Decapitating the Nuclear Brain Trust

Israel’s June 2025 campaign against Iran was designed not only to damage facilities but to remove the human capital behind Tehran’s nuclear ambitions.

According to a Washington Post–PBS Frontline investigation published December 17, Israeli intelligence identified roughly 100 key Iranian nuclear scientists, narrowed the list to about a dozen, and assassinated 11 of them beginning at 3:21 a.m. on June 13, the opening minutes of Israel’s 12-day war with Iran.

Among those killed were Mohammad Mehdi Tehranchi, a theoretical physicist and explosives expert under U.S. sanctions, and Fereydoun Abbasi, a former head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization sanctioned by both the U.S. and the United Nations.

Israeli officials said eliminating this “brain trust” was essential to inflicting lasting damage on Iran’s nuclear program.

“Operational Opportunity”

Israeli officials described the operation as the culmination of decades of planning.

“We finally had an operational opportunity to do it,” said an Israeli Air Force general involved in the assault.

Intelligence dossiers tracked scientists’ movements, residences, and professional roles, drawing on years of espionage.

Unlike earlier assassinations carried out with deniability—such as magnet bombs in 2010 or the remote-controlled killing of Mohsen Fakhrizadeh in 2020—Operation Narnia was conducted openly as part of a broader campaign known as Rising Lion.

Israeli warplanes, drones, and agents on the ground struck Iran’s nuclear infrastructure, missile launchers, and air defenses in parallel.

Inside Iran, Israel’s Mossad mobilized more than 100 Iranian agents, according to a senior Israeli security official directly involved in the planning.

Some were equipped with a three-part “special weapon” designed for precision strikes on military assets.

Iranian authorities later recovered some launchers, the official said, but not the missiles or a secret third component.

The teams were trained in Israel and other locations and were briefed only on their specific missions, not the full scope of the operation.

“This operation is unprecedented in history,” the official said.

“We mobilized our own assets and agents to go close to Tehran and launch the ground operation before the [Israeli] Air Force could enter Iranian airspace.”

Civilian Costs and Limits

The investigation found the operation was not without civilian casualties.

The Post and Bellingcat independently verified 71 civilian deaths across five strikes targeting scientists.

One strike in Tehran’s Saadat Abad neighborhood killed 10 civilians, including a 2-month-old infant, with blast damage consistent with a roughly 500-pound bomb. In another case, a scientist’s 17-year-old son was killed when the intended target was absent.

Israeli military intelligence officials said minimizing collateral damage was a central consideration.

Iranian authorities later said 1,062 people were killed in Israeli strikes, including 276 civilians, while Israeli officials reported 31 Israelis killed by Iranian retaliation.

Impact on Iran’s Program

Israeli, U.S., and International Atomic Energy Agency officials assessed that Iran’s nuclear program was set back years, though not “completely and totally obliterated.”

Iran retains nearly 900 pounds of uranium enriched to 60 percent purity, short of weapons-grade 90 percent.

IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi described the damage as “very substantial,” while noting inspectors lack access to key sites.

Iranian officials remain defiant.

“Iran’s nuclear program can never be destroyed,” said Ali Larijani, arguing that scientific knowledge cannot be erased even when scientists are killed.