Published 06.10
The CIA had been tracking Ayatollah Ali Khamenei for months. Israel hacked surveillance cameras and knocked out telephone masts in the middle of Tehran.
That’s what happened when the ayatollah was killed.
There was no early indication that Saturday, February 28, would be particularly noteworthy in the Iranian capital.
But in the middle of the morning rush, it explodes. Bombs fall on the government complex, where 86-year-old Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s residence and office are located, in the middle of Tehran.
According to sources to The Financial Times (FT), Israel had been hacking surveillance cameras in Tehran for several years, which, among other things, made it possible to map guards in real time. And on the other side of the Atlantic, the CIA had been tracking the ayatollah and his movement patterns and routines, sources told The New York Times.
Knocked out telephone masts
When American intelligence learned of a summit between Iranian officials, including Ayatollah Khamenei, on Saturday morning, the information was passed on to the Israelis.
Israel, according to the FT’s sources, knocked out components of telephone masts near the government complex, which meant that any warnings did not reach Khamenei’s bodyguards. Israeli warplanes took off and at 9:40 a.m. local time in Tehran, the government complex was attacked.
“The State of Israel has launched a pre-emptive strike against Iran,” the Israeli Ministry of Defense announced in a statement.
The assessment was that it would be easier to knock out Iran’s leadership before a full-scale war broke out, as that would likely result in Khamenei and his closest men taking protective measures, such as going into underground bunkers.
“The sweet nectar of martyrdom”
“Khamenei, one of the most evil people in history, is dead,” US President Donald Trump wrote on the platform Truth Social already the same evening that the attack took place.
Iran dismissed the reports and claimed he was alive and safe.
But the next morning, during a news broadcast on Iranian state-controlled television, a visibly taken news anchor with a trembling voice and teary eyes broke the news of the Supreme Leader’s death.
– He has ascended to the highest heaven after tasting the sweet nectar of martyrdom during the holy month of Ramadan, said the news anchor.
Several of Khamenei’s family members were also killed in the attack, but his son Mojtaba Khamenei was named as his successor shortly thereafter.
The funeral of the dead ayatollah will begin on Saturday and will last for six days.
Ali Khamenei
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is believed to have been born in 1939 in Mashhad, a conservative city in northeastern Iran. He received his religious education in the Shia Muslim holy city of Qom, where he studied under, among others, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.
In 1963, he became involved in protests against Iran’s then-monarchy, and was therefore detained several times. He maintained close contact with Khomeini, and when the latter returned to Iran after the Islamic Revolution in 1979, Khamenei was immediately given several high-ranking posts in the new government.
He was president from 1981 to 1989, when he took over as Iran’s supreme leader after Khomeini’s death.
Ali Khamenei was killed in an American-Israeli attack on February 28 this year.
Source: Britannica
