Tear wildly into the scene of operations (7)
I believe the answer is:
theatre
'scene of operations' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)
'tear wildly into the' is the wordplay.
'wildly' is an anagram indicator.
'into' is an insertion indicator.
'tear' with letters rearranged gives 'eatr'.
'eatr' inserted inside 'the' is 'THEATRE'.
(Other definitions for theatre that I've seen before include "where people go to watch" , "Place for actors" , "war zone" , "Globe, say" , "Place for stage works" .)