EXPLAINER
From cyberattacks and assassinations to drone attacks, Israel-linked plots have targeted Iran and its nuclear program for years.
Israel's leaders have signaled they are weighing their options on how to respond to Iran's attack early Sunday, when Tehran attacked its archenemy with more than 300 missiles and drones.
Iran's attack, which followed an Israeli attack last week on the Iranian consulate in Damascus, Syria, that killed 13 people, was historic: It was the first time Tehran had directly attacked Israeli soil, despite decades of hostility. Until Sunday, many of Iran's allies in the so-called resistance axis (especially the Palestinian group Hamas, the Lebanese group Hezbollah, the Houthis of Yemen and armed groups in Iraq and Syria) were the ones who launched missiles and drones against Israel.
But if Israel responded militarily inside Iran, it would not be the first time. Far from there.
For years, Israel has focused on one target inside Iran in particular: the country's nuclear program. Israel has long accused Iran of clandestinely building a nuclear bomb that could threaten its existence, and has spoken publicly and frequently of its diplomatic and intelligence efforts to derail those alleged efforts. Iran denies having had a military nuclear program, while arguing that it has the right to access civilian nuclear energy.
As Israel prepares its response, here's a look at the range of attacks on Iran – from drone strikes and cyberattacks to assassinations of scientists and theft of secrets – that Israel has accepted it was behind or is accused of orchestrating.
Murders of Iranian scientists
- January 2010: A physics professor at the University of Tehran, Masoud Ali-Mohammadi, was killed by a remotely operated bomb placed on his motorcycle. Iranian state media claimed the United States and Israel were behind the attack. The Iranian government described Ali-Mohammadi as a nuclear scientist.
- November 2010: Majid Shahriari, a professor at the faculty of nuclear engineering at Shahid Beheshti University in Tehran, died in a car explosion while on his way to work. His wife was also injured. Iran's then-president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad blamed the United States and Israel for the attacks.
- January 2012: Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan, a chemical engineering graduate, was killed by a bomb placed in his car by a motorcyclist in Tehran. Iran blamed Israel and the United States for the attack and said Ahmadi Roshan was a nuclear scientist who supervised a department at Iran's primary uranium enrichment facility in the city of Natanz.
- November 2020:Prominent nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh was killed in a roadside attack outside Tehran. Western and Israeli intelligence services had long suspected that Fakhrizadeh was the father of an Iranian nuclear weapons program. It was sanctioned by the United Nations in 2007 and the United States in 2008.
- May 2022: Colonel Hassan Sayyad Khodaei, of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), was shot five times in front of his home in Tehran. Majid Mirahmadi, a member of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, said the assassination was “definitely the work of Israel.”
Israel's cyber attacks on Iran
- June 2010:The Stuxnet virus was found on computers at the nuclear plant in the Iranian city of Bushehr and from there it spread to other facilities. In September 2010, up to 30,000 computers in at least 14 facilities were affected. At least 1,000 of the 9,000 centrifuges at Iran's Natanz enrichment facility were destroyed, according to an estimate by the Institute for Science and International Security. Following the investigation, Iran blamed Israel and the United States for the virus attack.
- April 2011: Iran's cyber defense agency discovered a virus called Stars and said the malware was designed to infiltrate and damage Iran's nuclear facilities. The virus imitated official government files and inflicted “minor damage” to computer systems, according to Gholamreza Jalali, head of Iran's Passive Defense Organization. Iran blamed Israel and the United States.
- November 2011: Iran said it discovered a new virus called Duqu, based on Stuxnet. Experts said Duqu aimed to collect data for future cyberattacks. The Iranian government announced that it was checking computers at major nuclear sites. Experts widely believed that Duqu spyware was linked to Israel.
- April 2012: Iran blamed the United States and Israel for malware called Wiper, which wiped hard drives of computers owned by the Ministry of Oil and the National Iranian Oil Company.
- May 2012: Iran announced that a virus called Flame had attempted to steal government data from government computers. The Washington Post reported that Israel and the United States had used it to gather intelligence. Then-Israeli Deputy Prime Minister Moshe Yaalon did not confirm the nation's participation, but acknowledged that Israel would use all means to “damage the Iranian nuclear system.”
- October 2018: The Iranian government said it had blocked an invasion by a new generation of Stuxnet, blaming Israel for the attack.
- October 2021: A cyberattack affected the system that allows Iranians to use government-issued cards to buy fuel at a subsidized price, affecting Iran's 4,300 gas stations. Consumers had to pay the regular price, more than double the subsidized price, or wait for the stations to reconnect to the central distribution system. Iran blamed Israel and the United States.
- May 2020: A cyberattack affected the computers that control maritime traffic at the port of Shahid Rajaee on Iran's southern Gulf coast, creating a traffic jam of ships waiting to dock. The Washington Post cited US officials as saying that Israel was behind the attack, although Israel did not claim responsibility.
Israel's drone strikes and raids against Iran
- January 2018: Mossad agents raided a secure facility in Tehran and stole classified nuclear files. In April 2018, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced that Israel discovered 100,000 “secret files proving” that Iran lied about never having a nuclear weapons program.
- February 2022: Former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett admitted in an op-ed published in The Wall Street Journal in December 2023 that Israel carried out an attack on an unmanned aerial vehicle and assassinated a senior IRGC commander in February of the year. former.
- May 2022: Suicide quadcopter drones loaded with explosives attacked the Parchin military complex, southeast of Tehran, killing an engineer and damaging a building where the Ministry of Defense and the Armed Forces had developed drones. IRGC commander Hossein Salami promised retaliation against unspecified “enemies.”
- January 2023: Several suicide drones attacked a military facility in central Isfahan, but were foiled and caused no damage. While Iran did not immediately place blame for the attacks, Iran's envoy to the UN, Amir Saeid Iravani, wrote a letter to the UN chief saying that “primary investigation suggested that Israel was responsible.”
- February 2024: A natural gas pipeline in Iran was attacked. Iran's Oil Minister Javad Owji alleged that the “gas pipeline explosion was an Israeli plot.”
