Inside Israel's Operation Rising Lion: How Mossad spec ops smuggled weapons into Iran and set up secret drone factory near the capital in years-long mission before commandos unleashed Trojan Horse attack
Israel launched a blistering assault on Iran overnight, striking 100 targets including Tehran's nuclear and military sites and killing senior military figures.
The strikes came as a shock to onlookers, who had predicted that a vague threat of kinetic action would be enough to gain leverage in talks over a new nuclear accord.
But with startling efficiency, Israeli intelligence is said to have gone behind enemy lines to disable Iranian defences, clearing the way for the Israeli Air Force (IAF).
'Operation Rising Lion' is said to have been 'years' in the making, the culmination of careful research and planning by the military, Mossad and Israel's defence industries.
Israeli security sources have now revealed how commandos infiltrated Iran with 'special weapons' to knock out Tehran's defences as jets flew overhead.
Elite soldiers allegedly smuggled in precision-guided weapons systems near Surface to Air Missile batteries to paralyse any Iranian response.
As some 200 fighter jets unleashed hell on the Natanz nuclear facility, pre-positioned weapons fired to disable Iran's protective shield.
Mossad had reportedly loaded cars with explosives across Iran, detonating to further hamper Iranian air defences.
And in a brazen stealth operation, Israeli intelligence was said to have set up a secret base of drones laden with explosives, tasked with striking defences near Tehran.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the overnight strikes had struck at the 'heart of Iran's nuclear enrichment programme'.
They also killed Iran's highest-ranking military officer, armed forces chief of staff Mohammad Bagheri, and the head of the powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Hossein Salami, Iranian media reported.
It appeared to be the most significant attack Iran has faced since its 1980s war with Iraq, and raises the prospect of an all-out war between the two bitter adversaries.
Netanyahu said strikes would 'continue as many days as it takes', and secondary strikes were reported in Shiraz, Kermanshah and Tabriz today.
Experts believe that Israel has the appetite and capacity for more strikes - and say 'what comes next may define the regional security order for years to come'.
How Israel paralysed Iranian defences
The operation, codenamed 'Rising Lion', was years in the making, a senior Israeli security source told Israel National News.
To bring it together, Israel's military - the IDF - worked closely with Mossad and Israel's defence industries to coordinate simultaneous strikes with the attacks on defence infrastructure.
Mossad commandos are understood to have worked behind enemy lines in central Iran to topple surface-to-air missile batteries threatening the Israeli strikes.
Video shared by the agency today showed what appeared to be special forces dressed entirely in black and equipped with night vision goggles in a remote, undisclosed location.
Israel's defence sector was said to have also offered advanced technologies to help carry out the sabotage missions.
Explosives concealed in civilian vehicles across Iran detonated overnight, degrading Iran's air defences as explosive drones targeted surface-to-surface defences.
The secret base of drones, set up in the centre of Iran, was able to cripple missile launchers at the extensive Esfajabad base near the capital.
Video shared by Mossad purported to show drones targeting vehicles inside the complex. One clip showed what appeared to be a drone closing in on what appeared to be a mobile launcher.
Footage shared later by the IAF was said to show aerial strikes on ballistic missiles 'aimed at the state of Israel' in Iran, location unknown. The military said it had carried out a large-scale strike against Iran's air defences, destroying 'dozens of radars and surface-to-air missile launchers'.
According to the IDF, the jets dropped more than 330 'various munitions' in the first wave.
Explosions were soon reported in cities including Tehran, Bandar Abbas and Kermanshah.
Supreme leader Ali Khamenei accused Israel of targeting residential areas. State media said residential buildings in Tehran were hit as well, killing a number of civilians including women and children.
Strikes also rocked the nuclear facilities in Natanz, Khondab and Khorramabad.
An Israeli military official said the strikes had achieved a great deal but assessments were continuing and Israel was prepared to keep the operation going for days. Among the targets were ballistic missiles pointed towards Israel, they added.
