In the 1979 CE, with French assistance, Iraq had started to build the Osirak nuclear reactor near Baghdad.
Several neighboring countries were worried that it would be used to develop nuclear weapons.
The Iranian air force slightly damaged the reactor in 1980 CE, at the beginning of the Iran-Iraq War,
but that damage was quickly repaired.
Israel delayed Iraq's efforts by sabotaging equipment in France and assassinating an Egyptian scientist.
As early as the mid-1970's CE it developed plans to bomb the reactor.
While Iraq was busy fighting Iran, the Israeli air force performed a few scouting missions and also received photographs from Iran.
Several pilots were trained using a dummy target in the Negev desert.
The strike force consisted of eight brand new F-16's, escorted by six F-15's.
These were so heavily loaded that any which would engage in dogfights would end up with insufficient fuel to return home;
they had to fly 1,600 kilometers and back.
While flying over the Gulf of Aqaba, they were accidentally discovered by the Jordanians, but their warning did not reach Iraq.
The airplanes violated Jordanian and Saudi-Arabian airspace, talking in Arabian and pretending to be Arabian, and later switching to radio silence.
Upon reaching Iraqi airspace the squadron split up and ducked below radar, to climb again near the reactor and dive down upon it.
14 of the 16 bombs dropped wrecked the installation; 10 Iraqi soldiers and 1 French civilian were killed.
The Iraqi air defense operators who had switched off their equipment to eat lunch failed to pick them up.
They fired a few shots at the retreating airplanes, to no effect.
The unprovoked attack was widely condemned but had few consequences for Israel.
The Osirak reactor itself was not capable of producing plutonium needed for nuclear bombs, though it could have been a first step towards that goal.
Political and financial troubles prevented the reactor from being rebuilt, however the Iraqi nuclear program 'went underground' and actually expanded,
though Iraq never reached the ability to produce nuclear weapons.
War Matrix - Operation Opera
Cold War 1945 CE - 1991 CE, Battles and sieges