Israeli Intelligence Monitored Khamenei for Years Through Tehran’s Traffic Cameras

Israeli intelligence services hacked and used Tehran’s traffic camera network to prepare for a long-term operation to eliminate Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.

The Financial Times reported on this, citing sources among current and former employees of Israeli intelligence services, according to Babel.

For several years, intelligence gathered detailed data on the movements of Iranian leaders and their security guards.

In particular, the special services were able to pinpoint the locations where the guards of high-ranking officials usually parked their personal cars.

Video footage helped intelligence officers compile detailed dossiers on Iranian security personnel. Israel obtained data on their home addresses, duty rosters, and the exact routes they took to work every day.

The most important result of the surveillance was the establishment of links between specific guards and the individuals they were escorting. This allowed intelligence to clearly identify who was in each vehicle as they moved around the city.

In addition to visual surveillance, Israel conducted technical preparations in the area of Khamenei’s residence. The special services disabled individual components of about ten mobile communication towers located near the facility. This was done to prevent the transmission of emergency warnings to the supreme leader’s security detail on the day of the attack. The technical intervention effectively isolated the residence area from external coordination.

A serving Israeli intelligence officer told reporters that long before the strikes, experts “knew Tehran as well as they knew Jerusalem.”

The main source of data was Unit 8200, which specializes in electronic intelligence, as well as an agent network recruited by Mossad directly in Iran.

Elimination of Ali Khamenei

The decisive moment came when the CIA and Israeli intelligence learned of a planned meeting with Khamenei at his office on Pasteur Street on the morning of February 28. A large group of the country’s top leadership was to be present with him.

It was decided to execute the elimination at that particular time because intelligence predicted that once full-scale hostilities began, the Iranian leadership would move to deep underground bunkers. Such facilities were considered inaccessible to existing Israeli aerial bombs.