Prepared for years: Mossad links to Ukraine seen in Iran attack

Hours after 200 warplanes launched a series of strikes on Iran, Israeli officials released video they said showed Mossad agents deep inside Iran assembling missiles and drones loaded with explosives 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 from a “drone base” hidden somewhere near Tehran. The devices were installed well before Friday’s attack and were used to destroy Iran’s air defenses, officials said.

It was the most devastating attack on Iranian soil in almost half a century, planned for months, if not years, the Daily Mail commented: “It was a perfect combination of high-quality conventional weapons, human ingenuity and the latest in military technology. The result: Iran’s nuclear enrichment programme was halted, dozens of air defence systems were knocked out of action and leading nuclear scientists and military commanders were killed. Israel’s main aim was to cripple Iran’s nuclear enrichment capability. But yesterday also saw a political agenda emerge, with the clear possibility of regime change in Tehran.”

At around 1am on Friday morning UK time, around 200 Israeli warplanes took off from bases inside the country, the Daily Mail reports. But by then much of the hard work had already been done, and in complete secrecy. The groundwork had been laid some time earlier by Mossad agents and Israeli commandos who had infiltrated Iran, smuggled weapons into the country and prepared drones for what Israel called Operation Rising Lion.

Deep in the deserts of central and western Iran, Israeli special forces launched a swarm of drones that targeted radar installations and surface-to-air missiles - the military hardware that will underpin Iran's response to Israeli attacks. Israel is an expert in such covert operations. Despite this, the methodology was a "nod to attention" for Ukraine, which is believed to be secretly exchanging "tactics, techniques and procedures" (TTP), in military jargon, with Israel, the Daily Mail points out. The point of such cooperation, from Israel's perspective, is that it supports Ukraine, although it does not advertise this support, the British newspaper notes.

With so many layers of Iranian defenses destroyed, Israeli jets focused on their main target - the center of Iran's nuclear enrichment program, the Natanz nuclear facility in Ishfahan province, 140 miles south of Tehran.

The IDF and the International Atomic Energy Authority confirmed damage to the multi-story enrichment facility housing nuclear centrifuges. The IDF also targeted infrastructure at the site, which it said "ensures the continued operation and further advancement of the Iranian regime's nuclear weapons project."

As the Daily Mail continues, Israel also targeted dozens of radar installations in western Iran, apparently using special forces who approached the sites on foot, assembled miniature suicide drones and launched them towards the military installations. Operating at such close range, the drones eluded Iran's limited surveillance capabilities. Explosions were also reported at Nojeh Air Base in Hamadan, western Iran. Several senior Iranian military officers were also reportedly killed as they gathered for a secret meeting to plan pre-emptive strikes on Israel. The location was chosen for security reasons - the bunker was deep underground. But the bunker was reportedly not deep enough as the Israeli warhead penetrated the basement.

As The Guardian recalls, Mossad, the Hebrew acronym for the Institute for Intelligence and Special Operations, has won many such victories over nearly 80 years of covert operations, earning a unique reputation for daring espionage, technological innovation and ruthless violence.

The new operation in Iran comes just 10 months after the intelligence agency managed to disable thousands of pagers and walkie-talkies used by Hezbollah militants in Lebanon, killing 37 people and injuring nearly 3,000, while crippling the militant Islamist group, The Guardian reports. The agency then took part in an air offensive that wiped out Hezbollah's leadership within days.

Over the decades, Mossad has built up a vast network of informants, agents and logistics in Iran, The Guardian notes. This has enabled a range of operations, including the remote-controlled assassination of Iran’s top nuclear scientist as he was speeding along a remote road, the infecting with malware the 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 killed by a bomb planted in his favourite room in a government guesthouse in Tehran.

“This recent operation is certainly impressive, but Iran has been an open book for Israeli intelligence for more than a decade,” comments Yossi Melman, a veteran Israeli security official, journalist and author.

