‘All Tehran traffic cameras hacked for years’: How Israel, US planned Iran Supreme Leader Khamenei’s killing

Angle of one particular camera all hacked in Tehran for years proved especially valuable, according to a Financial Times report, which cited two individuals familiar with the intelligence operation. One of the sources said one camera revealed where the trusted and disciplined bodyguards to senior Iranian officials – including Khamenei – preferred to park their personal vehicles and offered insight into the daily routines within a tightly secured compound.

The announcement of Khamenei’s death, which was confirmed by Iran later, parallelly triggered mourning and cheers that could be heard on Tehran’s streets amid plumes of smoke over the Pasteur district where he usually resided.

Advanced algorithms supplemented intelligence files on the personnel guarding top Iranian officials, compiling information such as home addresses, work schedules, commuting routes and – crucially – which officials they were typically tasked with protecting.

The result was what intelligence professionals describe as a “pattern of life”.

The above formed part of a long-running intelligence effort that ultimately set the stage for the assassination of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei – Iran’s paramount leader since 1989.

This real-time stream of surveillance – one among hundreds of intelligence sources – was not the sole method Israel and the US’ Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) used to pinpoint exactly when the 86-year-old Khamenei would be present at his offices that Saturday morning and who would be alongside him.

Nor was it the only tactic.

Long before the strike, “we knew Tehran like we know Jerusalem”, the report quoted as saying a current Israeli intelligence official. “And when you know [a place] as well as you know the street you grew up on, you notice a single thing that’s out of place.”

The extensive intelligence portrait of its primary adversary Iran’s capital Tehran was reportedly built through painstaking data collection. Israel’s signals intelligence unit – Unit 8200 – provided sophisticated signals intelligence capabilities; Mossad cultivated human sources abroad; and military intelligence processed vast quantities of information into daily operational briefs.

Israel also applied a mathematical technique known as social network analysis to sift through billions of data points, identifying unexpected centers of influence and selecting new targets for surveillance or elimination, according to a person familiar with the process. The output of this system was singular: targets.

“In Israeli intelligence culture, targeting intelligence is the most essential tactical issue – it is designed to enable a strategy,” said Itai Shapira, a brigadier general in the Israeli military reserves with 25 years in its intelligence directorate. “If the decision maker decides that someone has to be assassinated, in Israel the culture is: ‘We will provide the targeting intelligence’.”

Over decades, Israel has carried out hundreds of assassinations abroad, targeting militant leaders, nuclear scientists, chemical engineers – and at times killing innocent bystanders. Whether such aggressive use of technological superiority has delivered lasting strategic gains remains hotly debated inside and outside Israel, even in the wake of killing a figure as prominent as Khamenei.

The country’s intelligence advantage was evident during the 12-day war last June, when more than a dozen Iranian nuclear scientists and senior military officials were killed within minutes in an opening barrage.

“We took their eyes first,” said one intelligence official. During both the June conflict and the recent operation, Israeli pilots deployed variants of the Sparrow missile, capable of striking targets as small as a dining table from over 1,000 kilometers away – well outside the reach of Iran’s aerial defenses.

Not every aspect of the latest mission is publicly known, and some details may remain classified to safeguard ongoing sources and methods.

Multiple current and former Israeli intelligence officials interviewed said that eliminating Khamenei was ultimately a political choice, not merely a technological feat.

When US and Israeli intelligence determined that Khamenei would be holding a Saturday morning meeting at his office near Pasteur Street, officials viewed the opportunity to strike him alongside other senior leaders as especially advantageous.

They assessed that once open warfare fully unfolded, tracking such figures would grow far more difficult as Iranian officials retreated to hardened underground bunkers.

Publicly, Khamenei had contemplated the possibility of assassination, portraying his own death as inconsequential to the Islamic republic’s fate. Some Iran analysts said he even anticipated martyrdom.

Still, during wartime, he did take precautions, according to one interviewee. “It was unusual for him to not be in his bunker – he had two bunkers – and if he had been, Israel wouldn’t have been able to reach him with the bombs that they have,” the person said.

Even during the intense fighting of June 2025, Israel made no known attempt to bomb Khamenei. Instead, it focused on the leadership of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), missile systems and stockpiles, and Iran’s nuclear infrastructure and scientists.

Although Donald Trump had repeatedly threatened action against Iran in recent weeks and assembled an “armada” offshore, diplomatic talks over Iran’s nuclear program were expected to continue.

Oman, serving as mediator, said Tehran was prepared to offer concessions to avert war and described the latest meeting as productive.

In public, Trump complained that negotiations were progressing too slowly. Privately, however, he was “dissatisfied with the Iranian responses”, according to a person familiar with the matter, clearing the path toward conflict.

The strike had reportedly been in planning for months, but officials adjusted the timing after confirming that Khamenei and senior officials would gather at his Tehran compound that Saturday morning.

Yet for a target of Khamenei’s stature, absolute certainty was required. Israeli doctrine mandates that two independent senior officers verify with high confidence both the presence of the target and the identities of those accompanying him, as per the FT report.

According to two people familiar with the matter cited in the report, Israeli intelligence drew on signals intelligence Unit 8200 – including compromised traffic cameras and infiltrated mobile networks – indicating the meeting was proceeding as scheduled.

US intelligence reportedly possessed an even more sold source: a human asset, both individuals said. The CIA declined to comment.

The US military cleared the path for Israeli fighter jets to bomb Khamenei’s compound by launching cyber attacks “disrupting, degrading and blinding Iran’s ability to see, communicate and respond”, the report quopted as saying General Dan Caine, chair of the US joint chiefs of staff.

Caine said the compound was struck in daylight following a “trigger event” carried out by the Israel Defense Forces with U.S. intelligence support.

Israeli aircraft, which had flown for hours to synchronize their arrival, released as many as 30 precision-guided munitions onto Khamenei’s complex, according to a former senior Israeli intelligence official.

The Iranians were meeting for breakfast when they were killed, Trump told Fox News.

The Israeli military said the timing offered a key benefit. “The decision to strike in the morning rather than at night allowed Israel to achieve tactical surprise for the second time, despite heavy Iranian preparedness,” it stated.

“‘All the things the Mossad is doing is well and fine,'” Sharon told Dagan, according to Shine. “‘What I need is Iran. That’s your target’.”

“And since then, that is the target,” she said.

Over the years, Israel sabotaged Iran’s nuclear program, assassinated scientists, confronted proxy forces and dismantled Syrian military infrastructure following Bashar al-Assad’s ouster.

Iranian intelligence agencies, however, proved formidable. In 2022, a group linked to Iranian security services released data allegedly taken from a phone belonging to the Mossad chief’s wife. During the 2025 war, Iran reportedly hacked CCTV cameras in Jerusalem for real-time battle damage assessments, purchased images of missile defense systems, and mapped a senior politician’s jogging route through bribery, according to Israeli prosecutors.

The second turning point, Shine said, was the October 7, 2023 Hamas attack, which Israel claims was backed by Iran and which reshaped Israeli thinking about whether foreign leaders should remain off-limits even during wartime.

Assassinating heads of state carries immense operational and political risk. Failed attempts can enhance a leader’s stature, as happened after multiple unsuccessful CIA plots against Fidel Castro. Even successful operations can unleash unpredictable consequences.

But Shine said that Israel’s recent intelligence successes – including the 2024 killing of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran and a $300 million covert effort to rig thousands of Hizbollah pagers and radios with explosives – created momentum of their own.

“In Hebrew, we say, ‘With the food comes the appetite’,” she said. “In other words, the more you have, the more you want.”