How Israel crippled Iran's nuclear infrastructure
Iran had long prepared for possible strikes on Natanz. It had cited the possibility of an air attack in its decision to shelter the site with some 22 metres of earth and 2.5 metres of concrete.
Another 12 metres of reinforced concrete shielded the facility from attack, though Israel had already proven the devastating effect of its 'bunker buster' bombs in Gaza and Lebanon.
In 2023, satellite imagery appeared to show a new construction underway to the south, which experts said would be so deep underground that US weapons likely could not reach it.
But the Israeli military said that its overnight strikes had penetrated through to the facility's underground uranium enrichment centrifuges.
'The underground area of the site was damaged. This area contains a multi-storey enrichment hall with centrifuges, electrical rooms and additional supporting infrastructure,' the military said in a statement.
'In addition, critical infrastructure enabling the site's continuous operation and the Iranian regime's ongoing efforts to obtain nuclear weapons were targeted,' it added.
Iran's Atomic Energy Organisation said Natanz had sustained damage but no casualties had been reported. The International Atomic Energy Agency said there was no increase in radiation levels at the Natanz nuclear site, citing information provided by Iranian authorities.
Darya Dolzikova, Senior Research Fellow at the Royal United Services Institute, assessed: 'Israel's attacks on Iran's nuclear programme do not look to have been simply a signalling exercise or as a way of generating additional leverage US-Iran negotiations.
'Their targeting of Iran's main enrichment facility and a number of senior Iranian scientists suggests an intent to inflict serious damage on the programme and to roll back Iran's ability to push towards weaponisation.
'It is too early to tell to what extent Israel may have succeeded in that.'
Notably, she said, Iran appears not to have targeted the main enrichment facility at Fordow - nor a number of other key facilities across the country. Fordow is believed to be built between 80 and 90 metres underground.
Israel did attack the Parachin military base, about 30km southeast of Tehran, which it also struck in October. The site had once held weapons-relevant research and may or may not have still be operational.
Dr Andreas Krieg, Associate Professor of Defence Studies at King's College London, told MailOnline: 'These strikes can set the nuclear program back years but will not ultimately destroy it.
'This is a very different scenario from Operation Opera when Israel destroyed an Iraqi reactor in 1981. The Iranian program is more resilient, and it will require the Israelis to keep striking targets continuously for days.
'Iran's air defences are all but destroyed and Israel has nearly complete control of the air, which makes these continuous sorties possible. The greatest concern for Israel will be the retaliation from Iran.'
How Israel toppled Iran's military leadership
Beyond hitting nuclear targets, the strikes also managed to cripple the Iranian military's top brass.
Strikes killed Iran's highest-ranking military officer, Mohammad Bagheri, and IRGC chief, Hossein Salami, according to Iranian media.
Iranian Supreme Leader Khamenei today named General Ahmad Vahidi as the new commander of the Revolutionary Guards, succeeding Salami.
Amichai Stein, a reporter for Israeli outlet i24 News, said that the majority of the senior leadership of the IRGC's air force had been killed at a meeting at an underground headquarters.
Iran's Revolutionary Guards confirmed today that its aerospace commander, Major General Amirali Hajizadeh, had also been killed in the strike on their command centre.
And the Tasnim news agency said six nuclear scientists were killed in the attacks.
To coordinate the assassinations, the IDF and Mossad reportedly worked together to gather intelligence on senior defence officials and nuclear scientists.
Matthew Savill, Director of Military Sciences at RUSI, said today that the breadth and scale of the strikes suggest the operation was intended not only to dissuade Iran from pursuing nuclear weapons, but to also cripple any potential military response - and potentially even destabilise the regime.
'Israel has once again demonstrated its considerable conventional military superiority, and the size of the force allegedly assembled for this series of attacks represents the overwhelming bulk of their longer-range strike aircraft,' he assessed.
'Emerging reports about more unconventional activity by Mossad are a reminder of Israel's expertise in covert operations, its penetration of the Iranian security establishment and its agility in planning ahead with imaginative operations which can be executed at short-notice.'
