「六十秒，就這麼簡單」：以色列與美國合作的精準行動刺殺哈梅內伊（1/2）

Recently the Guardian reported the following:

‘Sixty seconds, that’s all it took’: the clinical Israeli-US operation to kill Ali Khamenei (1/2)

Mission that took just one minute to carry out was decades in making, but experts say it could be major strategic error

 US-Israel war on Iran – live updates

The Guardian - Jason Burke in Jerusalem

Sun 1 Mar 2026 14.27 EST

The assassination of Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was the culmination of decades of painstaking intelligence gathering by Israeli secret services, with crucial technological resources and manpower provided over the last six months by the CIA and other US intelligence services, which culminated in a single concentrated burst of lethal violence to decapitate the Iranian regime, according to experts, veteran spies and officials in Israel and the US.

Khamenei was killed along with seven “members of the top Iranian security leadership who had gathered at several locations in Tehran” and about a dozen members of his family and close entourage in near-simultaneous strikes within 60 seconds, military officials in Israel said. Forty other senior Iranian leaders also died in the attack.

The killing of Khamenei, 86, opened the air offensive launched this weekend by Israel and the US in an effort to overthrow the radical clerical regime in Tehran, plunging the Middle East into renewed chaos and violence.

Some experts and intelligence veterans, however, described a possible strategic error that could alienate potential supporters or open the way for more radical opponents in the future.

“The problem is that Israel is in love with assassinations … and we never learn that it is not the solution. We have killed all the leaders of Hamas. They are still there. It’s the same with Hezbollah. The leaders are always replaced,” said Yossi Melman, a respected Israeli analyst and author specialising in intelligence.

Israel has a long history of conducting assassinations overseas, but has never before killed a head of state.

Amos Yadlin, a former head of Israel’s military intelligence service, said the strike was “a tactical surprise, an operational surprise” because the general expectation was that Israel would attack in darkness, replicating the surprise strike which opened the 12-day war in June.

The timing of the assassination was determined by information the CIA gleaned about a meeting of top Iranian officials at a leadership compound in the heart of Tehran scheduled for Saturday morning. Most critically, the CIA was able to tell Israeli counterparts that Khamenei would be at the site and the timing of the meeting, according to the New York Times.

Israeli spies had also been tracking Khamenei for many years, building a minutely detailed file on his daily routine and those of his family members, associates, allies and those charged with keeping him safe.

“It’s like a giant jigsaw puzzle. You are putting all these scraps of information together. Where you don’t have [reliable data] you look further into those. It will be everything: how do they get food, what happens to their trash … We all get up and go to bed, we all eat and drink,” said a former CIA veteran with decades of experience in tracking high-profile terrorist targets.

“We are in a world where information and data is so multi-layered that there is no one who doesn’t leave some kind of trail. Everything you do leaves a print.”

Reuel Gerecht, a former CIA targeting officer who worked on Iran and an analyst at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, said the US would have been able to bring significant technological assets into play, though it was Israel that had built the networks of agents on the ground capable of supplying human intelligence and carrying out covert operations within Iran.

Gerecht said reports in the Israeli media that a photograph of Khamenei’s remains were shown to Donald Trump and Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, were plausible.

“The technological capacity of the US is extremely impressive and the tech does matter a lot, but I don’t think that the [CIA] had a lot to bring to the table in terms of [human intelligence] or covert action networks,” he said.

“If you combine the technological capacity with the networks on the ground that would certainly amplify its effectiveness.”

(to be continued)

Translation

「六十秒，就這麼簡單」：以色列與美國合作的精準行動刺殺哈梅內伊（1/2）

這項僅用一分鐘完成的任務，籌劃了數十年，但專家表示，這可能是個重大的戰略失誤。

據以色列和美國的專家、資深間諜和官員稱，刺殺伊朗最高領袖哈梅內伊，是以色列情報機構數十年來艱苦卓絕的情報收集工作的最終成果。在過去六個月裡，美國中央情報局和其他情報機構提供了關鍵的技術資源和人力，最終促成了這次集中而致命的暴力行動，旨在剷除伊朗政權。

以色列軍方官員稱，哈梅內伊與七名「聚集在德黑蘭各處的伊朗高級安全領導人」以及約十幾名他的家人和隨行人員在60秒內幾乎同時遭到空襲身亡。另有四十名伊朗高階領導人也在攻擊中喪生。

86歲的哈梅內伊遇害，拉開了以色列和美國本週末發起的空襲的序幕，這場空襲旨在推翻德黑蘭的激進神權政權，空襲使中東再次陷入混亂和暴力之中。

然而，一些專家和資深情報人員指出，這可能是戰略失誤，可能會疏遠潛在的支持者，或為未來更激進的反對派打開方便之門。

以色列著名情報分析家兼作家Yossi Melman說道。「問題在於以色列熱衷於暗殺……而我們始終不明白，暗殺並非解決之道。我們殺死了哈馬斯的所有領導人，但他們依然存在。真主黨也是如此，領導人總是會被替換」。

以色列在海外進行暗殺行動由來已久，但此前從未暗殺國家元首。

以色列前軍事情報局局長Amos Yadlin表示，此次襲擊是“一次戰術上的突襲，一次行動上的出其不意”，因為人們普遍預期以色列會在夜間發動襲擊，重演6月份那場開啟12天戰爭的突襲行動。

這次暗殺行動的時機是由美國中央情報局根據先前掌握的情報確定的，情報顯示，伊朗高級官員將於週六上午在德黑蘭市中心的一處領導人住所舉行會議。根據《紐約時報》報道，最關鍵的是，中央情報局能夠提前告知以色列方面哈梅內伊將出席會議地點以及會議時間。

以色列間諜多年來一直在追蹤哈梅內伊，建立了一份極其詳盡的檔案，記錄著他及其家人、同僚、盟友以及負責保護他的人的日常生活。

一位在中央情報局工作數十年、擁有追踪資深恐怖分子目標經驗的資深人士說道:「這就像一個巨大的拼圖遊戲。你要把所有這些零碎的信息拼湊起來。對於沒有可靠數據的地方，你要進一步調查。這涵蓋方方面面：他們如何獲取食物，他們的垃圾如何處理……我們每天都要起床睡覺，都要吃飯喝水」。

“我們身處一個資訊和數據那麼大量疊加的世界，令沒有人能不留任何痕跡。你做的每一件事都會留下印記。”

曾任中央情報局（CIA）伊朗問題目標定位官員、現任保衛民主基金會分析師的Reuel Gerecht表示，美國本可以投入大量技術資源，但以色列才是建立起在伊朗境內提供人力情報並開展秘密行動的特工網絡的人。

Gerecht稱，以色列媒體報道稱，特朗普和以色列總理內塔尼亞胡曾看過哈梅內伊遺體的照片的說法是可信的。

他說:「美國的技術能力令人印象深刻，技術的確至關重要，但我認為（CIA）在 [人力情報]或秘密行動網絡方面並沒有太多貢獻」。

“如果將技術能力與實地網絡相結合，無疑會大大提升行動的有效性。”

（待續）