Last year, an Israeli telecommunications manager who worked in Europe had a call from an old friend in Tel Aviv: Could he help to design a phone that looked like a cheap Android, but could transfer encrypted data that followed traffic on social media?
At about the same time, a reservist who worked at an Israeli health start received a call from Unit 9900, a tiny part of the Israeli military who is looking for indications in huge data sets. Could he optimize an algorithm on which he had worked on during his military service, so that a committed server was able to browse trucks satellite images and separate those who carry gasoline with rocket defense?
Neither was said exactly how her efforts had been shaped in Israel’s air raid on Iran in the opening salve of last week, which amazed the country with both its depth and precision. More than a dozen security chiefs and nuclear scientists were murdered almost simultaneously. Whole arrays of air defense were destroyed before they were able to catch a single interceptor; And a large number of rocket launchers were identified and destroyed.
How Israel’s security services achieved parallel operations that combine the work of his military intelligence Stark Aman with the foreign spy service Mossad In such an effective attack, never can become fully public. But early indications rose – some of authorized leaks that are embarrassed to embarrass Iran, others of people who are familiar with the operations who speak with the financial time on the condition of anonymity.
They describe an extensive, multi-year operation that was based on every possible capital from which the Israeli secret services could come from commercial satellites, chopped phones, low-deck agents who recruited locally, hidden warehouses to put together drones, and even miniaturized gun systems that are built into everyday vehicles.
According to the people, the goal is to create a densely populated bank of destinations that they could take out in the first few hours of a military operation. It was called the Israeli version of “Shock and awe”; Another said it aimed to hug the “bold”.
A former Israeli civil servant described the project as a result of “millions of dollars and years of effort” to deal with what Israel sees as an existential threat. “If you work for so many years and invest everything you have – human intelligence, open source intelligence, money – you finally get a result,” you said.
In the run -up to the attackAman identified so -called heavy power centers, on which one could concentrate, such as: B. Fire power centers and the nuclear program. Thousands of secret services were recurred and had started to populate the target until March of this year.
In an indication of how these goals may have been pursued, a technical team of the military was consulted last October about how Hassan Nasrallah, leader of the Lebanese militia -supported group Hisbollah, who had killed Israel days earlier. Its sophisticated, almost automated system had produced its location with almost security every 24 hours.
The attack of Israel on Iran does not yet have its great strategic goal – the destruction of the nuclear and ballistic rocket programs of the Islamic Republic – or their additional goal of weakening the regime until the collapse. The first hours last week, however, underlined the ambitious and comprehensive list of goals that Israeli secret service employees keep up to date.
The opening shots of the campaign focused on at least four types of destinations within a few minutes: military officers high in the command chain; Air defendants for the most strategic locations; Parts of two main facilities; and rocket introduction locations in Westiran, which were identified as immediate reaction threats. In this way, Israel could use the surprise factor.
“The first attack, the opening strike, was the beginning of the campaign. We are not yet finished,” said Miri Eissin, a former high -ranking intelligence officer. “To be able to target 15 different people at the same time – it is not easy – and since you have taken out the decision -makers, delay your answer to buy more time.”
The Israeli success has sown at least a panic in the Iranian security company, which has been repeatedly embarrassed by Mossad in the past. The headquarters of the espionage agency on the northern outskirts of Tel Aviv was a repeated goal of Iranian ballistic rockets.
A former high -ranking commander in the Iranian Elite Revolation Guard asked people to check their roofs on micro drones this week, and claimed that the Iranian opposition groups were paid to smuggle them into big cities. The chief of police Ahmad Reza Radan asked the spies of Israel to turn to get “Islamic grace”.
The Fars news agency, which was connected to the revolutionary guards, reported on warnings that mobile phones were not only used for surveillance, but also because of murder.
“The most important decision must be the following: All mobile phones that belong to the commanders, high -ranking civil servants, nuclear scientists – and even their families – should be put aside,” said Hardline MP Hamid Rasaee.
However, such measures were probably no difference at this point, said the people who are familiar with the operations of Israel in Iran. The telecommunications manager refused to discuss whether his software was finally used in Iran, but broke that many hundreds of people often used them all over the world at the same time.
Israel is now chasing the remains of Iranian air defense and has almost complete air superiority. It lost an apparently Hermes 900 monitoring drone on an Iranian rocket, but has not suffered any other publicly recognized losses in military hardware. His air force was freed from will in Iran.
The Iranian secret services in Israel pale in comparison. A handful of Israeli citizens has been arrested and persecuted because they have collected information for Iran, while Iranian hackers have broken into the cell phone in the mobile phone of a family member of a family member of a family member of a family member of Mossad in recent years, whereby Iran is publicly appreciating recognition for the violation.
The teams for the opposite -interfigure have arrested several people and accused them of having worked for Israel and recently executed one. However, it is known that a single Israeler has been captured, which unintentionally indicates a large-scale recruitment of the local employee entertainers or in cash or against the regime in Tehran.
In comparison, Mossad has repeatedly removed daring attacks of Iranian nuclear scientists, including one in 2020, which was apparently carried out by a machine gun operated from afar, which is assembled on a truck that destroys itself.
It led thousands of documents from the Iranian atomic archive for Netanyahu to show on live television, and last year murdered a high -ranking Hamas leader in a guest house of the Iranian government when he visited President Masoud Peeshkian.
For the first time, Mossad showed his mysticism in his history, of which he published footage, and showed that his commands worked in Iran and started attack drones and leadership rockets that took out the Iranian air defense and rockets.
“From the point of view of the secret services (the entire campaign), a equal dominance and penetration of intelligence and penetration, in unprecedented times, is an equally impressive performance, as we have seen in modern warfare,” said a former US defense officer.
“I cannot imagine a conflict in which a party understood the emergency plans of her enemy and the movement of her leadership so thoroughly.”
The success of Israel against Hisbollah in a similar surprise campaign last year and now in the early days of the complete conflict with Iran is the failure of not predicting or preventing the cross -border attack by Hamas, the Palestinian militant group, which it had clearly underestimated.
The recent achievements showed the skills of Israeli secret services and military units when they were managed and well raged, said Eissin.
“The Islamic regime of Iran has the top priority of Netanyahu and the entire security community.
But she added: “This is worried about the hybris that is associated with this kind of success.”
