Intelligence pinpointed Khamenei in Tehran compound ahead of 'precise' strike, Israel says

LONDON -- The Iranian supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, was killed early on Saturday morning by a "precise, large-scale" joint U.S.-Israeli operation that targeted his office compound in central Tehran, according to statements from President Donald Trump, Israeli officials and the Israel Defense Forces.

Israeli Air Force jets targeted the compound based on IDF intelligence, Israeli officials said in a statement. Khamenei’s routines and whereabouts had been tracked for months by the CIA, which learned that the supreme leader would be meeting in Tehran on Saturday with other top officials, according to a person familiar with the intelligence.

The United States had high confidence in the intelligence and the attack was shifted to its eventual timing on Saturday morning, the source said.

Details of the CIA’s involvement were first reported by The New York Times.

Trump confirmed U.S. involvement in Khamenei’s killing in a post to social media on Saturday. "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.

Thousands of Iranians took to the streets of Tehran on Sunday to mourn Khamenei and call for revenge. Videos also emerged of some Iranians celebrating Khamenei's death. In January, the regime put down nationwide anti-government protests killing more than 7,000 people, according to the U.S.-based Human Rights Activists News Agency.

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said Khamenei was "martyred at the hands of the most wicked villains in the world," adding that "bloodshed and revenge against the perpetrators and commanders of this historical crime as its legitimate duty and right."

Ali Larijani, the powerful head of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, said on Sunday, "Americans should know that by stabbing the hearts of the Iranian nation, their hearts will be stabbed."

"What they did in a cruel way towards the Iranian leadership has angered the people so much that they will never achieve their goals," Larijani added.

American and Israeli officials -- and Trump himself -- had repeatedly hinted at their ability to track Khamenei’s whereabouts and routines.

During the 12-day conflict in June, for example, Trump publicly raised the prospect of killing the supreme leader.

"We know exactly where the so-called 'Supreme Leader' is hiding. He is an easy target, but is safe there - We are not going to take him out (kill!), at least not for now," Trump said in a social media post at the time.

Khamenei had led the Islamic Republic since 1989, taking the reins as the country’s second leader about 10 years after the 1979 Revolution toppled the monarchy headed by former Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and eventually ushered in a theocratic revolutionary government headed by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.

Khamenei was a longtime ally and confidant of Khomeini as the latter forged the Islamic Republic after 1979. Khamenei went on to serve as the president of the country under Khomeini from 1981 to 1989.

Steeped in the traditions and ideology of the revolution, Khamenei had long been an antagonist to Israel and the United States, which his predecessor and the revolutionary movement more broadly had framed as twin existential threats to the young Islamic Republic.

Israeli officials on Sunday described the fallen leader as the "architect of the plan to destroy the state of Israel," saying he was "known as the 'head of the Iranian octopus,' extending its arms for throughout the Middle East and to the borders of the state of Israel."

Khamenei's time in power saw the evolution of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps from a potent revolutionary vanguard to the dominant military, economic and political force within the country.

Khamenei also patronized the IRGC’s Quds Force, which exported the Islamic Revolution all across the Middle East, helping found, fund, train and arm Tehran-aligned groups such as Lebanese Hezbollah, Hamas in the Gaza Strip and the occupied West Bank, the Houthis in Yemen and a raft of powerful Shiite-led militias in Iraq -- including many that fought against the U.S. occupation of the country after 2003.

As Israel launched an attack on Israel in June 2025, Khamenei had vowed not to surrender. The U.S. joined in that attack, helping Israel in its efforts to destroy key sites connected with Tehran’s nuclear ambitions.

"War will be met with war, bombing with bombing, and strike with strike. Iran will not submit to any demands or dictates," Khamenei said in comments published on June 17, 2025, by Tasnim, Iran's semiofficial state news agency.

Activists and analysts had at the time accused Khamenei of hiding during the strikes on his country. He was widely thought to have been in a bunker.

About seven months later, the Israeli airstrike in Tehran on Saturday found Khamenei not in a bunker, but instead in his official compound. An Israeli source briefed on the joint strike told ABC News that Israeli intelligence discovered Khamenei spent quite a lot of time above ground in his offices and not in his bunker.

"Ali Khamenei was targeted in a precise, large-scale operation carried out by the Israeli Air Force, guided by accurate IDF intelligence, while he was in his central leadership compound in the heart of Tehran, where he was together with additional senior officials," the IDF said on Sunday.

Khamenei was killed along with around 40 senior Iranian officials, the IDF said.

Among those confirmed killed by Iranian state media were Rear Adm. Ali Shamkhani, the secretary of the Defense Council, and Maj. Gen. Mohammad Pakpour, the commander-in-chief of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps.

Per the Islamic Republic’s constitution, a three-person temporary leadership council has been formed to lead Iran through its transition to the next supreme leader.

The council is made up of Pezeshkian, Ayatollah Alireza Arafi, selected by the powerful Guardian Council of clerics and lawyers, and Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei -- the head of Iran’s judiciary.

The interim council will govern until the 88-member Assembly of Experts can choose a new supreme leader. Iranian law dictates that they must do so "as soon as possible."

The assembly is made up of Shiite clerics who are elected every eight years. Their candidacies must be approved by the Guardian Council.

The IDF and Israeli politicians said the country would continue targeting senior figures within the Islamic Republic, regardless of where those enemies were.

Both Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have made clear their intention to spark regime change in Tehran through the latest joint operation against Iran.

"Hopefully, the IRGC and Police will peacefully merge with the Iranian Patriots, and work together as a unit to bring back the Country to the Greatness it deserves," Trump wrote on social media on Saturday.

"That process should soon be starting in that, not only the death of Khamenei but the Country has been, in only one day, very much destroyed and, even, obliterated," the president said.

He added, "The heavy and pinpoint bombing, however, will continue, uninterrupted throughout the week or, as long as necessary to achieve our objective of PEACE THROUGHOUT THE MIDDLE EAST AND, INDEED, THE WORLD!"

ABC News' Jordana Miller contributed to this report.