U.S. intelligence officials said the CIA had been tracking the movements of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei for months and finally discovered a rare meeting of senior Iranian officials at the leadership compound in Tehran that could be used as a “window of opportunity,” The New York Times reported.
According to the reporters, the United States and Israel decided to adjust the timing of their attack, in part to take advantage of new intelligence, according to officials with knowledge of the decisions. That information provided the two countries with the opportunity to achieve a decisive and quick victory: the elimination of Iranian officials and the assassination of Ayatollah Khamenei.
The extremely quick elimination of Iran’s supreme leader reflected the close coordination and intelligence sharing between the U.S. and Israel in the period before the attack, as well as the deep intelligence the countries had accumulated about the Iranian leadership, especially after last year’s 12-day war. According to people familiar with the intelligence, the CIA passed its intelligence to Israel that “highly accurately” reflected the location of Ayatollah Khamenei.
According to the publication, the United States and Israeli governments, which had originally planned to strike at night, decided to adjust the timing to take advantage of information about a meeting at a government compound in Tehran on Saturday morning. The leaders are scheduled to meet where the offices of Iran’s president, supreme leader and Iran’s National Security Council are located.
The operation began around 6 a.m. in Israel as fighter jets took off from their bases. Several aircraft were needed for the strike, but they were armed with long-range and precision-guided munitions.
It is noted that two hours later – around 9:40 a.m. – long-range missiles struck the compound in Tehran. At the time of the strike, Iran’s top national security officials were in one building of the complex. Khamenei was in another neighbouring building.
An Israeli defence spokesman said that despite Iran’s preparations for war, Israel managed to achieve “tactical surprise” with its attack on the compound.
The White House and the CIA declined to comment.
Israel and the US have claimed the death of Iran’s supreme leader Ali Khamenei as a result of Israeli-US strikes.
Tehran confirmed this on 1 March, saying an interim leadership council would be formed today and would include Iran’s president, the head of the judiciary and a lawyer from the Sentinel Council.