This is why Israel wants Iran's Supreme Leader Khamenei alive: 'One last chance'

Amid Israel continues to target Iran's ruling elite, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has reportedly gone into hiding north of the capital of Tehran. Israel has not ruled out assassinating Khamenei though reports hint that US President Donald Trump had stopped Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu from targetting the Supreme Leader. 

 

Khamenei is currently holed up in an underground bunker in Lavizan, a region northeast of Tehran. He reportedly moved underground with his family, including son Mojtaba Khamenei, as soon as the attacks began on early Friday,  Iran International quoted unnamed sources.

 

This isn't the first time that the Supreme Leader is leaving his grand residence in Tehran. He was shifted to a bunker during the previous conflicts with Israel too. Though Mojtaba was by his side then, his other sons, Masoud and Mostafa, were not with him. This time, however, his entire family is with him. 

 

Speculations are that Israel could have eliminated Khamenei on the first night of the operation but decided to leave him alive to give the leader one last chance to decide on a complete dismantling of Tehran's enrichment programme.  

 

Though regional analysts say that Israel wouldn't assassinate Khamenei, to avoid him achieving martyrdom, the IDF fired missiles at the city of Mashhad, located 2,300 kilometres from the Jewish State, for the first time on Sunday. This, a diplomatic source in the Middle East said, was a warning to Khamenei that he is not safe anywhere in the country.

 

Meanwhile, there were reports that Trump vetoed an Israeli plan to assassinate Khamenei in recent days, two US officials told Reuters.

"Have the Iranians killed an American so far? No. Until they do, we're not even talking about hitting the political leadership," one of the sources, a senior administration official, told the news agency.  

In response to the report, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in an interview with Fox News, "There are a lot of false reports about talks that didn't happen, but I won't get into that."

Middle East