Mossad spies ‘used traffic cameras to track Iran’s Ali Khamenei’
Israeli spies reportedly tracked down those close to Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei using traffic cameras prior to his killing.
The conflict in the Middle East escalated over the weekend after joint US-Israel airstrikes on Tehran, sparking retaliation from Iran’s leaders targeting US-friendly countries in the Gulf region.
Just hours into the bombardment, Donald Trump announced that Khamenei, 86, the Islamic Republic’s hardline clerical leader, had been killed in a joint operation.
Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform: ‘Khamenei, one of the most evil people in History, is dead.’
What was known in the immediate aftermath of the airstrike targeting Khamenei’s secure compound is that the structure had been badly damaged, but his whereabouts were not known before his death was confirmed.
Khamenei’s daughter, granddaughter, son-in-law, and daughter-in-law were also killed along with at least eight high-ranking security and military officials, including Ali Shamkani and Mohammad Pakpour.
How traffic cameras led to Khamenei’s demise
Sources close to the operation have now revealed the painstaking efforts trying to track down the 86-year-old, with the goal of eliminating him.
The CIA had been tracing him for months, gaining confidence about his movements and patterns, sources familiar with the operation told the New York Times.
Those details were then reportedly passed on to Israeli intelligence, and the army executed the attack on Saturday.
Mossad operatives had also reportedly hacked into the traffic camera network to spy on Khamenei’s and other high-ranking officials’ bodyguards for years.
The Israeli intelligence operatives in Tel Aviv were then able to map out their work schedules and who they were assigned to protect, according to Financial Times citing intelligence sources.
One camera revealed where the bodyguards parked their cars when arriving at Khamenei’s complex on Pasteur Street.
One Israeli spy official told the outlet: ‘We knew Tehran like we know Jerusalem.
‘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 lethal attack was first planned overnight, but the US and Israel changed the timing after information – both from AI tools and a CIA human source – revealed that top Iranian leaders were meeting on Saturday morning at the compound.
In the lead-up to the attack, Israeli military had reportedly disrupted mobile phone towers near the compound to make them appear busy to prevent Khamenei’s security team from receiving warnings about the airstrikes.
Fighter jets were launched from Israel at around 6am, with missiles obliterating the compound and those inside it at about 9.40am.
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