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Saturday, August 30, 2025
Report: Israel targeted top Iranian leaders by hacking, tracing their bodyguards’ phones
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Israel was able to track and target senior Iranian political and military leaders and nuclear scientists during the June war by hacking and tracking the phones of their bodyguards and drivers, the New York Times reports.
According to the report that quotes several Iranian and Israeli officials, Iran was aware of Israeli plans to kill top officials and boosted their security. In doing so, they unwittingly allowed Israel to track and target the senior 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,” Sasan Karimi, a former deputy vice president for strategy in Iran’s current government and now a political analyst and lecturer at Tehran University, tells the NYT.
The report says Israel discovered that not only were the guards still carrying phones, they were using them to post to social media.
“Using so many bodyguards is a weakness that we imposed on them, and we were able to take advantage of that,” one Israeli defense official says.
Israeli officials detail how they planned to decapitate Iran’s leadership at the start of the war, knowing it would be harder after the surprise strike.
Brig. Gen. Amir Ali Hajizadeh, the commander of the Revolutionary Guards’ Aerospace Force, was the first target, one Israeli official tells the Times. As Hajizadeh gathered his senior staff together for an emergency war meeting. They were then eliminated in an Israeli bombing.
Following the first wave of strikes, guards were ordered to carry only walkie-talkies. Only team leaders who do not travel with the officials can carry cellphones.
However, in at least one case, guards violated the orders allowing Israel to again target political leaders, the report says. However, that strike ultimately missed the intended targets.
The 12-day conflict between Israel and Iran began on June 13 with a surprise Israeli attack.
Israel said its sweeping assault on Iran’s top military leaders, nuclear scientists, uranium enrichment sites, and ballistic missile program was necessary to prevent the Islamic Republic from realizing its avowed plan to destroy the Jewish state.
The Times of Israel Community.