Mark Mazzetti, Tyler PagerRonen
The volley of Israeli missiles that slammed into a government compound in central Tehran last Saturday morning was by any military standard a successful opening strike by the United States and Israel as they went to war with Iran. The blasts killed Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, as well as a cadre of other senior military and intelligence officials. The war’s first salvo left Iran without many of its top commanders to lead the response.
The reckoning, it turned out, was more complicated. The Israeli strike also killed another group of Iranian officials who had been meeting in a different part of the compound. Among them were people the White House had identified as more willing to negotiate than their bosses, and who might help bring a swift end to the conflict, according to American officials.
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