Inside Israel’s Operation Narnia: How Iran’s nuclear brain trust was dismantled

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei

Israel’s deadly campaign against Iran’s nuclear program reached new heights this month with a series of coordinated assassinations that eliminated over a dozen key scientists tied to Tehran’s atomic weapons efforts. Codenamed “Operation Narnia,” the effort targeted some of the most senior minds behind Iran’s decades-long nuclear ambitions, striking deep inside Iran just before a US-Qatar brokered cease-fire took effect, the Wall Street Journal reported.

15 years in the making

The June 13 pre-dawn attacks killed nine prominent scientists in simultaneous strikes across Iran, according to individuals familiar with the operation. The timing was critical, aimed at preventing the targets from disappearing into hiding. In the days that followed, at least two more were killed—including Sayyed Seddighi Saber, a high-ranking nuclear official sanctioned by the US just weeks earlier. Israeli and Iranian media confirmed the deaths.

The operation marks the most significant Israeli assault on Iran’s nuclear leadership since the 2020 killing of Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, the former architect of Iran’s secret AMAD program, which Western intelligence says was halted in 2003 but quietly continued in other forms.

According to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the killings have set back Iran’s nuclear program by several years. Former US counterproliferation officials say the loss of hands-on expertise in warhead design, high explosives, and neutron triggers is irreplaceable in the short term—especially if Iran seeks to build a bomb quickly.

The brains behind the bomb

Among the most high-profile casualties was Fereydoon Abbasi-Devani, a founder of Iran’s nuclear weapons-related program and former head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran. He had long been involved in neutron initiator research—key to triggering a nuclear detonation—and once survived a car bomb attack in 2010. “If they tell me to build a bomb, I will build it,” he said in a recent interview.

Other top scientists killed included Mohammad Mehdi Teranchi, who led explosives research under Fakhrizadeh, and Saber, head of the Shahid Karimi Group, which oversaw key explosives testing for the successor SPND program.

Universities as cover

Despite the blows, analysts warn Iran retains a vast and decentralized nuclear knowledge network. Israeli intelligence and Western think tanks note that Tehran has used major universities—including Shahid Beheshti, Sharif University of Technology, and Malek Ashtar—to quietly mentor the next generation of nuclear experts under the guise of civilian research.

Many of the slain scientists continued publishing academic papers with dual-use potential. Two, Ahmadreza Zolfaghari and Abdulhamid Minouchehr, recently co-authored a paper modelling neutron chain reactions—research applicable both to reactors and nuclear weapons.

“The professors are teaching the younger scientists…to enter the heart of the Iranian nuclear program,” said Israeli security analyst Ronen Solomon.

More than airstrikes

Israel’s campaign wasn’t limited to assassinations. It also bombed the Tehran headquarters of the SPND—an organization identified by the US and Israel as the AMAD program’s successor—and a range of sensitive infrastructure, including Iran’s oil depots and even its state broadcaster. These are among the most direct strikes inside Iran since the start of open hostilities.

Satellite imagery confirms damage to Iran’s Arak nuclear facility, and Israel reportedly used drones to kill a scientist housed in a “safe house” a week after the June 13 attacks. Israel has neither confirmed nor denied its involvement.

What’s next?

Iran has denied ever seeking a nuclear weapon and maintains that its program is peaceful. Yet the U.N. nuclear watchdog, the IAEA, has repeatedly cited Tehran’s lack of transparency and continuing violations of inspection agreements. Israel, meanwhile, argues that its actions have successfully blocked Iran from “crossing the threshold.”

Still, some experts caution that while the loss of experienced personnel is damaging, Iran’s nuclear archive and mentoring system have ensured that institutional memory endures. Since 2018, when Israeli agents raided a secret warehouse in Tehran and uncovered extensive documentation of Iran’s nuclear plans, the West has been aware of how systematically the country has preserved its atomic knowledge.

Andrea Stricker of the Foundation for Defence of Democracies called the killings a “blow to Iran’s brain trust,” but acknowledged that “Iran has invested in continuity.” The battle over Iran’s nuclear future, in other words, is far from over—even if Operation Narnia has reshaped the battlefield.