Israeli agents hacked nearly every traffic camera in Tehran over a period of years in the run-up to the airstrike that killed Iran’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, it has emerged.
The images were encrypted and transmitted to servers in Tel Aviv and southern Israel, allowing agents to compile detailed intelligence files on the schedules and movements of the bodyguards and drivers working for regime officials posted near Pasteur Street in Tehran, where Khamenei was killed on Saturday, according to two sources who spoke to the Financial Times.
Israel was also able to disrupt single components of several phone towers near Pasteur Street, making the phones seem as if they were busy when called and stopping Khamenei’s protection detail from receiving possible warnings ahead of the Israeli airstrike on Saturday morning, the newspaper reported.
A current Israeli intelligence official told the FT that long before the strikes began “we knew Tehran like we know Jerusalem”, The continued: “When you know [a place] as well as you know the street you grew up on, you notice a single thing that’s out of place.”
The death of the 86-year-old supreme leader in the initial stages of Israel’s Operation Roaring Lion – known to US forces as Operation Epic Fury – marked a significant blow to the regime.
Scores of other senior Iranian officials were also killed in the opening salvoes.
It has since been reported that the timing of the launch hinged on a decision made to seize the limited window of opportunity for a successful strike.
Khamenei’s security had been subject to extraordinary precautions, particularly since the 12-day war last June highlighted Iran’s vulnerability to targeted attacks by Israel.
According to sources speaking to the New York Times, the CIA had also been closely tracking Khamenei’s whereabouts for months.
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