Melman said those in the videos released by Mossad were likely Iranian. “The ground forces in Iran are not Israeli, so they have to be recruited, trained, equipped and deployed. Then all the weapons components have to be smuggled in. All of this requires a lot of professionalism and skill.”

Ironically, Israeli officials have emphasized the role of the military intelligence service, Aman, in gathering information about the targets of the Israeli offensive.

Although Aman and the Mossad often work closely together, the focus is on the diplomatic service, The Guardian reports. Even so, much of the Mossad's work remains unknown outside of strictly limited circles.

For decades, few people even heard of the Mossad, which was officially created in 1949. Former agents were ordered not to tell even their families or about their previous work, and the agency never admitted to its involvement in any operations.

Yossi Alpher, who took part in some of the service’s most notorious operations in the 1970s, told The Guardian last year: “Everything the Mossad did was quiet, no one knew. It was a completely different era. The Mossad was simply not mentioned. When I joined the organisation, you had to know someone who could be brought in. Now I have a website.”

Senior Mossad officials have long spent their time on sensitive diplomatic missions, briefing senior Israeli decision makers on regional political dynamics or building relationships abroad, rather than recruiting spies or conducting operations like the one targeted against Iran this week.

For decades, Mossad oversaw a long-running covert effort to create “enemies of Israel’s enemies,” such as the Kurds in Iran, Iraq and Syria, and Christians in what is now South Sudan. Like many of its efforts, it had mixed success, The Guardian reports.

Some accuse the Mossad of ignoring warnings about the reputation of Lebanon's Maronite Christian militias for brutality and ethnic hatred and encouraging Israel's disastrous 1982 invasion of the Arab country, in which thousands of civilians were killed.

Mossad also played a significant, though still little-known, role in secretly supplying arms to Ayatollah Khomeini's Iran to help it fight Saddam Hussein's Iraq in the Iran-Contra scandal during Ronald Reagan's presidency, The Guardian recalls.

The Mossad's mythical reputation has been reinforced by films and television series, with writers drawn to some of the service's most famous exploits. One of the most famous is the capture in Argentina in 1960 of Adolf Eichmann, the Nazi officer who was a key organizer of the Holocaust. Others include stealing warships from the French Navy in 1969, warning of an impending attack by Egypt and Syria in 1973, and providing key intelligence for the famous raid on Entebbe, Uganda, in 1976, which freed Jewish and Israeli passengers held captive by Palestinian and German extremists.

In 1980, the agency set up and operated a diving resort on the Red Sea coast of Sudan as a cover for smuggling thousands of members of Ethiopia's Jewish community to Israel. Mossad spies lived among the tourists before being forced to close their operations five years later.

Following the deadly attack by Palestinian extremists on Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics, the Mossad led a campaign to dismantle the networks and groups responsible. The effort ended when a Mossad team shot dead a Moroccan waiter in Norway after mistaking him for a PLO security officer, and then made further mistakes that led to their arrest and trial by local authorities.

In 1997, an attempt to assassinate Khaled Meshaal, a powerful Hamas leader, failed when the Mossad team was detained in Amman by local security forces. Israel was forced to hand over the antidote, and relations with Jordan were severely damaged. In 2010, agents were caught on CCTV in Dubai during another assassination attempt.

Nor was there any warning of the Hamas raids into southern Israel on October 7 that killed 1,200 Israelis, mostly civilians, and kidnapped 251. The attack triggered Israel's offensive in Gaza, the current war with Hezbollah and, indirectly, a new confrontation with Iran.

Former Mossad officers say the service only comes to attention when things go wrong. But as the release of the Iranian videos shows, that is not entirely true.

Melman said one of the Mossad's goals - especially through advertising - is to sow fear among Iranians. "The goal is psychological. Mossad is telling the Iranian regime: We know everything about you, we can come to your house whenever we want, we are an all-powerful force," Melman said. "It is also a very good way to boost the morale of the Israeli public."