Deep-cover agents, hacked phones: Israel’s secret war inside Iran
The covert campaign that preceded the Jewish state’s attack also involved spy satellites and smuggled miniaturised weapons systems to ensure a precise first strike.
Iran claims it shot down an advanced Israeli Hermes drone over eastern Isfahan.
Mehul Srivastava, Neri Zilber and John Paul Rathbone
Last year an Israeli telecoms executive working in Europe had a call from an old friend back in Tel Aviv: could he help design a phone that looked like a cheap Android but could transmit encrypted data that mimicked social media traffic?
About the same time, a reservist working at an Israeli health start-up got a call from Unit 9900, a tiny part of the Israeli military that seeks clues in vast data sets. Could he tweak an algorithm he had worked on during his military service, so a dedicated server could sift through satellite images of fuel trucks and separate those carrying petrol from those with missile propellant?
