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The killing of Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Khamenei came after months of careful intelligence gathering that allowed US and Israeli forces to pinpoint his exact location for bombing, The New York Times has revealed.
“The C.I.A. had been tracking Ayatollah Khamenei for months, gaining more confidence about his locations and his patterns, according to people familiar with the operation,” reports the Times.
“Then the agency learned that a meeting of top Iranian officials would take place on Saturday morning at a leadership compound in the heart of Tehran. Most critically, the C.I.A. learned that the supreme leader would be at the site.
“The United States and Israel decided to adjust the timing of their attack, in part to take advantage of the new intelligence, according to officials with knowledge of the decisions.
“The information provided a window of opportunity for the two countries to achieve a critical and early victory: the elimination of top Iranian officials and the killing of Ayatollah Khamenei.”
The CIA then passed the information to Israel, which executed the attack after learning some of the most senior members of the Iranian military and government would be present with Khamenei. These included Mohammad Pakpour, the commander in chief of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps; Aziz Nasirzadeh, the minister of defense; Admiral Ali Shamkhani, the head of the Military Council; Seyyed Majid Mousavi, the commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Aerospace Force; Mohammad Shirazi, the deputy intelligence minister; and others.
Several targets were struck simultaneously by jets that took off from Israel at around 6am local time. Their missiles found their targets at 9.40 am in Tehran.
“This morning’s strike was carried out simultaneously at several locations in Tehran, in one of which senior figures of Iran’s political-security echelon had gathered,” an Israeli defense official wrote in a message.
Iran’s has confirmed the deaths of Khamenei, Rear Adm. Shamkhani and Maj. Gen. Pakpour.
The Times also claims that the US knew Khamenei’s location last June, during Operation Midnight Hammer, which targeted Iran’s nuclear sites, and could have killed him.
The intelligence network that revealed his location on that occasion was crucial in revealing it again for the strikes that killed him.
