'Killed in the sleep’: What was Israel’s Operation Narnia? Here’s how IDF strikes killed 10 Iranian nuclear scientists

As Israel launched Operation Rising Lion against Iran, targeting its nuclear facilities, top military officials, and nuclear scientists in the past few weeks, another operation has come into light. Israel also launched Operation Narnia, killing 10 Iranian nuclear scientists as a part of the ongoing war.

The Iranian nuclear scientists were killed while they were sleeping in their homes, Channel 12 reported.

Israel’s Operation Rising Lion eliminated many senior officials in the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) and key individuals involved in Iran’s nuclear program.

All about Operation Narnia

Israel Defence Forces (IDF) targeted the scientists who had the most military expertise and the greatest difficulty in replacing them.

Then, Israel compiled a list of those scientists, ready for execution at command. The strike successfully targeted nuclear scientists with the help of the Intelligence Directorate’s precise intelligence.

Israel used a “special weapon” to eliminate these scientists, according to Channel 9 and Channel 12 reports. While the specifics of this have been barred from publication.

Those scientists were the key figures in Iran’s nuclear program, with years of experience in nuclear weapons development.

Scientists killed by Israeli strike

• Fereydoun Abbasi, a nuclear engineering expert
• Mohammad Mahdi Tehranchi, a physics expert
• Akbar Matlali Zadeh, a chemical engineering expert
• Saeed Beraji, a materials engineering expert
• Amir Hassan Faqahi, a physics expert
• Abd al-Hamid Minushahr, a reactor physics expert
• Mansour Asgari, a physics expert
• Ahmad Reza Davalparki Daryani, a nuclear engineering expert
• Ali Bakhayi Kathehremi, a mechanical expert

Out of those 10 scientists, three of the most known were Fereydoun Abbasi, Mohammad Mahdi Tehranchi, and Akbar Matlali Zadeh.

Notably, many of those scientists were successors of Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, who was popularly known as the father of Iran’s nuclear program. Fakhrizadeh himself was killed in 2020, by a robotic sniper, allegedly planned by Israel.