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's blitz was years in the planning: Mossad agents smuggled drones into Iran desert, army chiefs and nuclear scientists were killed and Tehran's radar and missile bases eliminated in most devastating attack on Iranian soil for nearly half a century
Smoke rises up after an explosion in Tehran, Iran, Friday, June 13, 2025
Israel launched a blistering assault on Iran, striking 100s of targets, including bombing Tehran's nuclear and military sites and killing senior military figures.
The strikes came as a shock to some onlookers, who had predicted a vague threat of kinetic military action would be enough to gain leverage in talks over a new nuclear accord.
But with startling efficiency, Israeli intelligence went behind enemy lines to disable Iranian defences, clearing the way for the Israeli Air Force (IAF).
'Operation Rising Lion' was '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 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, their armed forces chief of staff Mohammad Bagheri, and the head of the powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Hossein Salami, Iranian media reported.
It was the most significant attack Iran has faced since its 1980s war with Iraq.
Netanyahu said strikes would 'continue as many days as it takes', and secondary strikes were reported in Shiraz, Kermanshah and Tabriz.
Experts believe that Israel has the appetite and capacity for more strikes - and have said 'what comes next may define the regional security order for years to come'.
How Israel paralysed Iranian defences
The operation, code-named '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 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 special forces dressed entirely in black and equipped with night vision goggles in a remote, undisclosed location.
Israel's defence sector 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 showed drones targeting vehicles inside the complex. One clip showed a drone closing in on a mobile launcher.
Footage shared later by the IAF showed aerial strikes on ballistic missiles 'aimed at the state of Israel' in Iran, location unknown. The military 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.
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-story 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.
Israel also attacked 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.'
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14808747/mossad-israel-idf-attack-iran-nuclear.html
Months, if not years in the planning, it was the most devastating attack on Iranian soil for nearly half a century.
A perfect fusion of high-grade conventional capabilities, human ingenuity and the latest advances in military technologies.
Outcome: Iran’s nuclear-enrichment programme set back, dozens of air-defence systems wiped out and leading nuclear scientists and military commanders killed.
Israel’s primary aim was to degrade Iran’s nuclear-enrichment capabilities. But a political agenda was also emerging yesterday, as regime change in Tehran appeared a distinct possibility.
At around 1am UK time about 200 Israeli military aircraft took off from bases inside the country. But by then much of the painstaking work had already been done, entirely in secret.
The ground had been laid some time ago by Mossad agents and Israeli special forces who infiltrated Iran, smuggled weapons into the country and prepared drones ahead of what Israel named Operation Rising Lion.
With only hours to go, the Israeli government informed the White House that the mission was going ahead, despite US and Iranian officials having arranged to hold talks on Sunday about descaling Iran’s nuclear-enrichment programme.
First reports of Israeli airstrikes emerged in northern Tehran: an explosion in the residential area of Nobonyad.
Details remained scant yesterday, but some reports indicated this may have been where some of the country’s leading nuclear scientists lived.
Subsequently, the Iranian government confirmed the deaths of a number of academics: Fereydoun Abbasi, former head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organisation, Dr Mohammed Mehdi Tehranchi, president of the Islamic Azad University of Tehran, and Abdolhamid Minouchehr, Ahmad Zolfaghari and Amirhossein Feqhi, from Tehran’s Shahid Behesti University.
Meanwhile, deep in the deserts of central and western Iran, Israeli special forces troops released swarms of drones which targeted radar facilities and surface-to-air missile capabilities – the military hardware an Iranian response to Israel’s attacks would rely on.
Israel is expert in such clandestine operations. Even so, the methodology represented a ‘hat-tip’ to Ukraine, which is understood to secretly exchange ‘tactics, techniques and procedures’ (TTPs), in military vernacular, with Israel.
With so many layers of Iran’s defences destroyed, Israeli jets focused on their main target, the centrepiece of Iran’s nuclear-enrichment programme, the Natanz atomic facility in Ishfahan province, 140 miles south of Tehran.
As many as ten strikes were reported at Tabriz airport and a nearby oil refinery in north-west Iran. A long column of black smoke was seen rising from the airport. Three people were reported dead in the city itself.
Israel also struck dozens of radar installations in western Iran, probably by means of special forces troops approaching the sites on foot, assembling miniature kamikaze drones and setting them off towards these military facilities. Operating at such short range, these drones evaded Iran’s limited surveillance capabilities.
Explosions were also reported at the Nojeh airbase in Hamedan, western Iran. A number of senior Iranian military officers were also said to have been killed when they convened for what they thought was a secret meeting to plan pre-emptive strikes on Israel.
The venue was chosen for its protection, a bunker deep underground. But, according to reports, the bunker was not deep enough, as an Israeli warhead penetrated the basement.
Iran later confirmed the deaths of Major General Gholam Ali Rashid, Major General Hossein Salami, commander of the IRGC, Amir Ali Hajizadeh, the commander of the UAV (unmanned aerial vehicles) force, aerial commander Davoud Shaykhian and Mohammad Bagheri, the Iranian Army’s Chief of Staff.
Dead: Top commanders and the scientific elite
Chief of the General Staff of Iran's Armed Forces, Gen. Mohammad Hossein Bagheri (right) with IRGC Hossein Salami (left), both reportedly killed in Israeli strikes overnight
Iranian Revolutionary Guard Chief Hossein Salami (pictured left) and Iranian Armed Forces Chief of Staff Major General Mohammad Bagheri (pictured right) were both killed in the strike
Iranians hold posters of nuclear scientists Mohammad Mehdi Tehranchi (L), Fereidun Abbasi (C) and, IRGC general Gholam Ali Rashid (R) who were killed in Israeli airstrikes
The remains of an Iranian projectile that was headed for Israel after it fell in Syria's southwestern Daraa province on June 13, 2025
The remains of an Iranian projectile that was headed for Israel after it fell in Syria's southwestern Daraa province
A view of the scene following an attack in Iranian capital, Tehran
This handout photo released by Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps reportedly shows a building in Tehran hit in an Israeli strike on the Iranian capital early in the morning
Smoke rises from a damaged building in the aftermath of Israeli strikes
A damaged building that was hit by Israeli air strikes, north of Tehran, Iran, 13 June 2025
Rescue teams work at damaged buildings in Nobonyad Square following Israeli airstrikes on June 13, 2025 in Tehran, Iran
A person reacts as residential buildings in Nobonyad Square are shown following Israeli airstrikes on June 13 in Iran
A view of a damaged building in the Iranian capital, Tehran, following an Israeli attack, on June 13, 2025
Netanyahu said that Israel targeted Iran's main enrichment facility in Natanz and the country's ballistic missile program, as well as top nuclear scientists and officials
Explained: The planning that went into Israel's blitz which included smuggling drones into Iran dessert
