Inside ‘Operation Narnia,' the Daring Attack Israel Feared It Couldn't Pull Off

Hindustan Times

2 days ago

At midnight on June 13, Israel's generals gathered in a bunker beneath Israeli air force headquarters and watched as jets descended on Tehran in an operation they called 'Red Wedding.'
Hours later and 1,000 miles away, Iran's top military commanders were dead—a mass killing much like the famous wedding scene from the show 'Game of Thrones.'
The combination of intelligence information and military precision that enabled the attack surprised people around the world. But it wasn't the only improbable success at the outset of Israel's 12-day campaign.
Another key part of the initial attack—considered so fantastical by even its planners that it was called 'Operation Narnia,' after the fictional C.S. Lewis series—successfully killed nine top Iranian nuclear scientists almost simultaneously at their homes in Tehran.
Pulling off the attacks required elaborate ruses to ensure surprise. At the last moment, they nearly fell apart.
The operations have helped cement Israel as the dominant military power in the region, setting the stage for what Israelis hope will be a dramatic realignment of countries away from Iranian influence and toward friendlier relations with Israel. Top Israeli and U.S. officials say they expect Israel to sign new peace accords following the battle.
Questions remain over whether Israel, which was later aided by a massive bombing strike on Iran's nuclear sites by the U.S., has really achieved its war aims. There are conflicting reports about the damage done to the nuclear sites, and the jury is out on whether Israel and the U.S. can prevent Iran from rebuilding what has been destroyed.
Still, even some Israeli officials were surprised by how their plans, some of which dated back more than a decade, were able to come together. 'When we started to plan this thing in detail, it was very difficult to know that this would work,' said Maj. Gen. Oded Basiuk, head of the Israeli military Operations Directorate and a key architect of the operation.
This account is based on interviews with 18 current and former Israeli and U.S. security officials.
Israel took a huge risk in launching the attack. Either Israel would hit the human targets all at once, or they would scatter. If they did, Iran's retaliation would've been far more severe, and its nuclear ambitions intact. And had President Trump not been inspired by Israel's early success to bomb Iranian nuclear sites, it isn't clear how Israel would have achieved its chief aim of the operation. Even now, Iran has been hurt but could rebound more determined than ever to build a nuclear weapon.
A photo from Iranian official media showing smoke from a site targeted by Israel in Tehran.
Damage from Israeli strikes in Tehran.
Long road
The operation's origins stretch back to the mid-1990s, when Israeli intelligence first identified what it saw as nascent Iranian attempts to build a nuclear weapons program.
Israeli intelligence began building an extensive network of agents inside Iran to facilitate a sabotage campaign, which included causing explosions twice at one of Iran's main enrichment sites and assassinating some scientists. But Israeli officials ultimately determined those activities weren't enough, and that they would eventually need to destroy Iran's nuclear program, and the Iranian nuclear brain trust, from the air.
Doing so would be enormously difficult. The sites Israel would need to hit were more than 1,000 miles from home.
Pilots would have to learn how to fly in formations of six to 10 aircraft around a single tanker plane, taking turns to refuel—multiple times—during the journey. They'd also have to learn how to position their planes perfectly so that their missiles, when dropped, would land within 15 to 20 seconds of each other for maximum effectiveness.
Such training wasn't possible in a country as small as Israel, running just 290 miles north-to-south.
In 2008, in what was called Operation Glorious Spartan, more than 100 Israeli F-15s and F-16s flew more than 1,000 miles to Greece, testing their ability to fly far enough to hit Iran's nuclear facilities. Such exercises would become more frequent.
Over the next several years, Israel came close to launching an air attack several times. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was repeatedly voted down by his ministers and security chiefs who feared starting a war with Iran or angering Washington, which at the time favored a diplomatic approach.
Israeli military planners kept gaming out an attack, including a multifront war with Iranian proxies Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon. There was also the puzzle of flying over Syria, then an enemy state under Iranian influence.
After Hamas's Oct. 7, 2023, attacks, Israel has spent the past nearly two years decimating Hamas. It has also severely weakened Hezbollah, whose support had helped prop up Syria's regime. Opposition forces then toppled Syria's government, putting in place an anti-Iran government, which cleared the way for Israeli planes to cross the country's airspace unimpeded.
By that time, Israeli spy networks inside Iran were extensive enough to track the movement of its military leaders and set up drone bases inside the country that could play a crucial role in knocking out Iran's air defense systems during the attack.
Israel was able to further test its long-range fighter jet capability when it targeted Houthi rebels in Yemen over the past year. It also took out Tehran's most advanced air defense systems, Russian S-300s, in attacks in April and October 2024.
Those attacks by Israel came in response to large missile barrages from Iran, which were largely repelled by Israeli air defense along with help from the U.S. and other allies. The tit-for-tats with Iran gave Israel the confidence it could go head-to-head with its fellow regional superpower.
With so many pieces in place, plans for an attack intensified.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke to Congress in 1996 about the dangers of Iran gaining a nuclear weapon.
