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Iran has obtained a trove of “strategic and sensitive” Israeli intelligence, including files related to Israel’s nuclear facilities and defense plans, the Islamic Republic state broadcaster reported on June 7.
“Iran’s intelligence apparatus has obtained a vast quantity of strategic and sensitive information and documents belonging to the Zionist regime (Israel),” said the broadcaster, citing informed regional sources.
The intelligence included “thousands of documents related to that regime’s nuclear plans and facilities,” it adds.
According to the report, the data was extracted during “a covert operation,” and included a “vast volume of materials — including documents, images, and videos.”
The broadcaster also said that the data was thoroughly reviewed by Iranian authorities after being securely transferred to the country.
The report, which was carried by the Hezbollah-affiliated Lebanese outlet al-Mayadeen and Iran’s Tasnim news agency, didn’t include any details on the documents or how Iran had obtained them. It also didn’t say if the Islamic Republic was going to release any of the data to the public.
Israel is estimated to have a stockpile of around 90-200 nuclear warheads. It developed its nuclear program in the 1950s and is thought to have tested a nuclear device in the 1960s. They have a nuclear triad of delivery options: air, sea, and ground-based missiles.
The country maintains a policy of “nuclear ambiguity,” or “nuclear opacity,” refraining from publicly acknowledging its nuclear arsenal, or outright denying its presence.
The operation announced by Iran appears to be a response to the heist of the country’s nuclear archive by the Mossad intelligence agency which was revealed by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in 2018.
The heist saw fewer than two dozen Mossad agents infiltrating a secret warehouse in the Kahrizak district to the south of the Iranian capital, Tehran, and pilfered 100,000 documents, including paper records and computer files, documenting the nuclear weapons work of the AMAD Project between 1999 and 2003.
Iran and Israel have been engaged in a decades-long shadow war across the Middle East and beyond, including intelligence gathering, sabotage and even assassinations.
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