The role of Mossad, Israel‘s secret service, appears to have been decisive in today’s Tel Aviv attack targeting Tehran’s military and nuclear facilities.

According to a Times of Israel report, Tel Aviv had been preparing for years for this attack, with Mossad undertaking – and succeeding – in setting up an entire secret drone base on Iranian soil.

According to this report, Mossad operatives set up a drone base near Tehran with the UAVs activated during the night Thursday into Friday.

The drones’ target, according to the official cited by the Times of Israel, was Iran’s surface-to-surface missile launchers targeting Israel.

In addition to the secret base, the Israeli agents allegedly managed to get weapons systems into Iranian territory that were used to take out Tehran’s air defense systems.

In this way, the paper notes, Israel Air Force fighter jets were given time, space and freedom to operate in Iran.

The third leg of Mossad’s operation was to deploy precision-guided missiles near areas with anti-aircraft weapons systems in central Iran.

As the official quoted by the Times of Israel characteristically stated, these operations were based on “innovative thinking, bold planning and surgical application of advanced technologies, special forces and agents operating in the heart of Iran, completely avoiding the gaze of local intelligence agencies.”

Mossad’s previous operations on Iranian soil

For its part, the Jerousalem Post documents all Mossad operations on Iranian soil.

Israel’s secret service was involved in aspects of Israel’s April 2024 and October 2024 attacks, the seizure of Iran’s nuclear files in 2018, the destruction of over 100 Iranian drones in February 2022.

Iran has also accused Mossad of destroying two separate nuclear facilities at Natanz in July 2020 and April 2021, and at Karaj in June 2021, and of assassinating Tehran’s nuclear program chief Mohsen Fakhrizade in November 2020.