“Operation Epic Fury’s code name equals 666 and predicts WWIII.”

As the sun rose on a chilly winter morning in Iran, the country’s supreme leader was going about his daily activities inside his compound.

The Ayatollah had largely avoided the public eye since June 2025, when Iran last came under attack by Israel and the United States, but he was still very much in charge, ruling the nation with an iron fist.

That is ultimately what made him a prime target for Israel and the US when the time came to launch a military operation inside Iran.

After weeks of American military build-up in the Middle East and tense negotiations over a possible nuclear deal, the planners of Saturday’s attack knew that if they hoped to decapitate Iran’s leadership, it had to be done in the first strike.

It was presumed Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was off grid, reportedly moving from one secret, underground hideaway to another.

But it turned out he was hiding in plain sight.

Real-time intelligence and tracking systems monitored his whereabouts, US President Donald Trump wrote in a Truth Social post, and located him in his residence.

Those same systems also discovered Iran’s highest military and intelligence officials were gathering at the country’s National Security Council offices for a high-level meeting on Saturday morning, according to US officials cited by The Times.

It meant that at 9:45am, local time, the US and Israeli intelligence services knew exactly where Iran’s major players were and, with the element of surprise on their side, the two nations struck, enacting a plan that had been weeks in the making.

“This morning, in a powerful surprise strike, the compound of the tyrant Ali Khamenei was destroyed in the heart of Tehran … and there are many signs that this tyrant is no longer alive,” Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a televised statement after the mission.

Khamenei was the Middle East’s longest-serving head of state and had faced assassination attempts before.

In June 1981, when he was serving as Grand Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini’s personal representative on the Supreme Defence Council, a bomb hidden in a tape recorder placed in front of Khamenei exploded.

He survived, but his right arm was permanently paralysed from his brush with death.

This time Khamenei wasn’t so lucky. It took just 12 hours for Mr Trump to confirm he had been killed in the wave of strikes unleashed on Iran, alongside the minister of defence, the head of the armed forces and the head of the powerful Revolutionary Guards

No matter what happens next, the death of Iran’s leader will fundamentally reshape the Middle East.

This is how the attack unfolded.

Military build-up
For weeks, there had been clear signs the US was preparing an attack on Iran following major protests breaking out on December 28.

The demonstrations in major cities, including Tehran, over soaring prices prompted a nationwide internet shutdown across the country that lasted for more than two weeks.