Israeli and U.S. authorities spent weeks monitoring the movements of senior Iranian leaders, including Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, sharing intelligence that officials say made surprise daytime strikes possible. An Israeli military official and a person familiar with the operation told reporters that combined long-term surveillance, training and real-time reporting produced a narrow “golden opportunity” to hit multiple senior targets gathered together.
According to the Israeli official, the coordinated barrage was executed so quickly that three separate strikes in three locations occurred within a single minute. The official said the attacks killed Khamenei and roughly 40 other senior figures, among them the head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and Iran’s defence minister. Daylight timing was intended to add surprise and the high tempo of strikes was designed to prevent senior officials from escaping after the initial hits. The official spoke anonymously to provide fuller detail and said Israel worked closely with U.S. counterparts, using tactics similar to those employed at the start of last June’s conflict, which also killed several senior Iranian figures.
The official also pointed to recent social media posts by Khamenei that taunted President Donald Trump. The details emerged as the conflict entered a second day. In a video message on Sunday, Trump said he expected operations to continue until stated objectives were met, without specifying those goals. He said U.S. forces and partners struck hundreds of targets in Iran — including Revolutionary Guard facilities, Iranian air-defence systems and nine warships — all within minutes.
U.S. intelligence role
Officials said the CIA had tracked the supreme leader and other top Iranian officials for months prior to the strikes. That tracking was shared with Israeli partners, and the timing of the operation was adjusted in part based on information about where Iran’s leaders were located, a person familiar with the operation said on condition of anonymity. The intelligence sharing was cited as evidence of the extensive preparation behind the strikes, which continued into a second day amid uncertainty about the Islamic Republic’s future and concern about broader regional escalation.
Senate oversight leaders emphasized the importance of such monitoring. Arkansas Republican Sen. Tom Cotton, chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said tracking the movements of supreme leaders and heads of adversarial states is among the highest priorities for the U.S. intelligence community. He noted that agencies routinely share intelligence with allies like Israel and that those partnerships and the accuracy of shared information are often crucial to the success of military operations.
Virginia Sen. Mark Warner, the committee’s senior Democrat, described the U.S. relationship with Israel’s intelligence service, Mossad, as historically strong but said he had serious concerns about the strikes’ justification, the long-term strategy, and risks to American personnel. The Pentagon said three U.S. troops were killed during the operation.
Signals about diplomacy
A senior White House official, speaking on background, said Iran’s “new potential leadership” had indicated a willingness to talk with the United States. The official said Trump has signalled he is eventually willing to negotiate, though military operations were continuing for the time being; the official did not identify the potential leaders or explain how their openness had been conveyed. Separately, Trump told The Atlantic he planned to speak with Iran’s new leadership and that they wanted to talk, but he gave no timing.
Weapons and targets
U.S. Central Command said B-2 stealth bombers were used to strike Iran’s ballistic missile facilities with 2,000-pound bombs, echoing the B-2 deployment in June when the aircraft targeted three Iranian nuclear sites at the president’s direction. As the strikes began, Trump cited comments from his recent State of the Union accusing Iran of building ballistic missiles capable of reaching the U.S. homeland — a rationale he repeated. Iran has denied pursuing intercontinental ballistic missiles. A Defense Intelligence Agency unclassified report last year concluded that Iran could develop a militarily viable intercontinental ballistic missile by about 2035 should Tehran decide to pursue that capability.
