Inside the operation: How the US and Israel tracked and killed Iran’s Khamenei

Report by Wissam Nasrallah, English adaptation by Karine Keuchkerian 

It was neither an ordinary military strike nor an assassination carried out during an open war. Instead, it was an operation that began months earlier in complete secrecy within closed rooms in Washington and Tel Aviv. 

The target was not a nuclear site or a military base, but a single man: Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei. 

How did the United States and Israel reach one of the most protected figures in Iran?

According to an investigation by The New York Times, the operation did not start on the day of the attack. It began when the CIA meticulously tracked Khamenei’s movements, studying his travel patterns, residence locations, and communication methods under pressure, to build a complete behavioral map that could predict his actions before he took them. 

As intelligence developed, the U.S. gained a detailed understanding of Iran’s command centers, particularly after previous confrontations, including the 12-day war between Israel and Iran in June 2025, which revealed much about communication and movement patterns within the regime’s inner circle.

At the time, U.S. President Donald Trump said that Washington knows exactly where the leader is hiding and added that he is an easy target, but they will not kill him “for now.”

The turning point came when Washington learned of a rare meeting of senior Iranian leaders in a central Tehran compound, and crucially, that Khamenei himself would attend. 

What had originally been a nighttime strike was rescheduled to take advantage of this opportunity in a coordinated U.S.-Israel intelligence and military effort.

At dawn on the last day of February, Israeli fighter jets armed with long-range precision munitions took off. Hours later, missiles struck the compound housing Iran’s closest political and security circle. By then, it was around 9:40 a.m. Tehran time.

The target was not just a single person, but the entire decision-making structure, in an attempt to paralyze Iran’s leadership in one strike. At the moment of the attack, senior Iranian national security officials were gathered in one building within the compound, while Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei was in a nearby structure within the same site.

This was not merely a show of firepower, but the culmination of months of surveillance, analysis, and coordination, where precise intelligence turned into a decisive moment in the ongoing struggle between Washington and Tehran.