Israel, US launched strikes as Iranian leader met with inner circle, sources say
Written by: Jonathan Landay, Phil Stewart, Gram Slattery and Parisa Hafezi
WASHINGTON/DUBAI, March 1 (Reuters) – Israel and the United States planned their attacks on Iran on Saturday to coincide with a meeting of the country’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, with his top aides, according to two U.S. sources and a U.S. official familiar with the matter.
Israel said Khamenei was killed along with top lieutenants, including the powerful former National Security Council secretary Ali Shamkhani and Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) commander Mohammed Pakpour.
Two Iranian sources told Reuters that Khamenei met with Shamkhani and Supreme National Security Council Secretary Ali Larijani in a safe place on Saturday, shortly before the attacks began.
A senior Israeli official told Reuters that Khamenei’s body had been found.
US President Donald Trump, in a post on the Truth Social platform, said that Iran’s senior leader was killed after intelligence precisely determined his movements.
“He could not evade our Intelligence and our Highly Advanced Tracking Systems, and because he worked closely with Israel there was nothing he or the other leaders who were killed with him could have done,” Trump said.
US and Israeli military strikes against Iran have pushed the Middle East into a new and unpredictable conflict, as Iran launches retaliatory attacks against Israel and nearby Gulf Arab states.
Two US sources and US officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the approval of Khamenei’s meeting with senior advisers activated the Israeli-US air and sea operation.
The US official said that the attack should hit Khamenei first in order to maintain the element of surprise, and suggested that there were concerns that the Iranian leader would run away and hide if he had the opportunity.
A US source said Khamenei was initially expected to hold the meeting in Tehran on Saturday evening. However, sources said that Israeli intelligence detected a meeting on Saturday morning and the attacks were brought forward.
The location of the meeting was not immediately clear.
But Khamenei’s high-security compound in Tehran was hit at the beginning of the operation, and satellite images reviewed by Reuters confirmed its destruction.
The impact of Khamenei’s death continued to be seen.
But the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency concluded in its pre-attack assessment that he could be replaced by Revolutionary Guard extremists, according to two sources with knowledge of the intelligence.
(Reporting by Jonathan Landay, Phil Stewart, Gram Slattery in Washington and Parisa Hafezi in Dubai. Additional reporting by Humeyra Pamuk in Washington, Erin Banci in New York and Mayaan Lubell in Jerusalem; Editing by Don Durfee and Cynthia Osterman)
