The months of planning behind US-Israeli mission to target Iran's supreme leader

The United States and Israel executed a precision strike on a compound in central Tehran on Saturday morning, killing Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei after months of tracking his movements and acting on crucial intelligence that revealed a rare opportunity when senior Iranian officials would be gathered together. Rather than a covert nighttime operation, the allies deliberately chose a morning strike when they knew Khamenei and other senior military and intelligence figures would be at the location, with Israeli jets reportedly using 30 bombs to strike the compound around 09:40 local time. The intelligence, reportedly from the CIA and passed to Israel, provided enough advance notice to plan an attack using jets that could fire long-range missiles, with the operation appearing to be part of a broader strategy where Israel focuses on leadership targets while the US concentrates on military objectives. The methods used to track Khamenei remain classified, though President Trump hinted at "highly sophisticated tracking systems" in a social media post, with these likely involving technical surveillance rather than just human sources, possibly including penetration of Iranian telecom and mobile phone systems to monitor movements. This approach allows intelligence agencies to build "patterns of life" to predict activities and identify vulnerabilities, with the success of the operation suggesting a significant failure in Iranian security and counterintelligence, or demonstrating the ability of US and Israeli agencies to continuously adapt their tracking methods to overcome Iranian defenses. The 12-day war last June reportedly saw Israel using similar methods to track scientists and officials linked to Iran's nuclear program, including monitoring bodyguards of key officials. Alongside Khamenei, Iran confirmed the deaths of three senior defense officials: Defense Council secretary Ali Shamkhani, Defense Minister Brig Gen Aziz Nasirzadeh, and IRGC commander Gen Mohammad Pakpour. Other sites in Tehran were also targeted, including the office of President Masoud Pezeshkian, who confirmed his safety. The operation was monitored by President Trump and his top officials at Mar-a-Lago in Florida, though confirmation of Khamenei's death took hours to reach them. Iran had reportedly prepared succession plans for both Khamenei and other senior officials, leaving the long-term impact of this attack on the conflict uncertain. The strike may have been intended not just as a single decapitation operation but to signal the launch of a wider campaign, with multiple munitions potentially necessary to penetrate underground bunkers where Khamenei was believed to be taking shelter.