The CIA provided key information about Jamaneí to plan his death, according to ‘The New York Times’
For months, the CIA followed the trail of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, whom Israel was able to kill thanks to the information from that US agency about the place and time of a meeting between the Iranian supreme leader and other senior officials, as reported this Sunday by The New York Times.
The United States and Israel originally planned to attack Tehran at night, but delayed the operation in part because the CIA learned that a meeting was going to be held Saturday morning in the complex of buildings where Khamenei resides, the newspaper indicates, citing several sources familiar with the operation.
The US intelligence agency learned that Khamenei himself was going to be present at the complex during that meeting, along with many senior officials, which made it possible to eliminate several of them in a single attack. The operation began around 6:00 a.m. in Israel (04:00 GMT), when Israeli fighter planes took off from their bases, and long-range missiles reached Khamenei’s complex around 9:40 a.m. local time (6:10 GMT), in an attack that did not require many aircraft, but they were well armed, in accordance with The New York Times.
The senior Iranian defense and security officials were at that time in one building of the complex and Khamenei was in another, the newspaper adds. Israel had determined that the commander of the Revolutionary Guard, Mohamed Pakpur, would be at that meeting; the Minister of Defense, Aziz Nasirzadeh; the Chief of the General Staff of the Iranian Armed Forces, General Abdorrahim Mousavi; the Secretary of the Defense Council, Ali Shamjani, and the head of his office, Mohamed Shirazi, all confirmed dead.
The United States and Israel also had information on the whereabouts of several Iranian intelligence officials and, after attacking the complex, they also bombed the places where those people were, killing all of them except for a senior official who escaped and was The New York Times does not identify
The two countries’ 12-day war against Iran in June last year allowed the CIA to learn a lot about how both Khamenei and the leaders of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard communicated and moved in times of danger, the newspaper said.
As occurred with the operation that preceded the capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro in January, in the following months the CIA followed Khamenei’s trail and gained confidence in how he moved and what his favorite locations were, the newspaper added.
Iranian state media has reported that Khamenei was working in his office on Saturday when the attack occurred. The ayatollah’s daughter, his grandson, his daughter-in-law and his son-in-law also died under the bombings, Reuters reports.
Iran has promised to avenge Khamenei’s assassination and has so far attacked the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain and Kuwait, among other US allies where the Western power has military bases. (Efe)
