Mossad spies were active in Iran for over a decade, visited every factory ahead of Israeli strikes – report

Days after the ceasefire ended the war between Israel and Iran, new details about Israel’s intelligence feats that led to its incredible achievements in the 12-day war against the Iranian regime continue to be released.

According to a new report from the UK’s The Times, which is based on leaked intelligence documents shared with Israel’s western allies, the penetration of Iran’s security and nuclear forces was far more extensive than previously thought.

Israel’s vaunted intelligence services, particularly the foreign intelligence agency Mossad, began recognizing signs of a nuclear weapons program back in the 1990s.

Israel began building an extensive network of agents and collaborators within Iran, but for decades, mainly used them for sabotage operations at nuclear facilities and assassinations of scientists.

Despite the setbacks, the Iranian regime pressed forward, leading Israeli leadership to conclude that only military action could effectively neutralize the nuclear threat. According to The Times, around 2010, Israel began closely monitoring and collecting intelligence at the dozens of sites connected to the nuclear program, both military and civilian, with “boots on the ground.”

Israel’s intelligence agents – most of them being non-Israeli citizens – were present at every workshop and factory that was attacked during the 12-day campaign. Some were not officially part of the military but were involved in producing components essential for nuclear research or for manufacturing the ballistic missiles ultimately intended to deliver a nuclear weapon.

Israel struck “the entire industry that supported the manufacturing of large amounts of missiles,” according to an intelligence source cited in the report.

When preparations for a military option were launched, the Israeli Air Force (IAF) did not yet have the capability to carry it out.

According to a Wall Street Journal report based on interviews with 18 current and former Israeli and U.S. security officials, Israeli pilots needed to train for the extremely long flight in formations of up to 10 aircraft around a tanker plane; to refuel several times during the journey; and to precisely time their airstrikes for maximum effectiveness against hardened targets.

The IAF began conducting even more frequent training operations, simulating these kinds of missions over distances exceeding 1,500 km (1,000 miles), including a 2008 exercise where over 100 fighter jets flew to Greece.

Since the start of the war, Israel has struck Houthi rebel forces in Yemen several times, which also provided the IAF with the necessary experience to conduct large-scale operations over similar distances.

Meanwhile, Israeli intelligence succeeded in tracking movements of the regime's top military and government officials, while the Mossad set up covert drone bases and other weapon systems in Iran.

According to the leaked report, at the end of 2024, intelligence officials concluded that the nuclear program was already running concrete experiments, an “advanced explosive and radiation system,” and was only “weeks” away from nuclear capability.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stressed throughout the war that the goal was to destroy the twin threat of the nuclear program and the ballistic missile array.

The intelligence report cited by The Times assessed that Iran was aiming to ramp up production to approximately 1,000 missiles per year, with the goal of building a stockpile of around 8,000 missiles.

When Israel launched the overnight attack in early June, the nuclear program was almost at the finish line and the regime possessed an estimated 2,000 to 2,500 ballistic missiles.

And then, the decades-long, painstaking intelligence work paid off. The three sites in Tehran and Isfahan, where Iran produced centrifuges that enrich uranium to weapons-grade levels, were destroyed.

The seven components of the Natanz facility, which had been mapped by spies on the ground to an extraordinary level, were destroyed.

Israel had intelligence regarding the site’s “overground and underground buildings which included piping, feeding and solidification of uranium,” and struck its “electricity infrastructure, a research and development building, the transformer station, and the generator structure to back up the electric grid. The attack also hit ventilation and cooling ducts,” according to The Times.

Other sites identified by intelligence and destroyed in precision airstrikes included the nuclear facility in Isfahan, “the Nur and Mogdeh sites for calculation and labs, the Shariati military site, and a hangar at Shahid Meisami, which manufactured the plastic explosives used for testing nuclear weapons.”

The airstrikes targeted facilities involved in producing every component necessary for missile manufacturing, spread throughout the vast country, highlighting the extensive reach and depth of Israel’s intelligence penetration

For example, airstrikes hit a site in the far north – on the coast of the Caspian Sea – that produced the carbon fiber for missile production. Dozens of additional sites involved in the production of “guidance, navigation and control of missiles and the production of warheads and engines needed to fly the missiles” were also destroyed.

Most of the targeted sites were set up by the SPND, a research and development agency of the Iranian Defense Ministry created by Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, considered to be one of the fathers of the nuclear program. He was reportedly killed spectacularly by a satellite-controlled machine gun, allegedly by Israel.

Nine of Fakhrizadeh’s successors were killed simultaneously in their beds in the opening hours of the attack. The incredible success of “Operation Narnia,” so named because even its planners considered it to be fantastical, is another demonstration of the unprecedented intelligence penetration.

The Wall Street Journal also revealed “Operation Red Wedding” – its name being a nod to the TV series “Game of Thrones” – during which the entire Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Air Force brass and several other Iranian top generals were killed.

Overall, 29 Iranian officers at the rank of brigadier-general and higher were eliminated by Israel.

“For decades, Israel has been observing activities inside Iran,” Efrat Sopher, an Iranian-Israeli analyst at the University of Haifa-UK, told The Times.

“[The] Mossad has played a pivotal role in the success in thwarting the Iranian threat, where its successful operations vis-à-vis Iran and its proxies will be chronicled in the history books,” Sopher said.