JERUSALEM (VINnews) — According to a report in The Washington Post, from the very beginning of the war it was clear that one of the most complex and sensitive missions would fall to Israel: locating and eliminating senior figures in the Iranian regime. While the United States and Israel operated together in various arenas of the campaign, the report claims that when it came to targeting Iran’s leadership, Israel was given the primary responsibility.

According to the report, Israel carried out this mission with particularly high efficiency. The newspaper noted that since the start of the war, more than 250 “senior Iranian officials” have been killed, according to IDF counts, including numerous commanders and high-ranking figures in the Islamic Republic’s security system. The latest blow, it said, came on Thursday, when Israel announced it had eliminated the commander of the IRGC Navy.

The report states that behind this campaign is an elimination and targeting mechanism that Israel has built over decades and significantly upgraded in recent years. Senior Israeli defense and intelligence officials told the paper that improvements stem from a major expansion of intelligence sources and surveillance capabilities inside Iran, along with a new integration of technology, cyber infiltration, and large-scale data analysis.

According to those sources, Israel operates a wide range of assets inside Iran: regime insiders recruited as spies, access to street cameras, payment platforms, internal security systems, and communications control centers, as well as intelligence gathered from Iranian security databases. The article describes how vast amounts of data are collected and analyzed via artificial intelligence systems designed to identify patterns in behavior, movement, daily routines, and meeting locations of senior officials.

A key factor, according to the report, is the exploitation of vulnerabilities created by the Iranian regime itself. In recent years, Iran centralized much of its communications traffic to enable internet shutdowns during unrest. However, this centralization also created convenient entry points for covert monitoring, since even officials’ communications passed through these hubs. Western intelligence sources cited in the report said such access allowed Israel to extract emails, messages, and calls from guards, advisors, family members, and other regime affiliates.

The report adds that Israel did not rely solely on intelligence gathering but also developed increasingly sophisticated targeted killing methods, refined in previous arenas such as Gaza and Lebanon. These reportedly include pre-planted explosives, drones capable of reaching apartment windows, and precision-guided missiles launched from stealth aircraft. A senior Israeli official explained that responsibility for targeting Iran’s leadership was assigned to Israel because “there was a need to strike them, and we could do it.”

Despite the operational successes, the report raises doubts about whether the campaign will achieve broader strategic goals: eliminating the missile threat, halting Iran’s nuclear program, weakening its proxy network, or destabilizing the regime. Many of the officials killed have been replaced by more hardline figures, and large-scale public protests have not materialized. According to the paper, ongoing bombardment and fear of repression have reduced the likelihood of internal unrest.

Israeli officials described the regime in Tehran as “wounded but stable,” capable even of claiming a certain achievement by surviving a month of attacks from two of the world’s most powerful militaries.

Ariel Levite, a nuclear policy expert from the Carnegie Endowment, warned that Israel risks turning targeted killings from a tactical tool into a central strategy. He cautioned that this could gradually expand the definition of who is considered a legitimate target.

The report also suggests that the division of roles between Washington and Jerusalem created the impression that the U.S. left Israel to handle the “dirty work” of eliminating Iran’s leadership. Levite was quoted as saying it appears the U.S. approach is: “We can’t kill them, but we’re happy if you do.” However, an American official involved in the operation said the division reflects differing capabilities rather than legal constraints.

Former U.S. President Donald Trump described the strikes as a joint effort, stating that “we eliminated their entire leadership, and when they met to choose a new one, we eliminated them too,” suggesting that leadership turnover itself had become an operational objective.

The article describes a pivotal strike on February 28, in which, according to the report, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei was killed along with senior military and political figures. The attack was the culmination of long-term intelligence tracking of a group referred to as the “Group of Five”: Khamenei and his closest advisors.

Israeli intelligence reportedly monitored their meetings for months, gathering highly reliable information about their locations. The strike was adjusted at the last moment after intelligence indicated that a planned evening meeting had been moved to the morning. Israeli fighter jets ultimately carried out the attack despite significant U.S. military presence in the region.

The report highlights long-standing cooperation between Israeli and U.S. intelligence agencies, including past cyber operations like Stuxnet. However, many current capabilities evolved in recent years amid escalating cyber exchanges between the two countries.

Israeli officials described a broad effort to penetrate Iran’s “digital nervous system,” including phone interception, traffic camera access, internal security systems, and sensitive databases. The value of this data has been amplified by advanced AI systems capable of processing massive datasets quickly and effectively.

Despite the success, the report notes intelligence failures as well. In one case, Israel struck a building in Qom where the Assembly of Experts was expected to meet, but no members were present because the meeting had moved online. Officials said the goal had been to disrupt the gathering, not necessarily kill participants.

The report concludes that part of Israel’s success also stems from significant Iranian mistakes. Even after earlier strikes, senior leaders continued to gather in relatively exposed locations instead of dispersing or using underground facilities. One Israeli official remarked that, from his perspective, “anyone in the world should have seen the storm coming.”