Israel established a network of Iranian dissidents and non-Iranian recruits over the course of years for its assassinations of senior officials in a June war and total destruction of Iran’s anti-aircraft defenses, according to a ProPublica investigation.
The Israeli air force conducted reconnaissance flights inside Iran in advance of the conflict to ensure the eventual safe penetration of its airspace and identify weaknesses in Iranian air defense systems, the report said.
“Israeli pilots had been secretly flying over Iran since 2016, learning the landscape and exploring various routes to minimize the chances of detection,” ProPublica reported.
Israel launched a surprise military campaign on June 13 targeting military and nuclear sites, assassinating senior Iranian commanders and killing hundreds of civilians. In response, Iranian missile strikes killed 29 Israeli civilians.
The espionage operation involved a vast network of local recruits who were activated on the second day of the war, June 14, to launch coordinated attacks to disable air defenses and missile launchers.
“One hundred percent of the anti-aircraft batteries marked for the Mossad by the air force were destroyed,” ProPublica cited a source as saying. “Most were near Tehran, in areas where the Israeli air force had not previously operated.”
According to the report, Israeli-trained commandos recruited from Iran and neighboring countries were deployed across the country to carry out the attacks from within. Israeli intelligence used front companies to ship the necessary equipment into Iran legally, it added.
“According to Israeli planners, they arranged for unwitting truck drivers to smuggle tons of ‘metallic equipment’, parts for weapons used by the commando teams into Iran,” the report said.
After the surprise military campaign, Iranian media reported on several attack drone assembly production sites inside Iran set up by Israel.
Sources told ProPublica that the agents who carried out the sabotage, breaking into safes, setting up machine guns, disabling air defenses, and monitoring the homes of nuclear scientists, were not Israelis, but Iranians or citizens of third countries.
Intelligence gathering and targeting scientists
Israeli operatives also conducted intelligence operations around the Natanz nuclear facility, collecting soil samples to monitor uranium enrichment levels, ProPublica reported.
“Mossad veterans said operatives, likely Israelis posing as Europeans installing or servicing equipment, walked around Natanz wearing shoes with double soles that collected dust and soil samples,” the report noted.
Tests later revealed that Iranian-made centrifuges were enriching uranium well beyond the 5% level.
The sources cited by ProPublica added that moving shipments in and out of Iran was relatively easy. “Boxes and crates were shipped by sea or in trucks driven legitimately through border crossings,” one said.
Tracking targets
The report also described a long-term surveillance campaign that tracked 11 Iranian nuclear scientists, including details of their daily routines and even the layout of their homes.
“The dossiers even mapped the locations of the bedrooms in the men’s homes. On the morning of June 13, Israeli warplanes fired air-to-ground missiles at those coordinates, killing all 11,” the report stated.
“Officials emphasized that the military logistics of the operation were coordinated by Israel's military intelligence directorate and the Israeli air force, which reportedly struck more than a thousand targets during the 11-day air campaign,” Propublica reported.
According to an Iranian government spokesperson, 1,062 Iranians were killed during the conflict, including 786 military personnel and 276 civilians.
Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) announced all the country's defense sites are fully operational and updated.
“Iran’s air defense was damaged early in the 12-day war, but since then Iran has rebuilt and modernized its systems. Israel now realizes that Iran’s air defense in a future war would be multiple times stronger,” IRGC affiliated Tasnim News said on Thursday.
Israel prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu had previously said during a visit to Washington in July that Israel had rolled back parts of Iran’s nuclear program, but suggested that the confrontation with the Islamic Republic is far from over.
