In the early hours of Saturday, February 28, 2026, the Middle East changed forever.
A meticulously planned joint US-Israeli military operation, codenamed Operation Roaring Lion by Israel and Operation Epic Fury by the US, killed Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei
New revelations indicate that the decision to strike on Saturday morning, was not a last-minute improvisation due to nuclear talks hitting a dead end.
According to New York Times report, the CIA had been tracking Ayatollah Khamenei for months, steadily gaining confidence about his locations, movements, and patterns. Then came the break they had been waiting for.
Word that a meeting of top Iranian officials was scheduled for Saturday morning at a leadership compound in the heart of Tehran, and that the supreme leader himself would be present.
The intelligence was described as offering ‘high fidelity’ on Khamenei’s position, the Times reported. The CIA passed it directly to Israel.
The US and Israeli governments had originally planned to launch the strike at night, under the cover of darkness. The new intelligence changed that calculus entirely. Both governments decided to adjust the timing of the attack to take advantage of the gathering
Two US sources and a US official also confirmed to Reuters that striking while Khamenei was in session with his top aides significantly reduced the possibility of him escaping or relocating. It was a critical operational consideration for a leader known to rarely appear in predictable locations.
The jets lifted off from Israeli bases around 6 a.m. Israel time. Two hours and five minutes later — at approximately 9:40 a.m. Tehran time — the long-range missiles struck the compound. Senior Iranian national security officials were in one building; Khamenei was in another nearby structure.
The Strike and How It Unfolded
A combination of US missiles, drones and Israeli fighter jets was used, with US warships launching Tomahawk cruise missiles, the US Army deploying HIMARS launchers, and low-cost one-way attack drones from Task Force Scorpion Strike being employed for the first time in combat.
Trump also later claimed in a post that US intelligence systems had successfully tracked Khamenei’s movements, writing that he “was unable to avoid our Intelligence and Highly Sophisticated Tracking Systems.”
All About The Tehran Compound
The compound being targeted was no ordinary site. According to the Times, it housed the offices of the Iranian presidency, the supreme leader himself, and Iran’s National Security Council — effectively the nerve centre of the Islamic Republic.
Israel had determined that those assembled at the gathering would include Mohammad Pakpour, commander in chief of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps; Aziz Nasirzadeh, the defence minister; Admiral Ali Shamkhani, head of the Military Council; Seyyed Majid Mousavi, commander of the IRGC Aerospace Force; Mohammad Shirazi, deputy intelligence minister; and others. All of them were killed.
The Symbolic Timing
CNN reported that the timing of the attacks carried symbolic significance within Judaism, as they were carried out ahead of the upcoming Jewish holiday of Purim on March 2 — a festival that, in the Book of Esther, celebrates the foiling of a Persian plot to destroy the Jewish people.