In the hours before coordinated US-Israeli strikes changed the balance of power inside Iran, intelligence officials in Washington and Tel Aviv were acting on a stream of precise, time-sensitive information that had been built up over months of clandestine monitoring.
The operation that culminated in the killing of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and the targeting of multiple senior figures on Saturday (February 28, 2026) was not the product of a single tip-off.
How CIA conducted months of surveillance
For months before the strike, American and Israeli intelligence agencies had been quietly building a detailed understanding of the habits and movements of Iran’s top leadership, reported The New York Times (NYT).
Officials familiar with the effort said analysts focused on patterns like where the supreme leader spent his time, how he communicated with advisers, how he moved when tensions escalated, and which locations he was most likely to use as shelters during crises.
CNN reported that the monitoring extended beyond Khamenei himself to senior political, military and intelligence officials who, under normal circumstances, avoided gathering in close proximity to the supreme leader.
The effort relied on networks that had been developed and refined over time. According to people briefed on the intelligence, the United States had already possessed insights into Khamenei’s whereabouts during earlier confrontations with Iran.
A former US official told NYT that the same collection architecture had been in place months earlier, when Washington assessed that it knew where the supreme leader was located during prior crises. Since then, the quality and reliability of the information had only improved.
One factor that strengthened the intelligence picture was the 12-day war between Israel and Iran last year. During that conflict, US agencies were able to observe how Iran’s leadership communicated and relocated under pressure.
Over time, US and Israeli services developed a clearer sense of where these figures stayed when they were not in official offices, and how they shifted locations when they believed they were under threat.
People briefed on the operation said this mapping later enabled follow-on strikes aimed at the upper echelons of Iran’s intelligence apparatus after the initial attack on the leadership compound.
How a rare leadership gathering provided opportunity
In the final days before the operation, intelligence agencies identified what they viewed as a highly unusual convergence of Iran’s most senior leadership.
Analysts learned that a meeting was scheduled for Saturday morning at a leadership compound in central Tehran, a site that houses offices linked to the presidency, the supreme leader and Iran’s national security apparatus.
Agencies also assessed that
Khamenei himself would be present at the compound, though in a separate building from other senior figures.
Officials familiar with the intelligence told NYT the information was considered unusually precise. The CIA shared what people briefed on the matter described as “high fidelity” intelligence on Khamenei’s location with Israeli counterparts.
The discovery of the meeting altered operational calculations. Until that point, US and Israeli planners had been preparing for a strike under cover of darkness, in line with conventional assumptions about reducing exposure and maximising surprise.
The intelligence about the Saturday morning gathering created what officials described as a narrow but compelling opportunity.
The supreme leader, senior defence officials and intelligence chiefs were expected to be in the same general area in the middle of the capital, a configuration that was considered rare given the security precautions usually taken by Iran’s leadership.
Israeli intelligence sources also assessed that Khamenei felt less exposed during daylight hours and was therefore more willing to appear at scheduled meetings during the day.
This perceived relaxation of security discipline, along with the detailed intelligence picture that had been built over months, led some US and Israeli officials to conclude that the moment was unlikely to be repeated soon.
What happened in the hours following the strike
With the intelligence in hand, US and Israeli decision-makers chose to revise the operational timeline. The strike, initially planned for nighttime, was shifted to daylight hours to coincide with the leadership gathering.
In preparation for the operation, Israel relied on its own intelligence as well as information shared by the United States. Israeli aircraft were equipped with long-range, precision-guided munitions designed to strike specific buildings within the compound.
The number of aircraft involved was limited, meant to focus on accuracy rather than saturation bombing.
The planning aimed to hit multiple sites within the compound simultaneously, based on assessments of where different groups of senior officials would be located at the time of the meeting.
In a message to Israeli air force pilots ahead of the mission, the chief of staff of Israel’s military, Eyal Zamir, authorised the strikes.
“On Saturday at dawn, Operation Roaring Lion begins,” he wrote. “You are cleared to strike your targets. We’re making history. I trust you. Good luck to us all.”
Israeli fighter jets took off around 6 am Israel time on Saturday, February 28, 2026. The timing was chosen to align with intelligence assessments of when senior Iranian officials would be inside the compound in Tehran.
Roughly two hours later, at around 9:40 am local time in Tehran, long-range missiles struck the leadership complex. According to people familiar with the strike, multiple locations within the compound were hit at the same time.
