Israel and the United States timed their strike on Iran on Saturday to coincide with a meeting being held by the country’s Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, with senior aides, Reuters reported, citing two US sources and a US official familiar with the matter.
Khamenei was eliminated along with other senior Iranian officials, including Ali Shamkhani, the former secretary of Iran’s National Security Council, and Mohammad Pakpour, commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
Two Iranian sources told Reuters that Khamenei met on Saturday with Shamkhani and Supreme National Security Council Secretary Ali Larijani at a secure location shortly before the strikes began.
Earlier, US President Donald Trump confirmed that Khamenei had been eliminated in the strikes on Iran.
"He was unable to avoid our Intelligence and Highly Sophisticated Tracking Systems and, working closely with Israel, there was not a thing he, or the other leaders that have been killed along with him, could do," Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social.
The two US sources and the US official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told Reuters that confirmation that Khamenei was meeting with top advisers set the joint Israeli-US air and naval operation in motion.
The US official said the operation required striking Khamenei first in order to preserve the element of surprise, citing concerns that the Iranian leader might go into hiding if given the opportunity.
One US source said Khamenei had originally been expected to hold the meeting on Saturday evening in Tehran. However, Israeli intelligence detected a meeting on Saturday morning, prompting the strikes to be moved forward, the sources said.
The precise location of the meeting was not immediately clear.