Savill suggested that Israel would struggle to keep up extended strikes over such a distance - but 'for now, they certainly have the capacity to go again'.
Will Iran now be able to mount a response?
Dr Burcu Ozcelik, Senior Research Fellow, Middle East Security, at the Royal United Services Institute, said the attack was unprecedented in scale.
'Pandora's box has been cast wide open with Israel's sweeping overnight air campaign against Iranian targets—an escalation that risks reshaping the strategic landscape of the Middle East.
'By targeting senior IRGC leadership and nuclear infrastructure deep inside Iranian territory, Israel has signalled a willingness to confront Tehran at a scale and depth previously unseen.'
'The sheer depth and precision of the strikes—reaching into the heart of Tehran and eliminating key figures such as IRGC chief Major General Hossein Salami—underscore the extent of Israeli intelligence penetration and the degraded state of Iran's air defence systems,' she said.
'For Tehran, this is not only a tactical loss but a profound strategic humiliation. The decapitation of senior command is expected to disrupt Iran's decision-making architecture at a critical moment, complicating (but not completely discounting) any coordinated retaliatory response.'
Iran promised a harsh response to a barrage that killed the heads of both its armed forces and the powerful Revolutionary Guards, and Israel said it was trying to intercept about 100 drones launched towards Israeli territory in retaliation.
Speaking to Iran's Fars news agency, an Iranian security source denied that Tehran had launched drones towards Israel, but added that retaliatory strikes 'will take place in the near future'.
But Iran's capability to mount an effective response is unclear.
'What comes next may define the regional security order for years to come,' Ozcelik concluded.
Markets responded quickly to the news, anticipating that a protracted conflict would affect Iran's ability to produce oil - a lifeline for its staggered economy.
Oil prices surged 12 percent while stocks sank on the Israeli strikes.
Matthew Ryan, Head of Market Strategy at global financial services firm Ebury, said: 'Thus far, at least, Israel has not directly targeted Iran's oil supply, which appears to be unaffected.
'The big fear for investors is that an escalation to the tensions will not only raise the risk of a prolonged conflict, but it could disrupt Iranian oil production.'
Experts had warned before the attack that strikes on oil facilities would risk hurting the cause of popular unrest against the regime within Iran, and neither Israel nor the US would benefit from directly punishing struggling civilians unsympathetic to the government.
The clashes come against the backdrop of ongoing nuclear talks between the United States and Iran.
Officials told NBC before the attack that Israel had become more serious about striking as Washington and Tehran edged towards a deal that Israel found unpalatable.
On Thursday, the UN's nuclear watchdog announced that Iran has failed to meet its nuclear non-proliferation obligations for the first time in 20 years, likely to agitate talks.
Iran had said in response it would open a new uranium enrichment facility 'in a secure location'.
Bracing for an attack, Tehran had warned that if talks do break down and 'a conflict is imposed upon us', they were prepared to target 'all US bases in the host countries'.
The overnight strikes were the first against Tehran since October 2024, when the Israeli Air Force carried out its largest attack on Iran since the Iran-Iraq War.
Military sites, a UAV factory and missile production facilities were all targeted in three successful waves of attacks, crippling the country's defense networks.
At the time, Israel avoided damaging Iranian oil infrastructure and nuclear facilities, targets then-US President Joe Biden had urged them to avoid.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that Israel acted alone in its strikes overnight.
U.S. President Donald Trump suggested that Iran had brought the attack on itself by resisting U.S. demands in talks to restrict its nuclear programme, and urged it to make a deal, 'with the next already planned attacks being even more brutal'.
Iran said in a statement that Israel's 'cowardly' attack showed why Iran had to insist on enrichment, nuclear technology and missile power.
