The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) monitored Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei for several months and determined that on the morning of February 28 a meeting of senior Iranian officials would take place at his residence, The New York Times reports, citing sources familiar with the matter. According to them, the United States and Israel ultimately adjusted the timing of the attack. The strike had originally been planned for nighttime but was postponed until the morning in order to wait for the gathering of top officials, which Khamenei himself was expected to attend.
Sources familiar with the intelligence say the CIA provided Israel with “high-confidence” information about Khamenei’s location. Using this intelligence along with its own data, Israel carried out an operation it had been planning for months aimed at eliminating senior Iranian officials. Iran also confirmed the deaths of its Chief of the General Staff and Minister of Defense.
The Wall Street Journal reports that ahead of the campaign, Israel’s top military leadership — including the Air Force commander, the head of military intelligence, and the director of the Mossad — regularly traveled to Washington for planning.
In December, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met U.S. President Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago in Florida, where the sides agreed the operation would be justified if Iran continued work on its nuclear program. In February, Trump and Netanyahu met again at the White House. At the same time, Israeli intelligence gathered targeting information inside Iran and shared it with the United States, WSJ sources say.
In a separate report, the WSJ says the United States used artificial intelligence tools developed by Anthropic during the large-scale airstrike on Iran. According to the newspaper’s sources, commands worldwide — including U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) in the Middle East — used the Claude AI system. CENTCOM declined to comment.
Claude became the first neural network used as part of a classified military operation. Previously, the Pentagon had employed it during a U.S. special forces operation to capture Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.
Earlier, however, Trump had prohibited all government agencies from using Anthropic technologies, saying the “radically left-wing company” dictated terms to the Pentagon and tried to pressure the military.
The conflict escalated over disagreements about the military use of AI: Anthropic insists on strict ethical limits, including rejecting mass surveillance and autonomous lethal weapons, while the Pentagon demands the right to use any available tools.
Deputy Defense Secretary Emil Michael accused Anthropic’s leadership of seeking to control the military and endanger national security.
Trump had earlier stated that the objective of the Iran operation was “to eliminate the threat posed by the brutal Iranian regime.” According to the U.S. president, the operation targets Iran’s nuclear and missile programs and is intended to prevent Tehran from obtaining nuclear weapons.
On February 28, Donald Trump announced the start of a large-scale joint military operation with Israel against Tehran, linking it to the collapse of negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and other members of Iran’s top leadership were killed.
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian called Khamenei’s killing a terrible crime and promised retaliation. Iran launched a counter-operation and struck U.S. facilities in the Middle East. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps claimed attacks on the Israel Defense Forces headquarters building and a defense complex in Tel Aviv, which Israel did not confirm. It is known that late Saturday evening a residential building in Tel Aviv was hit; two people were killed and about 30 injured.
Khamenei’s successor is to be chosen by a council of 88 clerics. The new leader must be a man, a religious scholar, possess political competence, moral authority in Iran, and loyalty to the Islamic Republic.
