Israel managed to pinpoint the location of Iran’s top authorities during June’s 12-day war by hacking the mobile phones carried by their bodyguards, The New York Times reported Saturday, citing Iranian and Israeli officials.
“We know senior officials and commanders did not carry phones, but their interlocutors, security guards and drivers had phones, they did not take precautions seriously and this is how most of them were traced,” the report said citing Iran's former deputy vice-president Sasan Karimi.
An Israeli defense official told the paper: “Using so many bodyguards is a weakness that we imposed on them, and we were able to take advantage of that.”
The tactic enabled Israeli warplanes on June 16 to strike a bunker in western Tehran where President Masoud Pezeshkian, the heads of the judiciary and intelligence ministry, and senior commanders were holding an emergency security meeting, the report added.
Earlier this month, the chief of staff to Iran's president said Israel’s attack on a Supreme National Security Council (SNSC) meeting on June 16 was a targeted attempt to kill Masoud Pezeshkian, who escaped with a minor injury.
Israel targeted the building’s entrances and exit points with six bombs to block escape routes and cut off airflow, Revolutionary Guards affiliated Fars News reported last month.
None of the leaders were killed, but several guards died outside, according to The Times.
Bodyguards had long been excluded from strict phone bans imposed on top commanders, even after earlier assassinations of nuclear scientists and military figures, The New York Times reported.
Lapse now addressed
That lapse has since been addressed, with guards now restricted to carrying only walkie-talkies, the report said.
The strikes formed part of a broader Israeli campaign that killed at least 30 senior commanders and more than a dozen nuclear scientists during the war’s first week.
Iranian officials later said dozens of suspects from the military and government had been arrested or placed under house arrest on suspicion of spying for Israel.
President Pezeshkian, who was lightly injured in the attack, later told clerics: “There was only one hole, and we saw there was air coming and we said, we won’t suffocate. Life hinges on one second.”
He added that if the leadership had been killed, “people would have lost hope.”
