As Israel’s campaign against Iran’s nuclear and missile programs roars ahead, new reports have emerged detailing how Mossad lured Iran’s top military minds into a death trap. It wasn’t brute force that dismantled the regime’s command structure—it was precision deception.

On Monday, Israeli journalist Amit Segal revealed that Mossad placed 20 fake phone calls to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Aerospace Force leadership. The calls, made through infiltrated Iranian backchannels, ordered the top brass to convene in a fortified bunker just outside Tehran. Among those who answered the call was General Amir Ali Hajizadeh, the commander of Iran’s missile forces.

They thought they were responding to a legitimate emergency. Instead, they were being herded into the perfect kill box.

Once the generals were confirmed inside the bunker, Israeli forces leveled it with a direct strike, instantly wiping out the IRGC’s senior leadership and decapitating Iran’s missile command. The move not only thwarted Iran’s ability to launch its planned 1,000-missile barrage—it crippled the entire military chain of command at the moment war broke out.

That’s not just a military strike. That’s a scalpel applied to the enemy’s brain.

What followed was predictable chaos. Without leadership, Iran’s forces were paralyzed. It took the Mullahs nearly 24 hours to issue a coherent response. By then, Israel had already dominated the skies and dismantled key missile infrastructure, making any counterattack ineffective and symbolic at best.

A few missile strikes did follow, but they were haphazard and civilian areas suffered. Unlike Israel’s surgical strikes, Iran’s response was scattershot—another sign of just how deeply the regime’s strategic capabilities had been gutted.

So how did Mossad pull off such a complex ruse?

The answer lies in Iran’s archaic and authoritarian military culture. In a rigid dictatorship, orders from above are never questioned—especially when disobedience could mean torture or death. So when 20 IRGC leaders were told to meet in a secure location, they went without hesitation. That blind obedience, the hallmark of every tyrannical regime, proved to be their undoing.

And unlike the U.S. military—which trains a deeply layered and redundant command structure—Iran’s generals were political loyalists, not professional successors. There was no backup leadership. Once the top echelon was removed, the whole system fell into disarray.

This wasn’t just a strike. It was an information warfare masterpiece. Mossad anticipated how Iran’s military would respond to a credible-sounding crisis and used that response against them. The timing, the targeting, and the psychological manipulation all came together in what will likely go down as one of the most effective decapitation strikes in modern warfare.

And while critics wring their hands about “escalation,” Israel has shown what it means to take threats seriously. Tehran has long boasted about wiping Israel off the map. With their nuclear dreams crumbling and their generals buried under rubble, those boasts are ringing hollow.

What remains to be seen is whether this stunning operation marks the end of Iran’s saber-rattling or the start of a desperate new phase. But one thing is certain: the IDF and Mossad have once again proven why they’re among the most formidable and feared forces on Earth.

You don’t just outgun your enemy—you outthink him. And that’s exactly what Israel did.