Iran is a signatory to the global nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Israel is not, and is believed to have the Middle East's sole nuclear arsenal.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Times
31 minutes ago
- Times
Israel's strikes on Iran's nuclear sites are long overdue
Israel is only slightly larger in area than Wales, with a population more than three times as big. It would, therefore, take only a handful of relatively crude atom bombs, in the 50 kiloton range say, to destroy it as a functioning state. Given this degree of vulnerability, a surprise attack by Israel on Iran's nuclear sites was always a distinct possibility. For the United States and its European allies a nuclear-armed theocracy in Tehran would be a deeply damaging development; for Israel it would present an existential threat. Since the revolution of 1979 that brought it into being, the Islamic regime has consistently called for the destruction of the 'Zionist entity'. While Israel has reached some form of accommodation with most of its former enemies in the Arab world, Iran has remained its implacable foe, creating a web of terrorist proxies and hovering menacingly on the nuclear brink. Now, after years of warnings and actual, though limited, operations, the government of Binyamin Netanyahu has waded into the Rubicon. Israel's airstrikes on Iran were unprecedented in scale and scope, the initial wave involving two-thirds of its air force launching some 300 weapons against some 100 targets. How the Islamic regime reacts to this calculated affront to its authority could determine its fate. • How Israel attacked Iran: from masked men in the desert to devastation Israel's practical goals in launching the attacks are open to interpretation but the rightness of its cause is not. In their insatiable hunger for the destruction of the Jewish state, and by their unceasing efforts to attain the means for that destruction, the mullahs in Tehran and their henchmen in the notorious Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps have brought destruction upon themselves. No country can be expected to stand idly by while an avowed enemy works steadily, decade after decade, in secret to create the ultimate weapon. Israel's initial attacks have been too big to be symbolic, but on their own they may not be powerful enough to put to an end Iran's nuclear ambitions entirely. Israel's fighter fleet cannot carry the most effective deep-penetration munitions made by the Americans, and a shortage of tankers makes sustained long-range operations difficult. Mr Netanyahu may be hoping for any one of a number of outcomes. He may indeed be intent on destroying the bulk of Iran's nuclear weapons infrastructure, or he may regard the air campaign as an arm twister intended to force Tehran to once and for all renounce nuclear weapons at the negotiating table. Or he could hope to deal a potentially fatal blow to the Iranian leadership's prestige, further exposing its weakness following the hobbling by Israel of its warrior proxy in Lebanon, Hezbollah, and the fall of its principal Arab ally, the Assad regime in Syria. These latter developments have seriously weakened Iran's ability to strike at Israel and have provided Israel's prime minister and his hawkish administration with a window of opportunity in which to act. A showdown with Iran might also help unify a country increasingly divided by Mr Netanyahu's prosecution of the war in Gaza. Whatever the end state desired by Mr Netanyahu, and he cannot himself be sure, the argument for this action is beyond dispute. If Israel cripples Tehran's nuclear programme it will have performed a service for all law-abiding nations, just as it did when it attacked the nuclear facilities of Iraq and Syria. Before the attack, Iran announced that it would begin work on an additional uranium enrichment site not previously disclosed to UN inspectors seeking to enforce the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. A report just released by the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency shows how for decades Iran lied and deceived its way towards an atomic bomb. That this state sponsor of terrorism, with the blood of countless innocents on its hands, should become a nuclear power is as terrifying as it is abhorrent. In protecting itself Israel is protecting the world.
