Unlike in the June 2025 operation when the Mossad sent out a special series of videos regarding its contribution to bludgeoning Iran’s air defenses, nuclear program, ballistic missiles, and senior leadership, there has been radio silence from the clandestine agency on Saturday.
Why is that?
All standard Mossad sources are in complete radio silence at this moment.
But in his recent book, The Sword of Freedom, former Mossad chief Yossi Cohen made a series of fascinating new disclosures from the Mossad’s 2018 operation to seize Iran’s nuclear archives.
The three most important disclosures concern how Israel located Iran’s hidden nuclear secrets, how the operation was accelerated when the Mossad learned that Iran planned to move its materials for a third time, and how it was delayed by 24 hours when the field commander overruled Cohen, who wanted to proceed immediately.
Regarding how the materials were located, Cohen describes several methods: tracking the sources involved in moving them, filming and following the shipping containers carrying the nuclear archives, surveillance of the trucks used to move the materials, intercepting communications, and spying on the sites both from the air and at street level.
In the media, we often dwell on a single “golden nugget” of intelligence that turns the tide. But Cohen’s description is much more real, as it reveals that there wasn’t a single piece of intelligence but rather a sophisticated puzzle of many kinds.
Likewise, the book Target Tehran reported for the first time that the operation had to be replanned from scratch after the nuclear archives were moved once, but that the Mossad had no idea that they would be moved again, nor that the operation would be delayed by 24 hours for tactical reasons.
There are also some other fascinating, less significant details mentioned, such as that the Mossad had to deal with guard dogs and that their surveillance covered many nearby buildings to avoid any external force surprising them, in addition to the facility’s immediate guards.
Mossad was deeply entrenched in Iran in 2025
In June 2025, the Mossad, along with IDF intelligence, was at the forefront of Israel’s assassination of most of the top Iranian military officials and around a dozen Iranian nuclear scientists.
It was also deeply involved in aspects of targeting Iran’s nuclear and ballistic missile installations, even though those actually dropping the bombs or pulling the trigger were Israeli air force pilots.
The Mossad used hundreds of agents in June 2025.
It also admitted that during the June 2025 war, it used a mix of human spies on the ground, remote-controlled weapons placed on standard motor vehicles, and remote-controlled drones.
Almost tauntingly to Tehran, after the war last June, Mossad Director David Barnea told his Mossad agents, “We will [continue to] be there, like we have been there.”
Semi-official Mossad channels have publicly called on Iranians to protest and have told protesters that the Mossad would help them.
No one knows what the Mossad is doing at this moment, but whether it is carrying out military operations or is more involved in trying to assist Iranian civilians in asserting themselves against the regime, there is little question that its agents are, behind the scenes, at the eye of the storm.