How the CIA found Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and notified Israel for his assassination

An intelligence tip shared at the last minute would have been the factor that decided the fate of the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. As revealed by The New York Times, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) obtained key information about the movements of the supreme leader of iran that It served to order the attack that ended his life. The action raises questions about the real scope of cooperation between United States and Israelpossible failures in the iranian counterintelligenceand the new role of the CIA.

According to the NYT, The CIA had been following the ayatollah’s movements for monthsidentifying their trips, routines and usual locations in Tehran.

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This prolonged tracking allowed the US intelligence services to have “high fidelity information” about where I would be at a specific moment.

It is so The CIA discovered that on Saturday morning there was going to be a meeting of senior Iranian officials in the building complex where he lived Khamenei.

And not only that, the agency was able to know that Khamenei himself was going to be present at the complex during that meeting, along with many senior officials.

Initially, The United States and Israel had planned to attack Iran on Saturday nightbut the ayatollah’s location precipitated the operation, according to the NYT.

The agency alerted both Washington like to Israelwhich allowed the timing and objective of the attack to be coordinated.

The operation began at 6:00 in the morning in Israel (04:00 GMT), when the Israeli fighter jets took off from their bases. Long-range missiles hit the complex Khamenei around 9:40 a.m. in Tehran (6:10 GMT), in an attack that did not require many aircraft, but well-armed ones, according to the American newspaper.

The NYT assured that senior Iranian defense and security officials were in a building in the complex at that time and Khamenei was in another.

The bombing allowed them to kill the supreme leader of the Islamic republic and numerous leaders of the Iranian regime.

According to the NYT, the 12 day war between Israel and Iran June 2025 allowed the INC learn a lot about how they communicated and moved in times of danger both Khamenei like the leaders of the Revolutionary Guard.

So in the months after that war The CIA tracked Khamenei and gained confidence in how he moved and what their favorite locations were, the newspaper added.

Precise details about how the intelligence was obtained (for example, whether it was electronic interception, human leak, satellite surveillance, etc.) have not been publicly disclosed by the New York Times or by Israeli or American officials.

“The CIA has become more intrusive and proactive under Ratcliffe”

The specialist in defense and intelligence issues Andrés Gómez de la Torre manifested to The Commerce that the role of INC on the location and death of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei reflects a profound change in the operational doctrine of US intelligence, in line with the promise made by John Ratcliffe before the United States Congress before assuming leadership of the agency.

According to Gómez de la Torre, Ratcliffe had anticipated that it would turn the CIA into a “much more intrusive, more clandestine, more covert, more proactive and less bureaucratic” agency.and that orientation —he affirmed— would be fulfilled in reality.

The analyst highlighted that the government’s order donald trump to Ratcliffe he went give a “turn of the helm” within the agencywhich would explain his closeness with the president during the development of sensitive operations.

“Ratcliffe has been very close to President Trump in the development, in real time, of the operations. That makes a substantial difference in the capabilities and willingness to employ the intelligence services,” he pointed out.

Gómez de la Torre explained that the US operation, called “Epic Fury”, was developed in coordination with Israel, whose offensive was named “Lion’s Roar”. In this area, he indicated that There was a clear division of powers between both countries.

While the United States focused on military infrastructure targets linked to ballistic and drone technology, Israel focused on “high-value targets,” that is, in human hierarchical structures. Various Israeli organizations participated in this coordination, including Mossad (foreign intelligence), Aman (military intelligence) and Shin Bet (internal security).

The analyst stressed that the operation combined human sources – spies, collaborators and informants – with advanced technological means, such as signals intelligence and image intelligence. “That combination of sources made the difference,” he said.

Furthermore, he recalled that in previous operations carried out by Israellike “Lion Ascendant”, The intelligence services had already demonstrated a strong ability to penetrate Iranian territory.. In his opinion, the historical cooperative relations between the security structures of the United States and Israel facilitated the obtaining of “very precise and timely” information to act on the ground.

Gomez de la Torre considered “possible” that the security and intelligence structures of the Islamic Republic of Iran have been penetrated, which would have allowed access to key information to execute operations. However, he avoided describing what happened as Iranian negligence.

“The intelligence and counterintelligence game is highly competitive. There is no 100% security, neither against human means nor against technological means,” he concluded.