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The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) on Friday announced that it had dismantled former Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s underground bunker in Tehran.
“The underground compound was created by the regime as a base for advancing military activities and its extremist ideologies against the State of Israel and the Western world,” the IDF said. “It spanned multiple streets in the heart of Tehran and contained numerous entrances and meeting rooms for senior members of the Iranian terrorist regime.”
Israel later released an illustrated video which showed a number of entry points throughout Tehran with tunnels leading to the underground bunker.
The fortified compound was directly under where Khamenei and other regime leaders were situated on Saturday morning when almost 50 of them were killed in under 50 seconds during the launch of Operation Epic Fury, a senior Israeli official told Fox News.
IRAN POSTPONES TEHRAN FAREWELL CEREMONY FOR KHAMENEI WHERE LARGE CROWDS WERE EXPECTED TO GATHER
The official said that Khamenei spent millions of dollars and a number of years building the bunker, which he did not use on the morning of the strike. Sources familiar with the intelligence say that Khamenei believed no one had the guts to strike him.
The senior Israeli official told Fox News that Khamenei’s confidence was partially thanks to an Israeli-American deception plan that included messaging, signals and public statements by President Donald Trump that suggested nothing immediate was coming. Top IDF commanders even went home on Friday night, hours before the strike, in an attempt to deceive Iranian leadership.
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Khamenei was killed on the first day of Operation Epic Fury after ruling the Islamic Republic for more than 30 years. During that time, he oversaw harsh internal crackdowns, including the most recent one in January, which targeted Iranian protesters, as well as international confrontations.
Fox News’ Trey Yingst and Fox News Digital’s Efrat Lachter and Ruth Marks Eglash contributed to this report.
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