Key Points
- CIA intelligence pinpointed Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s location.
- Top Iranian military and intelligence officials were killed; others escaped.
ISLAMABAD: The United States and Israel carried out a highly coordinated attack on Iranian leadership compounds in Tehran on Saturday, resulting in the deaths of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and several senior officials.
According to The New York Times, the operation relied on months of intelligence gathering and precise timing to strike a rare gathering of Iran’s top leaders.
The CIA had been tracking Khamenei for months and identified a leadership meeting at a compound in central Tehran, providing Israel and the United States with the opportunity to adjust the timing of their strike, officials briefed on the operation said.
Israel executed a long-planned operation targeting senior political and military figures, including Mohammad Pakpour, commander in chief of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, and Admiral Ali Shamkhani, head of the National Defence Council.
The operation began early Saturday morning, with fighter jets taking off from Israeli bases and striking the compound two hours later using long-range, high-precision munitions. The strikes hit multiple locations within the compound simultaneously, killing officials gathered in one building while Khamenei was in another, sources said.
In follow-up attacks, additional locations housing Iran’s senior intelligence officials were targeted. While Iran’s top intelligence officer reportedly escaped, the strikes significantly weakened the leadership structure of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps and Iran’s intelligence apparatus.
The success of the operation highlighted the depth of intelligence collaboration between Washington and Jerusalem, built on months of surveillance and operational planning, particularly following last year’s 12-day conflict, which offered insights into Khamenei’s movements and communication patterns.
According to The New York Times report, the White House and CIA declined to comment on the operation.
