The attack on Iran and the assassination of its Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei were both long-planned operations.
While US President Donald Trump had suggested he wanted a deal with Tehran, behind the scenes “his move toward war grew inexorably,” The New York Times said, encouraged by Israel’s prime minister and buoyed by Trump’s own success in Venezuela.
Plans were made by mid-January, but neither Israel nor the US were ready, and forces moved into place as the nuclear negotiations progressed.
Meanwhile, Israel had hacked Tehran’s traffic cameras years ago, and knew Khamenei’s movements intimately, the Financial Times reported. When Israel launched its attacks, it even disrupted nearby cellphone towers to prevent his bodyguards receiving warnings.