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Financial Times: Behind the Plot to Assassinate Ali Khamenei
Financial Times writes in an investigative report that the assassination of Ali Khamenei was the result of a multi-year intelligence campaign that Israel advanced through cyber infiltration, big data analysis, and human sources.
According to informed sources, virtually all traffic cameras in Tehran had been hacked for years, with their images encrypted and transmitted to servers in Tel Aviv and southern Israel. One of the cameras had a key angle that allowed analysts to monitor the parking location of guards' vehicles and daily routines around the Pasteur Street area.
Advanced algorithms, by adding data such as guards' home addresses, shift hours, commuting routes, and protected individuals, completed what intelligence officers call a "pattern of life." Sources report that Israel, in addition to relying on these real-time data streams, was able to disrupt some components of about a dozen cell towers near the meeting location, causing calls to show as "busy" and preventing potential warnings from reaching the security team.
An Israeli intelligence official said: "We knew Tehran like Jerusalem; when you know a place like your childhood street, you notice the smallest thing out of place."
According to Financial Times, this "dense intelligence picture" was the result of work by Israel's 8200 signals unit, Mossad's human source network, and big data analysis in the military intelligence apparatus. "Social network analysis" was used to find decision-making centers and generate target lists.
A retired Israeli general says: "In Israeli intelligence culture, producing targeting intelligence is the most vital tactical issue; if a political decision is made to eliminate, we provide the target intelligence."
In last year's 12-day war, Israel simultaneously assassinated nuclear scientists and senior commanders while using a combination of cyber attacks, short-range drones, and precision munitions to destroy radars of Russian-made missile systems. An intelligence official said: "First we took their eyes."
In the recent operation, precision missiles from the "Sparrow" family were used, which can hit very small targets from distances of over a thousand kilometers.
More than half of current and former Israeli intelligence officials told FT that killing Khamenei was a political decision. Joint US-Israel assessment showed he would be meeting with a group of senior officials in his office near Pasteur on Saturday morning - an opportunity that might have been lost after the formal start of war, as Iranian officials were expected to go to deep shelters and pre-designed escape procedures.
According to two sources, the attack plan had been ready for months, but timing was set after confirmation of Saturday morning's meeting. Israeli doctrine states that for a target of this level of importance, two independent senior officers must confirm the presence of the target and companions with "high confidence."
In addition to signals data (cameras and infiltrated mobile network), sources say the Americans had a "very specific" human source who confirmed the timing and presence of individuals. This allowed fighter jets to fire about 30 precision munitions in daylight - to achieve "tactical surprise."
Sima Shine, former Mossad official, considers two events fateful: Ariel Sharon's 2001 order to the then-Mossad chief to prioritize Iran, and Hamas's October 7, 2023 attack, which Israel says was carried out with Iranian support and changed old calculations about the "red line" of assassinating foreign leaders.
Meanwhile, Iran has also taken countermeasures, from infiltrating Jerusalem cameras to assess damages, to purchasing images of missile defense systems, and even monitoring a politician's running route by enticing Israeli citizens.
The report concludes by noting that more details may never become public, but the combination of cyber infiltration, data analysis, and human sources over two decades provided the basis for a decision that, beyond being a technical achievement, is a political choice with strategic consequences.
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