How did Israel track, isolate and kill Khamenei? Hacked traffic cameras, network disruption on Pasteur Street, & more

Israel’s assassination of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was not a sudden tactical breakthrough but the culmination of a years-long intelligence operation that penetrated Tehran’s surveillance infrastructure, mapped the daily routines of his security detail and exploited vulnerabilities in the capital’s communications grid, according to a Financial Times exclusive.

The operation, which officials describe as a fusion of cyber intrusion, human intelligence and advanced data analytics, enabled Israeli and US intelligence agencies to determine with precision when the 86-year-old leader would be present at his offices near Pasteur Street — and who would be with him — before launching the fatal air strike.

Hacked traffic cameras and a “pattern of life”

According to two people familiar with the matter cited by the Financial Times, nearly all of Tehran’s traffic cameras had been compromised for years. Their images were encrypted and transmitted to servers in Tel Aviv and southern Israel, providing a constant stream of visual intelligence from the Iranian capital.

One camera proved particularly valuable. It offered a clear view of where the bodyguards and drivers assigned to senior officials parked their personal vehicles, revealing subtle routines within the tightly controlled compound.

Using complex algorithms, Israeli intelligence compiled detailed dossiers on members of Khamenei’s protection detail, including their home addresses, duty hours, commuting routes and — crucially — which officials they were assigned to guard. This granular surveillance built what intelligence officers call a “pattern of life”, a predictive map of movements and associations.

Long before the strike, one current Israeli intelligence official told the Financial Times: “We knew Tehran like we know Jerusalem.”

“And 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.”

Disrupting mobile networks near Pasteur Street

The hacked camera network was only one strand of a dense intelligence architecture. The Financial Times reports that Israel was also able to disrupt components of roughly a dozen mobile phone towers near Pasteur Street.

Phones in the vicinity were made to appear as if they were busy when called, potentially preventing members of Khamenei’s protection detail from receiving warnings.

This real-time data stream — one of hundreds, according to the report — contributed to the ability of Israeli intelligence and the CIA to identify the precise timing of a Saturday morning meeting at Khamenei’s offices, presenting what officials viewed as an unusually opportune moment to strike alongside other senior Iranian figures.

Unit 8200, Mossad and the “assembly line” of targets

The Financial Times attributes the campaign’s sophistication to Israel’s signals intelligence Unit 8200, the Mossad’s human assets and the Israeli military intelligence directorate’s capacity to digest vast quantities of information into daily operational briefs.

A person familiar with the methodology told the newspaper that Israel employed social network analysis — a mathematical approach used to parse billions of data points — to identify centres of decision-making gravity and uncover new surveillance targets.

All of this fed what one source described as an “assembly line with a single product: targets.”

“In Israeli intelligence culture, targeting intelligence is the most essential tactical issue — it is designed to enable a strategy,” said Itai Shapira, a brigadier general in the Israeli military reserves and a 25-year veteran of its intelligence directorate.

“If the decision maker decides that someone has to be assassinated, in Israel the culture is: ‘We will provide the targeting intelligence.’”

The 12-day war and disabling Iran’s defences

Israel’s intelligence superiority was also evident during the 12-day war last June, when more than a dozen Iranian nuclear scientists and high-ranking military officials were assassinated within minutes in an opening salvo, according to the Financial Times.

That campaign was accompanied by cyber attacks, low-range drones and precision munitions fired from outside Iranian territory, disabling Iranian air defences and destroying the radars of Russian-built missile launchers.

“We took their eyes first,” said one current intelligence official.

Israeli pilots reportedly used variants of the Sparrow missile, capable of striking a target as small as a dining table from more than 1,000 kilometres away — beyond the reach of Iran’s aerial defence systems.

Khmenei's Killing: Political decision as much as technological feat

Despite the technological sophistication, more than half a dozen current and former Israeli intelligence officials interviewed by the Financial Times emphasised that the killing of Khamenei was ultimately a political decision.

Israel has conducted hundreds of overseas assassinations over the decades, targeting militant leaders, nuclear scientists and military officials. Yet the strategic gains of such operations remain contested within Israel and internationally.

The decision to strike on Saturday, when intelligence confirmed Khamenei would be meeting near Pasteur Street, reflected a convergence of operational readiness and political will.