At the moment of impact,
senior national security officials were gathered in one building, while Khamenei was located in another nearby structure.
An Israeli defence official later described the attack as being carried out simultaneously at several locations in Tehran and said that Israel achieved “tactical surprise” despite Iran’s preparations for war.
Which targets inside the compound were hit
Israeli intelligence assessed that the meeting at the compound included many of Iran’s most senior defence and security figures.
Those identified as present included Mohammad Pakpour, the commander in chief of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps; Aziz Nasirzadeh, the minister of defence; Adm. Ali Shamkhani, the head of the Military Council; Seyyed Majid Mousavi, the commander of the IRGC Aerospace Force; and Mohammad Shirazi, the deputy intelligence minister, among others.
These figures represented the core of Iran’s political-security leadership, responsible for military planning, intelligence coordination and strategic decision-making.
Iran’s state news agency later
confirmed that Shamkhani and Pakpour were among those killed in the strike.
People familiar with the operation said that while Iran’s top intelligence officer managed to evade the initial wave of strikes, the senior ranks of Iran’s intelligence agencies were severely weakened by follow-on attacks that targeted locations where intelligence leaders were staying.
According to people briefed on the planning, the follow-on strikes were made possible by the same intelligence mapping that had tracked the movements of senior officials over months.
Once the leadership compound was hit, planners moved quickly to exploit the disruption and confusion, striking at additional locations linked to Iran’s intelligence leadership.
The cumulative effect, officials said, was to decimate the upper layers of Iran’s intelligence services, even if the top official survived.
How Trump was slowly building up to the strike
US Donald Trump had been in close contact with Israeli leaders in the weeks leading up to the operation.
During a visit to Mar-a-Lago shortly after Christmas, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu briefed Trump on concerns that Iran was advancing its ballistic missile programme and seeking to revive nuclear activities after earlier US strikes on enrichment facilities.
Trump signalled support for renewed Israeli military action against missile sites, reported CNN.
In the days that followed, large-scale protests erupted inside Iran, followed by a violent crackdown in which thousands of protesters were killed. Trump publicly vowed to support the protesters and declared that the United States was “locked and loaded.”
People familiar with US planning said that this period marked a shift into a more accelerated phase of joint operational preparation with Israel.
At that stage, the United States did not yet have the full array of military assets in the region that planners believed would be needed both to carry out potential operations and to protect US forces and facilities from Iranian retaliation.
Over the ensuing weeks, those assets were deployed. Two aircraft carriers, including the world’s largest, were sent toward West Asia, along with hundreds of aircraft, refuelling tankers, surface vessels and submarines.
The buildup was highly visible and was interpreted by US officials as both a signal to Iran and a means of strengthening Washington’s position in parallel diplomatic talks.
Meanwhile, senior Israeli military and intelligence officials travelled repeatedly to Washington. Visits by the chief of staff of the Israel Defense Forces, the head of Israeli military intelligence and the director of Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency focused on coordination and operational readiness.
A February 11 meeting between Trump and Netanyahu in Washington, which was moved up by a week, was described by Israeli officials as part of Netanyahu’s effort to ensure that Trump remained committed to backing military action if diplomacy failed.
The meeting took place behind closed doors, without the public appearances that often accompany Trump’s engagements with foreign leaders.
How nuclear talks broke down
While military planning advanced, US envoys were simultaneously engaged in indirect talks with Iran aimed at exploring whether a diplomatic outcome could avert escalation.
Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner led US efforts to gauge what concessions Iran might be willing to make on its nuclear programme. Several rounds of talks took place, including meetings in Geneva, Switzerland.
People familiar with the discussions said that while Tehran appeared to offer some limited concessions, these fell well short of US demands. The Trump administration was seeking a permanent end to Iranian nuclear enrichment.
According to one senior US official, Iran rejected a proposal under which the United States would supply nuclear fuel to support what the administration described as a “peaceful nuclear programme,” reported CNN.
Many American officials doubted that negotiations would produce an agreement close to Washington’s stated objectives.
After the final round of talks in Geneva, Witkoff and Kushner briefed Trump on Iran’s refusal to dismantle its nuclear programme entirely. People familiar with the conversation said the update reinforced Trump’s view that military action might be unavoidable.
By that point, intelligence officials had already identified the Saturday morning leadership meeting in Tehran that
would later become the focal point of the operation.
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With inputs from agencies
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