The intelligence machinery underpinning modern conflict runs on something older than satellites or algorithms: human beings. As the 2026 Iran war reveals how human intelligence, technical surveillance, and artificial intelligence are fused together, accelerating warfare, the competition between spies, sensors, and algorithms has become central to how the US and Israel conduct operations against Iran, and how Tehran attempts to respond.
Extraordinary coordination between human intelligence, surveillance and strategic communications by the CIA and Mossad enabled the Israeli access to the electronic devices owned by Ayatollah Khamenei's inner circle for nearly two decades, including nearby mobile communications towers to deny cell-phone signals, and Israel's hacking of Tehran's surveillance cameras to monitor the Ayatollah's pattern of life before the strike. The precision required to kill Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei on February 28 reflected years of accumulated intelligence about his movements and protective details.
Yet intelligence operations extend far beyond the opening strike. The intelligence community is continuing to determine how the US-Israel-Iran conflict will affect the global terrorism landscape in the year ahead. US forces have struck more than 7,000 targets in Iran since February 28, each requiring real-time targeting information as the conflict expands across the Middle East and threatens critical energy infrastructure.
The death of Iran's leadership has created both advantages and obstacles for Western intelligence services. Despite more than two weeks of relentless airstrikes, US intelligence assessments say Iran's regime likely will remain in place for now, weakened but more hard-line, with the powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps security forces exerting greater control. This consolidation of power within the Revolutionary Guards means Iran's response is becoming more militarised and less subject to civilian constraints. At the same time, ongoing purges of Iran's intelligence services reduce the scope for clandestine diplomacy through intelligence-led backchannels, and if internal dynamics disincentivise the pursuit of dialogue under the threat of probable execution, individuals within Iran's intelligence services will be less likely to explore avenues of negotiation with the CIA or Mossad.
The cyber dimension of the conflict has emerged as a secondary but significant battleground. Tehran-linked hackers are stepping up digital reconnaissance and preparing for potentially disruptive cyber activity following recent US and Israeli strikes, with the coordinated strikes and escalating tensions setting the stage for a renewed phase of Iranian cyber operations, including espionage and possible attacks on US critical infrastructure. Yet threat intelligence firms have not observed any targeting of US government agencies or private sector critical infrastructure in the US attributable to Iranian threat actors, and Iranian cyber operators are likely in a defensive posture at the moment given widespread internet blackouts in Iran.
The technical and human intelligence needed to manage this conflict remains intense. Maritime activity across the Strait of Hormuz remains severely constrained, with continued evidence that transit is being tightly controlled rather than fully restored, and commercial movement through the Strait has not normalised, with transit volumes continuing at near-zero levels as the conflict enters its third week. Monitoring shipping traffic, intercepting communications, and tracking military movements across multiple countries simultaneously demands intelligence resources on an enormous scale.
Whether intelligence services can function as a pathway to de-escalation remains uncertain. The traditional role of espionage is often to create back-channels for negotiation when public diplomacy breaks down. But when the target of those negotiations is in disarray, and the new leadership faces internal pressure to prove its toughness, those quiet conversations become harder to have. For now, the intelligence agencies remain locked in a race against military events they can observe but struggle to control.