
To identify military leaders, scientists and places to strike, Israeli intelligence used men and women perfectly integrated into Iran.
A foreign legion of double-secret agents, because they were recruited far from Israel: these are the nameless executioners who allegedly allowed the Mossad to penetrate the streets of Tehran and the deserts of missile bases, allowing them to find the residences of the regime's top people and scientists who worked on the atomic bomb.
Men and especially girls, selected in places that do not arouse suspicion and trained for years before going into action.
The hypothesis was formulated in 2021, when drones launched from Iranian territory set fire to a nuclear research center.
Confirmation came last year, when a network of Israeli spies was arrested in Turkey: they were mainly Palestinian or Syrian citizens, employed by the Jewish state's intelligence.
Young men belonging to the Shiite minorities of Afghanistan, the Lebanese diaspora, and former Soviet republics of Asia were allegedly selected for missions in Iran.
In addition to them, there would be Europeans, South Americans, and Arabs, chosen by citizens of countries with strong economic interests in Tehran, who could more easily find refuge.
Mossad initially often entrusted its operations to Jews who grew up in European, American, or Arab communities. Today, they too need people who are able to adapt to a closed and distrustful nation like the Islamic Republic.
The best were the girls, capable of being invited to the villas of the powerful in the hills of Tehran, as well as building bombs or shooting with precision.
Some of them, during the night between Thursday and Friday, would have "marked" the homes of Pasdaran leaders with laser pointers: a trail followed by "Spice" missiles launched by the first wave fighter jets.
Others accompanied the raider patrols into the desert, descending from the sky to strike at self-propelled anti-aircraft guns from behind and disperse clouds of killer drones near ballistic missile hideouts. Then they disappeared without a trace.
For 72 hours, the leaders of the theocracy have been living in the psychosis of the fifth column: there are arrests and checks everywhere.
The leaders are frantically searching for shelter, but at the same time they must communicate with each other to manage the dramatic developments of the situation: phone calls and conversations, no matter how encrypted, become electronic traces that do not escape Mossad spy planes, allowing them to direct agents on the ground in new directions.
With a possible twist: now that they have complete control of the air and no longer fear anti-aircraft fire, the Israelis may dare to launch paratrooper attacks against underground missile bunkers or nuclear laboratories, where bombs cannot penetrate.
They have already done something similar in Syria. Operating in Iranian tunnels can be very dangerous, but there doesn't seem to be any alternative to occupying bases dug into the belly of the mountains.
/La Repubblica