its planners. Relations between Israel and Jordan, the Jewish state's friendliest neighbor, were nearly severed by an enraged King Hussein. The U.S., similarly, was angered by Israel's foray just as Washington was delicately trying to restart negotiations with the Palestinians. What's more, the Israelis, to repair the damage they'd caused, were compelled not only to provide an antidote to save the life of the man they had meant to kill but also to release from one of their prisons Sheik Ahmed Yassin, the founder and spiritual leader of Hamas.

For Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu too the episode was a multiple fiasco. The Mossad operation failed. It jeopardized relations with Jordan. It strained ties with the U.S. Late last week Canada recalled its ambassador to Israel to protest the use of faked passports. And once again Netanyahu had fallen short of his pledge to provide Israelis with an answer to Hamas terrorism.

Yassin, 61, imprisoned since 1989, has served as a rallying symbol for Hamas, an Islamic movement that aims to destroy Israel. His failing health had prompted some Israeli officials in recent years to recommend his release for fear his death in custody would prompt even more Hamas-sponsored carnage. Others have worried that Yassin was too dangerous to go free. They had prevailed until the early hours of last Wednesday, when Yassin was transported secretly by ambulance from an Israeli prison hospital to an airstrip in Tel Aviv. From there a Jordanian royal helicopter flew him to the King Hussein Medical Center in Amman. At 4 a.m. the Israeli army, citing his poor health, announced that Yassin had been pardoned.

The groundwork for Yassin's release had begun the previous Friday, the day after the Mossad attack in Amman. According to an official privy to the proceedings, Hussein on Friday compelled the Israelis to acknowledge that the two Canadian passport holders were in fact Mossad agents. Asked whether Hussein threatened to cut off relations with Israel, with which he had made peace in 1994, a palace source replied, "It went beyond that."

The King insisted that the Israelis supply an antidote to the poison their hit men had inflicted on Meshal. Netanyahu complied, and an American doctor from the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., was summoned to treat Meshal, who was released from the hospital last Thursday. But Hussein remained outraged and by Saturday was refusing even to talk to the Israelis. On that day he telephoned President Clinton and asked him to intervene to resolve the crisis. Several U.S. officials scrambled to find a resolution, urging Netanyahu to do whatever was necessary to mollify the King.

As for Yassin's future, the charismatic leader said last week that he intended to return to his native Gaza Strip soon. Hamas officials insisted his pardon gave him that right. Yassin has moderated his public views during his incarceration, even calling for a halt in Hamas attacks. But, says an Israeli official, "I would expect that the type of things he'd say out of jail would be substantially different."

Despite the crisis with Jordan and Mossad's subsequent embarrassment, Netanyahu, says an official who dealt with him, was "the epitome of sangfroid" throughout the imbroglio. If the Prime Minister was unperturbed, it was because of his strong determination, which he has demonstrated from the beginning, to go his own way. That, however, is an increasingly lonely path.

--With reporting by Jamil Hamad/Jerusalem

With reporting by Jamil Hamad/Jerusalem