For years, Israeli intelligence quietly tracked the actions of Iran’s strongest man — Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.Now, in probably the most dramatic navy operations in current historical past, Iran’s Supreme Leader of greater than three a long time has been killed in coordinated US-Israeli strikes. The mission was formidable, lengthy within the making and, in response to Financial Times reviews, constructed on years of affected person surveillance, knowledge gathering and political calculation.
Watching Tehran , digital camera by digital camera
When the bodyguards and drivers of senior Iranian officers arrived for work close to Pasteur Street in Tehran, the realm the place Khamenei was killed in an Israeli air strike on Saturday, they seemingly had no concept they have been being watched.According to a report by the Financial Times, practically all visitors cameras in Tehran had been hacked years in the past. Their feeds have been allegedly encrypted and transmitted to servers in Tel Aviv and southern Israel, in response to individuals accustomed to the matter.One digital camera angle proved particularly useful. It confirmed the place safety personnel parked their private vehicles and supplied perception into every day routines contained in the closely guarded compound.Over time, advanced algorithms constructed detailed profiles, or what intelligence officers name a “pattern of life.” These dossiers included residence addresses, obligation hours, commuting routes and, crucially, which officers every guard was assigned to guard.This was only one stream of intelligence. There have been a whole lot extra.
Disrupting communications earlier than the strike
Israeli and US intelligence reportedly additionally penetrated cell phone networks close to Pasteur Street. At key moments, some telephone towers have been disrupted, making units seem busy and stopping safety groups from receiving doable warnings.Long earlier than bombs have been dropped, Israeli intelligence had constructed what one official described as near-total familiarity with Tehran.
We knew Tehran like we all know Jerusalem.
Israeli intelligence official
“And when you know [a place] as well as you know the street you grew up on, you notice a single thing that’s out of place,” Israeli intelligence official added.This intelligence dominance was the results of years of labor by Israel’s indicators intelligence Unit 8200, human sources recruited by Mossad, and huge knowledge evaluation by navy intelligence groups.Israel additionally used social community evaluation, a mathematical technique that research relationships and affect patterns, to sift via billions of knowledge factors and determine new targets.“In Israeli intelligence culture, targeting intelligence is the most essential tactical issue — it is designed to enable a strategy,” mentioned Itai Shapira, a brigadier normal within the Israeli navy reserves and 25-year veteran of its intelligence directorate. “If the decision maker decides that someone has to be assassinated, in Israel the culture is: ‘We will provide the targeting intelligence.’”
A political choice, not only a navy one
Even with such technological sophistication, officers say killing Khamenei was finally a political selection.
For years, Israel averted straight focusing on him. During the 12-day conflict final June, Israeli strikes killed greater than a dozen Iranian nuclear scientists and senior navy officers and disabled air defence methods. But Khamenei was not attacked.This time was totally different.When US and Israeli intelligence decided that Khamenei would maintain a Saturday morning assembly at his compound, they noticed a uncommon alternative. Senior Iranian officers can be gathered in a single place. If conflict formally started, they might seemingly transfer into underground bunkers past Israel’s attain.“It was unusual for him to not be in his bunker — he had two bunkers — and if he had been, Israel wouldn’t have been able to reach him with the bombs that they have,” one individual accustomed to the scenario informed FT.Unlike his ally Hassan Nasrallah, who spent years hiding underground earlier than being killed in Beirut in 2024, Khamenei didn’t dwell in fixed concealment. He had publicly spoken about the potential for being killed and reportedly believed martyrdom was doable.
Still, hanging him in daylight was a calculated transfer. The Israeli navy later mentioned that attacking within the morning allowed tactical shock, regardless of Iran’s preparedness.
The American function
Behind the scenes, Washington performed a vital half.While Israel had indicators intelligence from hacked cameras and cellular networks, the Americans reportedly had a human supply who confirmed that the assembly was continuing as deliberate. The CIA declined to remark.Israeli doctrine requires two senior officers working independently to substantiate a goal’s presence earlier than a strike. For a determine as high-profile as Khamenei, failure was not an choice.Israeli jets reportedly flew for hours earlier than firing as many as 30 precision munitions. Some of the missiles used have been variants of the Sparrow system, able to hanging a goal as small as a eating desk from greater than 1,000km away.
How Trump moved towards conflict
The choice to escalate didn’t occur in a single day.In early February, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met US President Donald Trump within the Oval Office. For weeks, the 2 sides had mentioned doable navy motion in opposition to Iran, at the same time as US officers have been publicly engaged in nuclear negotiations with Tehran.
Trump expressed frustration with diplomacy.He dismissed the historical past of talks with Iran as years of “talking and talking and talking.”Asked whether or not he supported regime change, Trump mentioned it “seems like that would be the best thing that could happen.”
Two weeks later, he approved a large-scale bombardment alongside Israel. The strikes killed Iran’s supreme chief, hit nuclear and navy websites and triggered violence throughout the area.In public, Trump appeared to waver between negotiation and confrontation. But behind closed doorways, in response to individuals accustomed to the discussions, his shift towards navy motion gathered momentum, inspired by Netanyahu and strengthened by Trump’s personal confidence after earlier abroad operations.According to the NYT, Trump’s transfer towards conflict gathered momentum behind the scenes, pushed by allies reminiscent of Netanyahu and by his personal confidence following earlier US operations overseas.The choice, the newspaper reported, was primarily based on accounts from officers with direct data of the deliberations, a lot of whom spoke anonymously because of the sensitivity of the discussions.For Netanyahu, the US entry into conflict marked a strategic victory. Months earlier, at a gathering in Florida, he had sought approval to strike Iranian missile websites. Instead, he secured one thing bigger, a full American accomplice in a marketing campaign that reshaped the Middle East in a single day.
Not all particulars of the operation might ever emerge. Intelligence strategies stay carefully guarded. But what is obvious is that the strike on Khamenei was the fruits of years of surveillance, technological precision and political resolve, a second when intelligence, timing and energy converged with historic penalties.
