The leaders were set to meet where the offices of the Iranian presidency, the supreme leader and Iran’s National Security Council are located. Last June, with planning under way to strike Iran’s nuclear targets, US president Donald Trump asserted that the United States knew where Khamenei was hiding and could have killed him. The United States used that knowledge to hone its ability to track Khamenei and predict his movements. The US and Israel had also gathered specifics about the locations of key Iranian intelligence officers. Iran’s top intelligence officer escaped, but the senior ranks of Iran’s intelligence agencies were decimated, according to people briefed on the operation.

Source: The Irish Times March 01, 2026 16:53 UTC