In the days before the U.S.-Israeli strike that killed him, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei told a close circle of associates that in the event of war, he preferred to remain at his compound and become a martyr rather than be judged by history as a leader who had gone into hiding, according to four Iranian officials cited by the New York Times.

As reported by "Hvylya", this decision proved fatal. On the morning of Saturday, Feb. 28, Khamenei was at his residential compound in central Tehran while senior Iranian civilian and military leaders convened a meeting of the Supreme National Security Council at the same location. The CIA had been tracking Khamenei's movements and learned of the planned gathering. The intelligence was passed to Israel, and both countries decided to open the war with a daylight "decapitation" strike.

The Iranians did not expect an attack in broad daylight. Saturday morning was the start of the workweek; children were at school, people were heading to their jobs. Those attending the security council meeting saw no reason to relocate to underground bunkers or secret sites that might be unknown to American and Israeli intelligence.

Khamenei was in his office in another part of the compound when the council session began. He had asked for a briefing when it concluded. The missiles hit shortly after the meeting started. The strike killed the supreme leader and an unknown number of senior officials, destroyed structures within the compound - some of which had been built in recent months, according to satellite imagery analysis - and plunged the country into chaos.

Before the attack, the CIA had produced several scenarios for what might follow Khamenei's death. One envisioned a hard-line cleric replacing him, possibly one even more intent on acquiring nuclear weapons. Another predicted an uprising against the government, though intelligence officials considered this unlikely given the weakness of Iran's opposition. A third scenario - the one that senior Trump administration officials found most appealing - suggested a pragmatic faction of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps might take power and prove conciliatory toward the United States, potentially even giving up Iran's nuclear program.

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