Operation Narnia
Adding to the urgency was a sense in Israel that Iran had begun to enrich uranium to such levels that it would be mere months away from building a bomb if it wanted to.
Fearing it had already lost the battle to suppress Iran's uranium enrichment, Israel launched an operation to kill the Iranian scientists who could help their country use that material to build a nuclear weapon, even if Israeli attacks damaged or destroyed its nuclear sites—the far-fetched mission Operation Narnia.
In November 2024, the military gathered 120 intelligence and air force officials together to decide who and what would be in their crosshairs when fighting began.
In the end, the conference drew up a list of over 250 targets, including the scientists the Israelis wanted to kill, nuclear sites, Iranian missile launchers and military officials.
Another priority was figuring out how to gain air superiority over Iran from the get-go. This would pave the way for Israeli jets to continue pounding the long list of targets for the next 12 days. Israeli officials cross-referenced thousands of intelligence sources to map out Iran's air defense systems.
The Mossad was brought in to aid that effort. Its agents spent months smuggling in parts for hundreds of quadcopter drones rigged with explosives—in suitcases, trucks and shipping containers—as well as munitions that could be fired remotely from unmanned platforms. Small teams armed with the equipment set up near Iran's air-defense emplacements and missile launch sites, ready to take out the defense systems once Israel launched its attack.
Israel also launched larger drones from its own territory in the attack. The long-distance capabilities of some of the drones were tested for the first time the night before the attack, according to a person familiar with the matter.
An Iranian memorial to those killed in Israeli strikes.
A satellite image showed damage at Iran's Ghadir site.
Israeli ruses
Netanyahu and his military advisers made the final decision on June 9 to attack four days later, according to an Israeli security official.
Netanyahu's team knew they would have to disguise their plans to make sure the Iranians didn't take precautionary actions, such as dispersing their scientists and military leaders.
Netanyahu's office announced he would be taking off work soon for a holiday weekend, followed by the wedding of his eldest son, Avner, on Monday, June 16.
None of the attendees—including Avner or Netanyahu's wife, Sarah—knew the prime minister was planning to delay the wedding, the prime minister later said. He carried on as normal, so as to not tip off the Iranians.
Meanwhile, Israeli officials were leaking reports to the media suggesting a split between Netanyahu and President Trump over whether to launch an attack. The leaks included details of a phone call between Netanyahu and Trump four days before the operation began, in which Trump told the Israeli leader he wanted diplomacy to run its course before turning to military options.
The day of the attacks, Trump told reporters that the U.S. and Iran were 'fairly close to an agreement' and that he didn't want the Israelis 'going in.'
Israeli officials also told reporters an attack was imminent, but they would wait to see the final result of a sixth round of nuclear talks between Washington and Tehran scheduled for Sunday.
In reality, generals were already making last minute preparations for the attack.
The key to the deception, said a security official familiar with the planning of the operation, was the idea implanted in the minds of the Iranians that Israel wouldn't strike without U.S. authorization and participation. As long as the U.S. wasn't mobilizing its forces and was engaged in negotiations, Israel could threaten to attack and even mobilize its troops in plain sight of Iran without giving away the element of surprise.
In fact, as Israeli aircraft were getting in the air, Trump posted on Truth Social: 'We remain committed to a Diplomatic Resolution to the Iran Nuclear Issue!'
Netanyahu met with President Trump in the Oval Office in April.
Doomed gathering
A key part of the final plan was to take out the leadership of Iran's armed forces all at once—the effort known as Red Wedding. The move would cut off any immediate retaliation, while buying time for Israeli fighter jets and drones to take out Iranian missile launchers, thereby diminishing Iran's inevitable response.
As the Israeli aircraft approached, however, a problem surfaced. The leadership of the Iranian air force was suddenly on the move.
Israeli officials in their bunker began to sweat. It was possible the whole plan was unraveling and that the Iranians were onto them.
But to the amazement of the Israeli high command, rather than scattering, the Iranian air force leaders gathered together in one place—sealing their fate. Israeli missiles started to fly.
Explosions also shattered the scientists' homes, killing nine in near-simultaneous attacks to prevent them from going into hiding. Despite its long odds, Operation Narnia was succeeding.
The missiles then also hit radar stations, antiaircraft batteries and Iranian surface-to-surface missiles. Soon Israeli intelligence was able to confirm that the human targets whose names it had collected back in November had nearly all been killed.
In around four hours, the opening operation was over.
In the following days, Israeli aircraft pounded Iranian nuclear and ballistic missile production sites and launchers, while also hunting down Iranian military leaders and nuclear scientists. A cease-fire was declared on Tuesday.
Write to Dov Lieber at [e-mail]
Inside 'Operation Narnia,' the Daring Attack Israel Feared It Couldn't Pull Off
Inside 'Operation Narnia,' the Daring Attack Israel Feared It Couldn't Pull Off
Inside 'Operation Narnia,' the Daring Attack Israel Feared It Couldn't Pull Off
Inside 'Operation Narnia,' the Daring Attack Israel Feared It Couldn't Pull Off