New insights from Iran’s senior diplomat about the assassination of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei offer some of the most compelling evidence yet of the meticulous planning and execution behind the collaborative U.S.-Israeli mission, known as Operation Epic Fury, counterterrorism specialists noted on Sunday.
The revelations, made by Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi during a recent television interview, underscore what experts identify as a cornerstone of President Donald Trump’s national security strategy: employing a targeted strike to dismantle an adversarial regime while simultaneously providing an opportunity to de-escalate the situation.
“Well, the building we were sitting in was targeted, but the wing we were in remained intact while the other wing of the building was destroyed,” Araghchi said in an interview that aired June 4 on the Lebanon-based, Hezbollah-backed Al Mayadeen television network.
Though Araghchi narrowly escaped the February 28 attack, as he was in a different section of Khamenei’s compound, he provided details about Khamenei’s location in his office at the time and the survival of others present.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi is pictured arriving at the government palace for a meeting with Lebanon’s Prime Minister Nawaf Salam in Beirut on January 9, 2026. (Joseph Eid/AFP via Getty Images)
Analyzing the broadcast, counterterrorism authority Dr. Omar Mohammed shared with News Media that Araghchi’s narrative verifies the operation targeted a specific area of the complex, rather than demolishing the entire site.
“In the Arabic version, Araghchi says he was in a different wing of the compound, briefing another official, and his wing survived while the leader’s office was destroyed,” Mohammed explained.
Araghchi also told the interviewer that he had an appointment that day with an official at the compound regarding the Geneva negotiations and that, based on the usual workflow, Khamenei “had to be present in his office.”
Mohammed, director of the Antisemitism Research Initiative at the Program on Extremism at George Washington University, added that if Araghchi’s account is accurate, this was Iran’s glaring acknowledgment of U.S. strategic capabilities.
“They did not flatten a building; they took one wing and left the one next to it standing. That is President Trump’s whole doctrine in a single strike — he does not want a war of occupation, he wants to show the United States can reach the center of a hostile regime with precision and then offer it a way out,” Mohammed said.
Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei addresses the nation in a state television broadcast in Tehran on June 18, 2025. (Office of the Supreme Leader of Iran/Getty Images)
The daylight strike on elder Khamenei’s compound was carried out by Israeli jets targeting the site with 30 precision munitions alongside Sparrow air-launched ballistic missiles.
Military officials confirmed that a precise strike sequence killed Khamenei, 86, alongside Defense Minister Amir Nasirzadeh, IRGC Commander Mohammed Pakpour and multiple top security leaders.
Trump confirmed U.S. involvement in Khamenei’s killing in a post on social media at the time.
“He was unable to avoid our intelligence and highly sophisticated tracking systems, and, working closely with Israel, there was not a thing he or the other leaders killed alongside him could do,” the president wrote.
“Iran was handed the clearest message an adversary can get — we can reach your leader in his own office, and here is the off-ramp,” Mohammed noted. “A rational state takes the exit. Tehran did the opposite. It fired on Israel, killed a civilian in Bahrain, struck Kuwait, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, and closed the Strait of Hormuz, setting off a global energy crisis. The surgical strike was American. The months-long war that followed was Iran’s choice.”
Following the leadership transition, Ali Khamenei’s son, Mojtaba Khamenei, became Iran’s new supreme leader.
In this picture obtained from Iran’s ISNA news agency, Mojtaba Khamenei (C), son of Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, walks along a street in Tehran on May 31, 2019. (Hamid FOROUTAN / ISNA / AFP via Getty Images)
He has since been involved in back-channel discussions with the U.S. while maintaining a confrontational public stance.
“In Arabic, Araghchi calls the new leader ‘the young Khamenei in place of the elderly Khamenei.’ That is the language of a monarchy, not a republic of clerics,” Mohammed observed. “They are rewriting the theology on air to fit a son who lacks the religious rank, who was wounded in the same strike and who then vanished for weeks. A revolution that came to power by ending a monarchy is handing the throne from father to son.”
“The real story is not that Iran is strong,” Mohammed continued. “It was shown the precision of American power and the door was held open, and it chose to widen the war instead.”
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