Nuclear facilities, military bases, security force commanders, and nuclear scientists: all have been targeted simultaneously in the largest attack Iran has suffered on its territory since its war with Iraq in the 1980s.

Israel had been preparing for Friday's offensive against Iran for years, for which the Mossad even built a secret base in Iranian territory from which it launched drones to disable its anti-aircraft defenses, according to security sources told the Israeli press.

This is not the first time that Israel has bombed nuclear facilities or killed Iranian scientists or soldiers. But, unlike other times, in this operation it has chosen to attack all its targets at once, a blow with which it sought to put Tehran out of combat.

The attack began in the early hours of the morning and hit residential areas of Tehran, as well as the Natanz nuclear facilities, some 225 kilometers south of the capital; the northern city of Tabriz, where bombs hit a nuclear research center and two military bases, as well as the cities of Isfahan and Arak, which are home to uranium enrichment plants. Explosions were also reported in cities such as Kermanshah and Shiraz, which are home to military and industrial complexes. Iran responded by launching around 100 drones into Israel, most of which were intercepted by its air defenses, and on Friday night it also launched dozens of missiles at cities such as Tel Aviv, which were also blockaded, although there were several injuries. The Israeli attack hit numerous points in the country at once, overwhelming Iran's defenses and leaving them without the ability to react immediately. At least 78 people were reportedly killed in the attacks and more than 200 were injured, according to Iran's state-run media outlet Nour News, which noted that the number was not official for the moment.

But this attack has not only been the most extensive and intense that Israel has carried out against Iran,but with it, it also seems to have adopted a new strategy against the Iranian enemy that already worked against Hezbollah last November, explains BBC Middle East analyst Sebastian Usher.

“It’s not just about attacking Iran’s missile bases – and therefore its ability to respond with force – but also launching attacks to eliminate key members of the Iranian leadership,” Usher analyzes.

This strategy of decapitating the leadership of the Lebanese militia-party Hezbollah “had devastating consequences for the group and its ability to mount a sustainable counteroffensive,” he adds.

Images arriving from Tehran after the operation early Friday morning showed that the targets in the capital appeared to have been specific residential buildings, something similar to what happened during the Israeli attacks on the southern suburbs of Beirut, which culminated in the death of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah.

In Iran, no figures appear to have died of that magnitude. Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei was not a target of the attack.

But killing the commander of the powerful Revolutionary Guard, Hossein Salami, the chief of staff, Mohammad Bagheri, and several of the country’s top nuclear scientists in the first hours of an operation that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has suggested could last days, “is to have inflicted unprecedented damage on the Iranian elite,” notes Sebastian Usher.

Salami is the most senior leader hit by the Israeli attack, and his killing has drawn comparisons to that of Qasem Soleimani, the powerful head of the Quds Force who was killed in a 2020 US strike near Tehran airport.

In addition to Chief of Staff Bagheri, his deputy, Gholamali Rashid, who is responsible for operational coordination of Iran’s armed forces, and Amir Ali Hajizadeh, commander of the Guard’s Aerospace Force, were also hit. Revolutionary.

Nuclear scientists targeted

Israel has also targeted leading scientists in Iran's nuclear program.

Tehran has so far confirmed that at least six of its nuclear scientists were killed in Israeli strikes overnight.

The most prominent of these is Fereidun Abbasi, former head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran.

Mohammad Mehdi Tehranchi, the second identified, was president of Tehran's Islamic Azad University.

Abdolhamid Minouchehr, Ahmad Reza Zolfaghari and Amirhossein Feqhi were academics at Tehran's Shahid Beheshti University. The sixth victim has only been identified by his surname, Motallebizadeh, according to the BBC Persian service.

Operation from inside Iran

Israel says it initially used 200 combat aircraft in the joint operation between its army and the Mossad, which it has dubbed Operation Rising Lion, to reach more than 100 targets.

But Israel has also attacked Iran with explosive drones and precision weapons from within the country itself, thanks to a secret base that the Mossad, its foreign intelligence service, had managed to establish on the outskirts of Tehran, as Israeli security officials acknowledged to various Israeli media.

This covert operation apparently had three fronts that attacked Iran's anti-aircraft defenses, its surface-to-air missile system, and its surface-to-surface missile system.

The Mossad managed to introduce commandos and vehicles carrying weapons systems into Iran.

These weapons were positioned in open areas near the surface-to-air missile systems, and were activated when the Israeli operation began “to eliminate Iran’s air defenses and gave Israeli planes air supremacy and freedom of action over Iran,” a security source told The Times of Israel.

This is in addition to the “explosive drone base” that the Mossad managed to install in the heart of Iran, according to the security sources, an operation that was done “well in advance.”

The initiative is reminiscent of Operation Spider Web, with which Ukraine managed to attack Russian airfields recently after hiding drones inside the Eurasian country.

These drones were activated overnight to attack, among other things, surface-to-surface missiles with which Iran could hit Israel.

Nuclear Facilities

Among the nuclear facilities hit by the Israeli attacks is Natanz, Iran’s main center for large-scale uranium enrichment, material that could be used for civilian or military purposes.

According to the Israel Defense Forces, its facilities suffered “significant damage” in the early Friday morning attack.

Iran has denied it is attempting to make nuclear weapons and is not known to have produced any weapons-grade uranium. However, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) recently estimated that it could theoretically make nine nuclear bombs if its enriched uranium were refined to weapons-grade.

This is not the first time Israel has attacked Natanz,highlights the BBC's Middle East editor, Raffi Berg.

A major cyberattack hit the facility in 2010, and ten years later, the plant was damaged when explosives allegedly hidden in a table detonated.

The following year, Natanz was again severely damaged in a mysterious attack that Iran blamed on Israel.

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