The bunker created for former Iranian Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was reportedly still in use by senior Iranian figures when it was obliterated in a bombardment from 50 Israeli Air Force jets Friday.
Khamenei was assassinated in an Israeli airstrike in the opening rounds of attacks on Saturday morning. However, he was killed in his above-ground office during a meeting with senior government figures, meaning his reinforced underground bunker beneath the government’s leadership compound had so far gone untouched. On Friday, the Israeli military published footage of the bombing of the compound, saying 50 IAF jets had been used to pulverize the bunker.
WATCH: ~50 Israeli Air Force fighter jets dismantled Ali Khamenei’s underground military bunker beneath the Iranian regime’s leadership compound in Tehran. pic.twitter.com/Nw0tvvQMRX
— Israel Defense Forces (@IDF) March 6, 2026
The Israeli army said over 100 munitions were used in the strikes.
“The underground bunker was built beneath the compound and was a secure emergency asset for managing the war by the leader, who was eliminated before he managed to use it,” it said in a statement.
The strike was significant in further degrading Iran’s command and control, with the military saying that “the compound continued to be used by senior members of the Iranian regime.”
Israel’s version of the National Security Agency, Unit 8200, and its visual intelligence agency, Unit 9900, identified the bunker located in the center of Tehran.
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Given it took almost 12 hours to confirm the death of Khamenei, it will likely take some time before the Israeli military confirms which senior leaders were killed in the strike.
Shortly before the Tehran attack, the IAF pounded large swathes of Beirut’s Dahiyeh suburb, a Hezbollah stronghold.
Israel and the United States’s targeting of Iranian leadership has had a decisive impact in the war, crippling the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’s ability to effectively coordinate a military response. The result has been haphazard and increasingly sparse missile and drone attacks targeting Israel and countries across the Middle East, usually with too few munitions to inflict major damage.
The collapse of Tehran’s control over the Guard has also led to drone and missile attacks on nearly every neighboring country — a dozen in total as of Friday. Attacks on neutral Turkey, Oman, Cyprus, and Azerbaijan, and the ensuing denial of responsibility from Tehran, have emerged as particularly puzzling to observers. Some have speculated that the attacks reflect the complete collapse of command and control in the Guard, with subordinates launching attacks without top-level approval.
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Iran has openly suggested that it has lost contact with many Guard units. After the strike on Oman, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said on the second day of the war that Tehran had lost complete control over its military.
“What happened in Oman was not our choice,” he said in an interview. “We have already told our Armed Forces to be careful about the targets they choose. Our military units are now, in fact, independent and somewhat isolated, and they are acting based on general instructions given to them in advance.”