American military leaders set a timeline for the attack that killed Khamenei, Iranian officials said

The US-Israeli attack on Iran this weekend was described on Monday as a “massive, stunning attack” that came hours after the approval of US President Donald Trump, the commander of the military.

Air Force Gen. Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, in a news conference on Monday morning from Washington that more than 100 aircraft were launched from land and sea from 9:45 a.m. Tehran time (1:15 ET) “in one, synchronized wave.”

“There was an incredibly large scale attack on every battlefield, killing over 1,000 people in the first 24 hours,” Caine said.

Caine said the president issued the order at 3:38 pm ET on Friday. At the time, he was on Air Force One bound for Texas with Republican senators Ted Cruz and John Cornyn and actor Dennis Quaid.

The command was then transferred by Secretary of War Pete Hegseth to Adm. Brad Cooper, who heads US Central Command, which includes the Middle East in its areas of responsibility. The Central Command on Monday sent to X unexplained satellite images of unspecified strikes, in which people, equipment and buildings were taken from a military base, followed by explosions.

The military operation came after Israeli and US authorities spent weeks tracking the movements of senior Iranian leaders, an Israeli military official and another person familiar with the operation told The Associated Press before a Pentagon news conference. These people spoke on the condition that their names not be disclosed, as they are not authorized to comment publicly.

Before the attack, the CIA had been tracking the movements of top Iranian leaders, including Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, for months.

Caine said the coordinated operation with the Israeli military is “at an unprecedented level.”

Cyber ​​operations precede air and ground attacks

The strikes in multiple locations killed several military and political officials, including Iran’s Defense Minister Amir Nasirzadeh and Revolutionary Guards Cmmdr. Mohammed Pakpour. It is understood that civilians have also been killed, and the Iranian Red Crescent Society said on Monday that the US-Israeli operation had killed at least 555 people.

Khamenei, 86, was killed on Saturday, Iranian state media said, in airstrikes carried out by Israel and the US that destroyed his Tehran compound. Iran’s state media said his daughter, granddaughter, daughter-in-law and son-in-law were also killed, according to a Reuters report.

Inside Iran, some mourned Khamenei while others celebrated his death, exposing a deep fault line in the country. Khamenei built Iran into a powerful anti-US force, with military proxies in the Middle East during his 36-year rule.

“It was surprising that he chose to be in his office in his compound – not in a hiding place, not in a basement – especially at a time when an American attack, an American-Israeli attack seemed imminent,” Vali Nasr, a professor of international affairs and Middle Eastern studies at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies, told CBC News.

Hegseth and Caine did not elaborate on the attack that killed Khamenei. When asked by a reporter about his reaction to the death of the Shia cleric, Hegseth said, “I think Israel did a great job in conducting that operation.”

Caine said that, as happened with the massive bombing of Iran’s nuclear facilities last year, so-called Operation Epic Fury also involved B-2 bombers making a 37-hour round trip from the US mainland.

That attack last year was carried out between 2:10 a.m. and 2:35 a.m. local time, but in this instance it was a daylight operation that Caine said provided “speed, surprise and violence of action.”

In addition to the four traditional branches of the military, Caine spoke several times about the use of cyber technology in strikes, as well as the US Space Force. Those branches of the service “effectively disrupted communications and sensors,” he said, “degrading and blinding Iran’s ability to detect, communicate and respond.”

Hegseth on Monday did not provide specifics when asked about the final goals of the plan, how long it would take or what success would look like, saying that doing so would put the American military at risk.

The US claims air superiority over Iran

Trump has not fully provided a valid reason to the American public for launching airstrikes on Iran, or sought approval from the US Congress before the strikes.

The US president said in a video released after the first attack that he wanted to “protect the American people by eliminating threats from the Iranian regime.” An assessment by the US Defense Intelligence Agency last May estimated that Iran was about ten years away from an intercontinental ballistic missile, “if Tehran decides to pursue that capability.”

And last year, the defense intelligence agency said that “Iran is unlikely to produce nuclear weapons, but … it has undertaken activities in recent years that put it in a better position to produce them, if it chooses to do so.”

Trump said the weekend attack was aimed at ensuring Iran could not have a nuclear weapon, contain its missile program and eliminate threats to the United States and its allies in the Middle East.

Trump administration officials told US congressional staff at a private briefing on Sunday that intelligence did not suggest Iran was preparing to launch a first strike against the US, three people familiar with the matter told The Associated Press.

Two top Pentagon officials on Monday said months of planning went into the attack, detailing the military build-up in the region, led by Two groups of aircraft carriers, USS Lincoln and USS Ford.

The Ford had been deployed on NATO-focused operations in the Atlantic and North Sea for most of 2025, was redeployed to the Caribbean in November to support US efforts that led to the capture of Venezuelan autocrat Nicolas Maduro, and then redeployed to the Middle East.

Caine said that thanks to American and Israeli pilots and air traffic controllers, air superiority has now been established over Iran.

But the question of what comes next remains. The United States urged the Iranian people to rise to the occasion, which comes after weeks of domestic protests that began in late December and were brutally crushed by the Iranian regime.

Asked by a reporter on Monday if there were any boots on the ground in Iran, Hegseth said, “No, but we’re not going to go into rehearsals about what we’re going to do or not do.”

Reuters previously reported that a CIA assessment launched at the White House in the weeks before the attack on Iran concluded that if Khamenei was killed, he could be replaced by hard-line figures from the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps or hard-line clerics, two sources said.