Crucial intelligence from the United States’ Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) — indicating that Ayatollah Ali Khamenei would attend a meeting of senior Iranian officials — helped shape the joint US-Israeli strikes that killed Iran’s supreme leader, The New York Times has reported.
Khamenei was killed in strikes on the capital, Tehran, Iranian state media confirmed on Sunday, after the US and Israel vowed to pursue regime change in the Islamic republic.
According to the Times, the CIA had been tracking Khamenei for months, building detailed assessments of his movements and patterns.
Shortly before the attack, the agency learned that a meeting of top Iranian political and security officials would take place on Saturday morning at a leadership compound in central Tehran and that the supreme leader himself would be present.
US and Israeli officials, who had initially planned to launch the operation under cover of darkness, adjusted the timing in part to take advantage of what those briefed described as “high fidelity” intelligence on Khamenei’s location.
The intelligence was passed to Israel, which carried out an operation it had been preparing for months, targeting Iran’s senior leadership. People familiar with the planning told the newspaper that the aim was to secure an early and decisive blow by eliminating key figures at the top of the Iranian state.
The operation began at about 6:00am in Israel (0400 GMT), when fighter jets took off from their bases. Roughly two hours and five minutes later, at around 9:40am in Tehran, long-range, precision-guided munitions struck the compound. Senior national security officials were gathered in one building, while Khamenei was in a nearby structure at the time of the attack, the report said.
“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 defence official wrote in a message reviewed by the Times. The official said that despite Iranian preparations for war, Israel achieved “tactical surprise”.
Iran’s judiciary confirmed that, in addition to Khamenei, two senior military figures were killed: General Mohammad Pakpour, head of the Revolutionary Guards, and Ali Shamkhani, a top security adviser. Iran’s state news agency IRNA also reported their deaths.
The Times said the operation underscored the depth of intelligence cooperation between Washington and Tel Aviv, particularly since last year’s 12-day war, during which the US gathered further insight into how Khamenei and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps communicated and moved under pressure.
Follow-on strikes also targeted locations where senior intelligence officials were believed to be staying, according to people briefed on the operation. While Iran’s top intelligence officer reportedly escaped, several senior figures were said to have been killed.
The White House and the CIA declined to comment on the report.
Iran has since retaliated, with reported strikes across the Gulf, including in Abu Dhabi and near US military bases, raising fears of a wider regional conflict. US President Donald Trump has said the American military’s bombing will continue “as long as necessary”.