Vahid Online in English

English translations of Vahid Online reporting. Exported from the Telegram Channel.

← Back to latest feed

28 Feb 2026, 21:16

Forwarded from channel 3544445948

**Jennifer Griffin; Senior National Security Reporter at **X:

A U.S. official has told Fox News that the United States believes that Ali Khamenei and between 5 to 10 senior officials of the Islamic Republic were killed in Israel's initial attack on a compound in Tehran, and Washington agrees with Israel's intelligence assessment regarding this matter.

A senior U.S. defense official also told Fox that the U.S. government concurs with Israel's assessment that Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, along with 5 to 10 other senior officials of the Islamic Republic who were in a meeting in Tehran on Saturday morning, were killed. A senior commander of the Revolutionary Guard was also killed in this attack.

According to several sources, the timing of this attack was advanced based on gathered intelligence and due to a "target-of-opportunity." Officials told Fox: "A conscious decision was made to accelerate the timeline."

For this reason, the U.S. and Israel made an unusual decision and conducted the attack during the day to achieve an element of surprise and target this meeting. Typically, the U.S. military does not carry out operations like this during the day. This meeting expedited the timing of the attack.

A senior U.S. defense official told Fox: "This was a broad and extremely bold attack in broad daylight."

He added: "This attack caught senior leadership off guard; on Saturday morning, during Ramadan and coinciding with Shabbat, in broad daylight."

This official also stated: "We targeted senior leaders from the very beginning." (The targeted attack was carried out by Israel.)

Podcast on Iran on YouTube

@TheIranDesk

Mapped locations (2)

Map data © OpenStreetMap contributors