The Central Intelligence Agency of the United States had already learned that Iran’s top political and military leaders were going to meet in a government compound in Tehran on Saturday morning.
The US gave that information to Israel. Based on this, Israel changed the attack schedule and struck in daylight. Twelve top officials, including Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, were killed in the attack.
The Wall Street Journal wrote in a report, Israeli warplanes dropped 30 bombs on Ali Khamenei’s compound. That compound was completely destroyed.
The campaign began at around 6am on Saturday morning Israel time. The bomb hit the compound at around 9:40 a.m. Tehran time, two hours and five minutes after the plane took off.
The CIA had been monitoring Khamenei’s movements for months and was becoming increasingly certain of his whereabouts and movement patterns, The New York Times wrote.
Following this, the CIA learned that top Iranian officials would meet at a compound in the center of Tehran on Saturday morning. Most importantly, Ali Khamenei will be there.
The CIA passed this ‘highly accurate information’ on Khamenei’s location to Israel.
According to Israeli officials, The New York Times reported that intelligence had identified not one but three simultaneous meetings. The meetings were held in Iran’s presidency office, Supreme Leader’s office and National Security Council office.
Israel’s original plan was to attack in the dark of night. But after receiving information about the meeting during the day, the United States and Israel changed the timing of the attack.
Israel’s former military intelligence chief Amos Yadlin told The Wall Street Journal, “Everyone expected the attack to be in the middle of the night, under the cover of darkness. Israel struck at night in the beginning of the surprise attack on Iran last June. But this time the daylight attack was able to strategically surprise the adversary.”
Along with Khamenei, several senior officials of Iran were killed in the attack by Israel.
The country’s state news agency IRNA said, Iran-Ali Shamkhani, head of its military council and Khamenei’s top security adviser, and Mohammad Pakpour, commander of the Revolutionary Guard Corps, were killed.
Israel claims Iran’s Defense Minister Amir Nasirzadeh has been killed. Revolutionary Guard Corps Aerospace Commander Seyyed Majid Mousavi and Deputy Intelligence Minister Mohammad Shirazi and many others were present in that meeting.
The New York Times wrote that they saw a message written by an Israel Defense Forces official.
“Coordinated attacks were carried out this morning at several locations in Tehran, one of which was a gathering of Iran’s top leaders,” it said.
The official said that while Iran was preparing for war, Israel was able to strategically surprise the adversary in the attack on the compound.
Senior national security officials were in one building of the compound at the time of the attack, while Khamenei was staying in another building nearby.
Turkey Today wrote that it was the success of United States and Israel’s deep intelligence surveillance of the Iranian leadership that could kill Iran’s supreme leader in a very short period of time.
At the same time, it also exposed the lack of adequate precautionary measures by the Iranian leadershipHowever, both countries gave clear signals of war preparations.
