Tag Archives: Mossad

Israel’s Killing Machine and the Enemies Within

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Israel stunned and hobbled Iran starting on June 13, 2025 when it pulled off an intelligence and military operation years in the making that struck high-level targets with precision. Guided by spies and artificial intelligence, the Israeli military unleashed a nighttime fusillade of warplanes and armed drones smuggled into Iran to quickly incapacitate many of its air defenses and missile systems. With greater freedom to fly over Iran, Israel bombarded key nuclear sites and killed top generals and scientists. By the time Iran mustered a response hours later, its ability to retaliate — already weakened by past Israeli strikes — was greatly diminished.

The Mossad and the military worked together for at least three years to lay the operational groundwork…To further diminish Iranian air defenses and missile systems, Mossad agents had smuggled precision weapons into Iran that were prepositioned to strike from close range…Those weapons included small, armed drones, which agents snuck into the country in vehicles…Mossad agents stationed weapons close to Iranian surface-to-air missile sites…To analyze information gathered from various sources, Israel used the latest artificial-intelligence…AI was used to help Israelis quickly sift through troves of data they had obtained….An investigation by The Associated Press conducted in early 2025 uncovered that the Israeli military uses U.S.-made AI models in war to sift through intelligence and intercept communications to learn the movements of its enemies. It’s been used in the wars with Hamas in Gaza and with Hezbollah in Lebanon.

In addition to AI, the Mossad relied on spies to identify top nuclear scientists and members of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard… At least eight members of the Guard, including the head of its missile program, were killed in a single Israeli strike on an underground bunker.

Another facet of the attack was to strike Iranian vehicles used to transport and launch missiles. The strategy was similar to a Ukrainian operation earlier this month in Russia. In that operation, nearly a third of Moscow’s strategic bomber fleet was destroyed or damaged with cheaply made drones snuck into Russian territory…In an interview with Iranian state-run television, the country’s police chief, Gen. Ahmadreza Radan, said “several vehicles carrying mini-drones and some tactical drones have been discovered.” ….

In the 2000s, Iranian centrifuges used for enriching uranium were destroyed by the so-called Stuxnet computer virus, believed to be an Israeli and American creation….In 2018, Israel stole an archive of Iranian nuclear research that included tens of thousands of pages of records…In July 2024, Israel killed a senior leader of Hamas, Ismail Haniyeh, with a bomb in a bedroom of a government guesthouse in Tehran.

Excerpts from JULIA FRANKEL and SAM MEDNICK, How Israel used spies, smuggled drones and AI to stun and hobble Iran, AP, June 17, 2025

Can Your Smartphone Kill You? You Bet.

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On September 17, 2024, nine people, including a child, have been killed after handheld pagers used by members of the armed group Hezbollah to communicate exploded across Lebanon, the country’s health minister says. Iran’s ambassador to Lebanon was among 2,800 other people who were wounded by the simultaneous blasts in Beirut and several other regions. Hezbollah, which is backed by Iran, said the pagers belonged “to employees of various Hezbollah units and institutions” and confirmed the deaths of eight fighters…Hours before the explosions, Israel’s security cabinet said stopping Hezbollah attacks on the north of the country to allow the safe return of displaced residents was an official war goal.

Hezbollah said an unspecified number of pagers – which the group relies on heavily for communications due to the risk of mobile phones being hacked or tracked – exploded at around 15:30 local time (12:30 GMT) (September 17, 2024) in the capital Beirut and many other areas. One CCTV video showed an explosion in a man’s bag or pocket at a supermarket. He is then seen falling backwards to the ground and crying out in pain as other shoppers run for cover. Hours later, ambulances were still rushing to hospitals overwhelmed with the number of casualties, 200 of whom the health minister said were in a critical condition. Most of the wounds were at the level of the waist, face, eyes and hands, he said, adding: “A lot of casualties have lost fingers, in some cases all of them.”

Overheated lithium-ion batteries can catch fire, but experts said hacking into the pagers and making them overheat would not usually cause such explosions. A former British Army munitions expert, who asked not to be named, told the BBC the pagers would have likely been packed with between 10g and 20g of military-grade high explosive, hidden inside a fake electronic component. Once armed by a signal, called an alphanumeric text message, the next person to use the device would have triggered the explosive, the expert said.

On September 18, 2024, walkie-talkies detonated in Lebanon, killing at least 20 people and wounding 450 in a fresh attack targeting Hezbollah, a day after pager blasts killed at least 12 people, including children, and injured thousands across the country

Excerpt from David Gritten, Hezbollah blames Israel after pager explosions kill nine and injure thousands in Lebanon, BBC, Sept. 18, 2024