The Guardian
an hour ago
- The Guardian
Out of the shadows: drone-op claims show Israel's Mossad leaning in to its legend
Israelis were celebrating on Friday what many see as a stunning new success by their country's foreign intelligence service, the Mossad. Hours after launching 200 warplanes in a wave of strikes against Iran, Israeli officials released footage they said showed the Mossad agents deep inside Iran assembling missiles and explosive drones aimed at targets near Tehran. According to unnamed security officials who briefed Israeli media, similar precision weapons were launched from trucks smuggled into the country and a 'drone base' hidden somewhere near Tehran. This was established well in advance of Friday's attack and used to destroy Iran's air defences, the officials said. The Mossad, an abbreviation of the Institute for Intelligence and Special Operations in Hebrew, has scored many such victories in almost 80 years of undercover operations, earning a unique reputation for audacious espionage, technological innovation and ruthless violence. The new operation in Iran comes just 10 months after the service managed to sabotage thousands of pagers and walkie-talkies used by Hezbollah operatives in Lebanon, an attack that killed 37 people and injured about 3,000 others while crippling the militant Islamist organisation. The service then contributed to the air offensive that wiped out Hezbollah's leadership in a matter of days. Over decades, the Mossad has built up deep networks of informants, agents and logistics in Iran. This has allowed a series of operations including the assassination with a remote-controlled automatic machine gun of a top Iranian nuclear scientist travelling at speed in a car on a remote road, the infection with malware of computers running key parts of Iran's nuclear programme and the theft of an archive of nuclear documents. Last year, Ismail Haniyeh, the political leader of Hamas, was assassinated with a bomb placed in his favourite room in a government guesthouse in Tehran. 'This most recent operation is impressive, of course, but Iran has been an open book for Israeli intelligence for a decade or more,' said Yossi Melman, a veteran Israeli security reporter and author. Melman said those pictured setting up missile launches in the grainy videos released by the Mossad were likely to be Iranians. 'The boots on the ground inside Iran are not Israeli, so they have to be recruited, trained, equipped, and deployed. Then all the components of the weapons have to be smuggled in. It all needs a lot of professionalism and skill.' Unusually, Israeli officials have highlighted the role of Aman, the military intelligence service, in building up targeting information for the Israeli offensive. Though Aman and the Mossad often work closely, it is the foreign service, much smaller, that gets most of the attention. Even then, most of the Mossad's work is never known outside tightly restricted circles. For decades, few had even heard of the Mossad, which was formally established in 1949. Former agents were ordered not to tell even their family or their previous employment and the service never admitted its involvement in any operation. Yossi Alpher, who took part in some of the service's best-known operations in the 1970s, told the Guardian last year: 'Everything the Mossad did was quiet, no one knew. It was a totally different era. The Mossad was just not mentioned. When I joined, you had to know someone to be brought in. Now, there is a website.' The Mossad's senior officials have long been more likely to spend their time on sensitive diplomatic missions, briefing senior Israeli decision-makers on regional political dynamics or building relationships abroad than recruiting spies or running operations such as that targeting Iran this week. For decades, the Mossad oversaw years-long clandestine efforts to build up 'enemies of Israel's enemies', such as Kurds in Iran, Iraq and Syria, and Christians in what is now South Sudan. As with many of its efforts, this had mixed success. The Mossad is blamed by some for ignoring warnings about the reputation of Maronite Christian militia in Lebanon for brutality and ethnic hatred, and encouraging Israel's disastrous invasion of that country in 1982, in which thousands of civilians were killed. The Mossad also played a significant, though still little-known, role in the covert supply of arms to Ayatollah Khomeini's Iran to help fight Saddam Hussein's Iraq, as part of the Iran-Contra scandal during Ronald Reagan's presidency. The mythical reputation of the Mossad has been bolstered by films and TV series, with screenwriters attracted to some of the service's best-known exploits. One of the most famous is the 1960 capture in Argentina of Adolf Eichmann, a Nazi officer who was a key organiser of the Holocaust. Others include stealing warships from the French navy in 1969, warning of impending attack by Egypt and Syria in 1973 and providing key intelligence for the famous raid on Entebbe, Uganda, in 1976 that freed Jewish and Israeli passengers hijacked by Palestinian and German extremists. In 1980, the service set up and ran a diving resort on Sudan's Red Sea coast as a cover for the clandestine transport of thousands of members of Ethiopia's Jewish community to Israel. The Mossad spies lived among tourists before being forced to close down the operation after five years. After a deadly attack by Palestinian extremists on Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics in 1972, the Mossad led a campaign to disrupt the networks and groups responsible. The effort ended when a Mossad team shot dead a Moroccan waiter in Norway in the mistaken belief he was a Palestinian Liberation Organization security official, and then made further errors leading to their arrest and trial by local authorities. In 1997, an effort to kill Khaled Meshaal, a powerful Hamas leader, went badly wrong when the Mossad team was caught in Amman by local security forces. Israel was forced to hand over an antidote and relations with Jordan were badly damaged. In 2010, agents were caught on CCTV camera in Dubai during another assassination. Then there is the failure to learn anything that might have warned of the Hamas raids into southern Israel on 7 October that killed 1,200 Israelis, mostly civilians, and led to the abduction of 251. The attack prompted the Israeli offensive in Gaza, the current war with Hezbollah and, indirectly, the new confrontation with Iran. Former Mossad officials say the service only gets noticed when things go wrong. This is not quite true, though – as the release of the Iran videos shows. Melman said one of the Mossad's aims – particularly with the publicity – is to sow fear among Iranians. 'The aim is psychological. The Mossad is telling the Iranian regime: we know everything about you, we can wander into your home when we like, we are an omnipotent force,' said Melman. 'It's also a very good way to boost the morale of the Israeli public.'
