Israel has struck at the ideological and brain centre of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, launching a precision night raid on Imam Hossein University in Tehran — the elite academy that trains the IRGC’s future commanders, cyber chiefs and missile architects, defence sources say.

Residents in eastern Tehran reported a roar of jets just after midnight, followed by multiple explosions inside the walled campus. Drone footage circulating among regional media shows burning lecture halls, shattered dormitories and a scorched parade ground where IRGC cadets usually drill. Secondary blasts suggest underground armouries and electronics labs were hit.

Israeli officials, speaking off the record, call the strike a “hammer blow to the IRGC’s brain”: simulators used to plan missile campaigns, classrooms for hybrid warfare doctrine, and secure data centres believed to host targeting archives were all on the target list. “You can rebuild a base,” one official said. “Re‑creating twenty years of training and data is much harder.”

Tehran insists only “peripheral buildings” were damaged and vows that teaching will resume “immediately,” even as ambulances and IRGC buses were seen rushing casualties to military hospitals. Students and staff have been hastily relocated to undisclosed sites, and security forces have sealed off surrounding streets.

For Iran’s rulers, Imam Hossein University was more than a campus; it was the factory floor for the next generation of Guard leadership. For Israel, turning that symbol into a smoking, silent complex is a message: the war is no longer just about launch pads and depots — it is now targeting the minds that design them.