Hacked Traffic Cameras, Mobile Phone Networks: How Khamenei Was Tracked, Killed

Nearly all the traffic cameras in Tehran had been hacked for years. And when the senior Iranian officials came to work near Pasteur Street in Tehran – where Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was killed in a US-Israeli air strike on Saturday – the Israelis were watching, according to a Financial Times report.

One camera had an angle that proved particularly useful, the British daily said, providing Israel a window into the workings of a mundane part of the closely guarded compound.

Complex algorithms added details to dossiers on members of these security guards that included their addresses, hours of duty, routes they took to work and, most importantly, who they were usually assigned to protect and transport – building what intelligence officers call a “pattern of life”, the report detailed.

The effort was a part of a years-long intelligence campaign that helped pave the way for the 86-year-old Ayatollah’s assassination.