March 19, 2026: For years, Israeli intelligence has been gaining access to and decrypting Iranian traffic cameras. With this Israeli intelligence can monitor the movements of individuals for days to ascertain patterns of movement and behavior. In this way Israeli airstrikes, planted bombs or local assassins can be used to eliminate key Iranian personnel. This is one of many tools Israel uses to precisely locate where human targets are, before launching a missile from an aircraft to kill a specific individual. This is how Israel recently killed Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and dozens of senior Iranian government, political and scientific personnel over the years.

Israel also has an extensive network of Israeli Mossad and local Iranian operatives inside Iran. This network has been active for decades. Despite Iranian government efforts to catch, interrogate and imprison or execute these operatives, few have been captured. Some of these operatives are sleeper agents, who go about their lives for years before being activated for a mission.

The Israeli operatives in Iran have taken care of many government and military officials by calling them and telling them that Israeli operatives know where they live and will kill them if they don’t agree to stand aside from their jobs and not oppose a new democratic government. It’s getting to the point where if you’re an Iranian official and Israel haven’t killed you yet it’s a bit insulting

The recent Iranian shutdown of their internet and other communications systems was meant to prevent the Israeli operatives from communicating with Mossad back in Israel. There are probably other communications systems available to Israeli operatives in Iran. Shortwave radio is one option as are custom versions of the ground communications Starlink units.

Israel has regularly used their operatives inside Iran for spectacular successes. One of the more notable ones took place eight years ago when an Israeli Mossad operation got half a ton of top-secret Iranian nuclear weapons program documents out of Iran and back to Israel in less than 24 hours. This provided Iranian leaders with multiple aftershocks. For one thing, most Iranians didn’t care about the document theft. No Iranians were injured in the operation; it was assumed to have been made possible by the widespread corruption in Iran and an Iranian religious dictatorship that seems to care more about destroying Israel than improving the lives of Iranians. When news of the Mossad operation were made public by the Israelis the public opinion polls in Iran showed that most Iranians didn’t care and those that paid any attention to the matter felt it was just another example of how incompetent their government was and why change was needed. The Iranian government was justifiably concerned that publicizing these documents, as Israel did, would lead to the cancellation of the 2015 treaty that lifted sanctions on Iran. The stolen documents showed that the nuclear program did exist and apparently was still underway disguised as many different scientific research projects.

Iran always insisted that it never had a nuclear weapons program even though the Israelis had uncovered much evidence that the program existed and the attitude of most Iranians was that the program existed and why not because Iran had long been the regional superpower. But since the 2015 treaty went into effect the promised economic improvements for most Iranians have not happened and at the end of 2017 that triggered widespread public protests against the religious dictatorship. The Shia clerics who run the government have been arguing openly about how to deal with these problems and now the hardline Shia clerics, who insist that destroying Israel be the main priority of Iran, are humiliated by the nuclear documents theft going public. Some of the hardliners want to do whatever it takes to strike back at Israel but most Iranians see Israel as an unofficial ally in the popular effort to get rid of the religious dictatorship in Iran. This is nothing new. In the wake of the American-British invasion of Iraq in 2003, and quick three weeks overthrow of the Saddam Hussein government, many Iranians openly called for the Americans to come invade Iran and get rid of the religious dictatorship that had been ruling Iran since the 1980s on the promise they would one day get Saddam” for invading Iran in 1980 and starting a war that neither side was able to win. That counted as an Iranian defeat to most Iranians and to make matters worse the chaos of the war allowed Shia clerics to take, and keep, control of the government. Before that Israel and Iran were allies and a growing number of Iranians saw that as a better arrangement than the current one. All this gave little comfort, and not many options, for the Iranian leadership.

The Iranian government preferred to retaliate against Israel indirectly. Iran had long used foreign proxies like Hezbollah or other non-Iranian Islamic terrorists to attack Israel. Iran did not have modern weapons because of decades of sanctions and Iranian leaders were smart enough to realize that Iran itself trying to attack Israel would most likely result in another humiliating Iranian defeat. Israel has anti-missile defenses against Iranian ballistic missiles. Yet Iran has enough of these missiles to attempt a saturation attack on Israel using explosive or chemical warheads. Iran could also use a dirty warhead by adding radioactive material to a high explosive warhead. A few of these missiles landing in Israel, especially in a major urban area, would be a great propaganda victory. But Israel also has ballistic missiles armed with nuclear warheads and, worse, hundreds of modern fighter-bombers that could hit two key economic targets using smart bombs. These two targets are Kharg Island, in the Persian Gulf. This is the main export facility for 90 percent of oil and gas exports. Income from these exports pay for over a third of the government budget and these facilities cannot be rebuilt quickly. The other economic target is Bandar Abbas in southern Iran. This is the main container port handling some 90 percent of containers bringing in foreign goods, like items needed to repair damage to Kharg Island. Bandar Abbas is where all the modern tech and consumer goods arrive. Shutting down Bandar Abbas for months, or more would be quickly felt by most Iranians. With Arab states between Israel and Iran now allowing Israeli airstrikes free passage, the Israeli air strikes are certain to succeed and inflict major damage. That nightmare came true in early 2026 when American and Israeli aircraft began a sustained bombing campaign against Iran.