Ayatollah Ali Khamenei had two bunkers available to him. Had he been inside either one on Saturday morning, Israel would not have been able to reach him with the bombs it had, according to a person interviewed by the Financial Times. Instead, he was at his offices near Pasteur Street in Tehran - a decision that proved fatal.
As "Hvylya" reports citing the FT, the contrast with Hizbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah was stark. Nasrallah had spent years of his life in underground bunkers, dodging several Israeli assassination attempts. It took as many as 80 bombs dropped by Israeli fighter jets over his hideout in Beirut in September 2024 to finally kill him.
Khamenei took a different approach. He had mused publicly about the possibility of being killed, dismissing his own life as inconsequential to the fate of the Islamic republic. Some Iran experts said he expected to be martyred. During wartime he did take some precautions, but the decision to hold a meeting with senior officials at his compound above ground - rather than in one of his bunkers - gave Israeli and American intelligence the opening they needed.
US and Israeli planners had assessed that once a full-scale war began, Iranian leaders would quickly retreat underground and adopt evasive practices, making them far harder to find and kill. Even during the June 2025 war, Israel made no known attempts to bomb Khamenei directly, instead targeting the leadership of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps, missile stockpiles and nuclear facilities.
When intelligence confirmed the Saturday morning meeting was happening - with senior officials converging on the compound - the window was too valuable to miss. Israeli jets, already airborne for hours, fired as many as 30 precision munitions using Sparrow missiles, variants of which can hit a target as small as a dining table from more than 1,000 kilometers away. The daylight timing, the Israeli military said, helped achieve tactical surprise despite heavy Iranian preparedness.
Also read: Khamenei Chose Martyrdom: What Iran's Supreme Leader Told His Inner Circle Before the Missiles Hit