Mossad agents sabotaged Iranian defenses as airstrikes began, Israeli official says

JERUSALEM—Agents for Israel’s Mossad intelligence office executed covert operations to sabotage Iranian air defenses and weapons as surprise airstrikes began early Friday morning, an Israeli security official said.

The national intelligence agency sent operatives into central Iran and positioned precision-guided weaponry near Iranian surface-to-air missile systems, according to remarks given to reporters on Friday. The Mossad also secretly installed strike systems and other technologies on vehicles that, upon activation, launched weapons that eliminated Iranian air defense targets.

An explosive drone base was also set up inside Iran, the official said. Israel stood up the drone systems “that had been infiltrated deep into Iran well before the operation,” the official said, adding that the drones were activated and launched toward surface-to-surface missile launchers at the Esfajabad base near Tehran. The airstrikes themselves targeted top Iranian military officials and nuclear scientists.

Israeli citizens learned of the strikes when air raid sirens went off on Friday around 3 a.m. local time.

In the wake of the strikes, Iranian officials withdrew from the next planned round of nuclear-weapons negotiations with U.S. officials. 

The sides had been negotiating for several weeks in an attempt to keep Iran from producing weapons-grade fuel and make a nuclear weapon. On Thursday, Iran’s atomic-agency chief said that the country would accelerate its production of near-weapons-grade uranium and open a previously undisclosed third enrichment site in a secure location. That new facility would join Iran’s two existing main enrichment sites: Natanz, an underground facility, and Fordow, which is built into a mountainside near Qom. The announcement followed an evaluation by the International Atomic Energy Agency, which found Iran to have violated its nonproliferation agreements.

On Wednesday the State Department authorized the evacuation of some personnel from Iraq, and the Pentagon approved the departure of military family members across the region.