India, March 3 -- Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei had long spoken about martyrdom and the possibility of assassination. When the Israel-US airstrikes came on Saturday morning, killing the 86-year-old cleric at his compound near Pasteur Street in Tehran, Khamenei had chosen to stay overground.

According to a detailed report by the Financial Times, the operation that led to Khamenei's death was the culmination of a years-long Israeli and US intelligence campaign that mapped Tehran with extraordinary precision - down to traffic camera angles, mobile phone signals and the daily routines of his security detail.

Unlike his ally Hassan Nasrallah - who spent years moving between underground bunkers before being killed in Beirut in 2024 - Kha...