Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, was moved to an underground bunker in Lavizan in northeastern Tehran hours after Israel began its attacks on Tehran early Friday, two informed sources inside Iran told Iran International.
All members of Khamenei’s family, including his son Mojtaba, were with him, the sources said. Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, has asked his close confidant to move his family members from Iran to an undisclosed country, possibly headed to Russia. Video shows an unmarked aircraft taking off from Tehran, with a convoy of elite personnel boarding the plane.
According to the sources, during the previous operations against Israel, True Promise 1 and True Promise 2, the Supreme Leader’s family was also taken to the bunker.
At that time, Mojtaba was by his side, but two of his sons, Masoud and Mostafa, were not with him.
Iran’s first direct attack on Israel, Operation True Promise 1, took place on April 13, 2024, and involved over 300 missiles and drones targeting military installations. The strike was in retaliation for the killing of two Iranian generals in Damascus.
Operation True Promise 2 followed on October 1, 2024, with approximately 200 missiles aimed at Israeli military facilities in response to the assassination of Iran-aligned militant leaders, including former Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah.
Warning to Khamenei
On Sunday, Israel targeted the city of Mashhad, located 2,300 kilometres from the Jewish State, for the first time.
A diplomatic source in the Middle East told Iran International that the Israeli airstrike on Mashhad was a warning to Iran’s Supreme Leader that he is not safe anywhere in the country.
The diplomatic source added that Israel could have eliminated Khamenei on the first night of the operation. Still, the Israeli government chose to keep him alive to give him a final chance to decide on completely dismantling the Islamic Republic’s uranium enrichment program.
Trump had given Khamenei a two-month deadline to agree to dismantle Iran’s enrichment program. However, the Supreme Leader ignored both his and Israel’s warnings.
With the start of Israel’s airstrikes, that opportunity has been offered once again — this time for him to realistically assess Israel’s military capability and order the dismantling of the enrichment program, the sources said.
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