WASHINGTON: Israeli and American authorities spent weeks tracking the movements of senior Iranian leaders, including Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, sharing information that allowed the strikes to be carried out in a surprise daylight attack, according to an Israeli military official and a person familiar with the operation.

The eventual barrage of US-Israeli attacks on Iran came so quickly that they were nearly simultaneous — with three strikes in three locations hitting within a single minute — killing Khamenei and some 40 senior figures, including the head of the Revolutionary Guard and the country’s defence minister, the Israeli military official said Sunday.

The official insisted on anonymity to more fully detail the attack, but said that a variety of factors created a golden opportunity to take out much of Iran’s leadership, like weeks of training and monitoring the movements of senior figures as well as intelligence in real-time before the attack began that key targets were gathered together.