New Delhi: Inside lodge rooms, navy bases and secret compounds throughout Iran, prime officers had been jolted by telephone calls they by no means anticipated. On the road – a relaxed voice in flawless Persian, warning them their lives had been ticking down. “You have got 12 hours. Take your spouse. Take your kids. Get out.” Some hung up in disbelief. Others vanished. And some, as Israel claims, didn’t survive the warning.
This was not simply conflict with missiles. It was psychological warfare. A parallel operation. A whisper marketing campaign backed by precision airstrikes and names checked off a dying record.
The Different Battle
Whereas Israeli drones and stealth jets had been hitting Iranian missile websites and nuclear bunkers, one other operation was underway – one with no coordinates on a map. Code-named ‘Rising Lion’, the covert marketing campaign focused Iran’s nerves. One telephone at a time.
Three operatives concerned within the mission – together with a leaked recording – confirmed the plan’s scope to The Washington Submit. Round 20 senior Iranian officers acquired direct calls. The message was blunt. Cease backing Ayatollah Khamenei or be a part of the lifeless.
A chilling audio clip, now circulating amongst intelligence watchers, captures one such name. An Israeli operative speaks softly however firmly, “You’re on our record. We’re nearer than your carotid artery. Do not forget that.”
The goal was a high-ranking common. He reportedly escaped. Others didn’t.
From Risk to Aftershock
Israeli sources declare among the males warned by telephone had been killed quickly after. The calls weren’t bluffs. They had been preludes. The strikes that adopted worn out necessary names – Main Basic Hossein Salami of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corpse (IRGC), Main Basic Mohammad Bagheri of Iran’s armed forces and others.
Subsequent calls invoked their deaths.
One officer recalled a voice saying, “I’m calling from the nation that, two hours in the past, despatched Bagheri and Salami straight to hell. You’re subsequent if you don’t get up.”
Letters on the Door
The strain was not solely by way of telephones. Some officers discovered nameless letters on their doorstep. Others had been contacted by way of their spouses. It was private, deliberate and meant to rattle males deep contained in the regime’s ranks.
No bombs. No gunshots. Simply concern.
The marketing campaign’s aim? To paralyse succession planning. To make sure that after the decapitation strikes on prime brass, these subsequent in line would hesitate. Ayatollah Khamenei, reportedly hiding in a bunker in the course of the peak of the conflict, struggled to interchange fallen commanders.
One Israeli safety official put it merely, “We needed these left behind to doubt the whole lot. Their security. Their futures. Their chief.”
Regardless of the psychological strain, no large-scale defection surfaced from the IRGC or Iran’s armed forces. However insiders say the concern ran deep. At mid-levels, command chains frayed. Paranoia was rising.
And that was all the time the purpose.
This was not solely about breaking bunkers however breaking resolve and killing silence whisper by whisper.