It took almost a full day for Iran to officially confirm that its supreme leader since 1989, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, had been killed by Israel’s bombing of the capital Tehran. Warplanes are said to have fired no fewer than 30 projectiles at the Ayatollah’s residence alone, which satellite images show in utter destruction.
Well-informed sources tell the Wall Street Journal that intelligence agencies from close allies the United States and Israel have long been on the lookout for a rare occasion when the leadership of arch-enemy Iran gathers in one place. Just on Saturday morning, according to Israeli officials, three such meetings were unexpectedly identified in the area around the government-dense Universitetsgatan and the Republic area.
An original thought would have been different It would have been to strike under the cover of night and focus mainly on the place where Khamenei was, but it would be too difficult not to take advantage of this opportunity.
The attacks are said to have killed Khamenei’s top adviser Admiral Ali Shamkhani, Commander-in-Chief of the Revolutionary Guard Mohammad Pakpour and Defense Minister Aziz Nasirzadeh, as well as at least four members of Khamenei’s family.
According to New York Times sources, it was the CIA in particular that managed to pinpoint the Ayatollah’s position “with a high degree of reliability.”
In addition to the top names already mentioned, the Israel Defense Forces announced that they also killed Revolutionary Guard Air Force chief Majid Mousavi, military intelligence chief Saleh Asadi, Khamenei military office chief Mohammad Shirazi, and current and former nuclear program heads Reza Mozaffari-Nia and Hosein Jaba Aamelian, respectively, in the first strike.
The close American-Israeli intelligence work was also behind the twelve-day war against Iran this summer, in which significant parts and personnel of the country’s defense apparatus were also taken out of action. Trump said that they could have already killed Khamenei but that he had decided to spare him “a very ugly and shameful death,” while Israel’s Defense Minister Israel Katz said it was not known exactly where he was hiding.
Preliminary data from According to the Iranian Red Crescent, a total of over 200 people were killed on the Iranian side on Saturday. Iranian shelling of Israeli and American targets in the region has reportedly injured an unknown number of people, but only two deaths have been reported so far: one in the Tel Aviv area and one at Abu Dhabi International Airport.
There is still no complete picture of the number of people killed or infrastructure damaged, not least because all parties have indicated that this is an ongoing war that could last for many more days. Israel and the US continue to bomb, while Iran carries out promised retaliatory attempts that Donald Trump said will only be met with “unprecedented force.”
– This fatal operation will last as long as necessary and requires patience. “I thank my friend, President Donald Trump, for his historic leadership, a leader who keeps his word,” Benjamin Netanyahu said of what he called Operation Roaring Lion in English and the U.S. military calls Operation Epic Fury.