The Independent
an hour ago
- The Independent
The Latest: Iran launches retaliatory strikes on Israel, killing at least 3 people
Iran launched retaliatory missile strikes on Israel into Saturday morning, killing at least three people and wounding dozens, after a series of blistering Israeli attacks on the heart of Iran's nuclear program and its armed forces. Israel's assault used warplanes, as well as drones smuggled into the country in advance, to assault key facilities and kill top generals and scientists. Israel said the barrage was necessary before Iran got any closer to building an atomic weapon, although experts and the U.S. government have assessed that Tehran was not actively working on such a weapon before the strikes. It also threw talks between the United States and Iran over an atomic accord into disarray days before the two sides were set to meet Sunday. ___ Woman dies in missile strike in Tel Aviv, hospital says A spokesperson for Beilinson Hospital in Tel Aviv said a woman was killed in an Iranian missile strike, bringing the total number of fatalities in the barrages from Iran to three. The hospital also treated seven people who were wounded in the strike early Saturday. Israel's Fire and Rescue Services said a projectile hit a building in the city. Israel's paramedic service says 2 people killed when missile hit central Israel Israel's paramedic service Magen David Adom says an Iranian missile struck near homes in central Israel early Saturday morning, killing two people and injuring 19 others. Israel's Fire and Rescue service said four homes were severely damaged. UN chief calls for escalation to stop, saying 'peace and diplomacy must prevail' UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres urged Israel and Iran to halt their attacks on one another, while calling for diplomacy. 'Israeli bombardment of Iranian nuclear sites. Iranian missile strikes in Tel Aviv. Enough escalation. Time to stop. Peace and diplomacy must prevail,' Guterres wrote on X on Saturday. Iranian media reports a fire at Tehran's airport Iran's semi-official Tasnim news agency is reporting a fire at Tehran's Mehrabad International Airport, posting a video on X of a column of smoke and orange flames rising from what the outlet said was the airport. A handful of minor injuries reported from second wave of Iranian missiles Ichilov hospital in Tel Aviv said it has treated seven people hurt by the second Iranian barrage; six had light injuries and the seventh was moderately wounded. Iran fires a second wave of missiles at Israel Sirens and the boom of explosions, possibly from Israeli interceptors, could be heard in the sky over Jerusalem and Tel Aviv early Saturday. AP journalists in Tel Aviv could see what appeared to be at least two Iranian missiles hit the ground, but there was no immediate word of casualties. The Israeli military said another long-range Iranian missile attack was taking place and urged civilians, already rattled by the first wave of projectiles, to head to shelter. Around three dozen people were wounded by that first wave. The Iranian outlet Nour News, which has close links with the paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, said a fresh wave was being launched. Iranian air defenses are firing against Israeli attacks The sound of explosions and Iranian air defense systems firing at targets was echoing across the center of the capital, Tehran, shortly after midnight on Saturday.
