U.S. intelligence officials say Iran’s supreme leader is effectively isolated in an undisclosed location, reached only through a tightly controlled courier network. The same communication barriers are said to be slowing the flow of information on a potential d
For weeks, U.S. officials have been trying to move a draft agreement toward the next step—and the biggest obstacle isn’t only the politics. It’s access.
U.S. intelligence officials with knowledge of the matter say Iran’s supreme leader is effectively holed up in an undisclosed location. with little access to the outside world. They say he is reached only through a labyrinth of couriers. and that Iranian officials authorized to work with the Trump administration have been struggling to communicate inside their own government system. That difficulty, U.S. officials say. is one reason details of a potential deal with Iran—and the status of past agreements—have taken time to emerge.
When the U.S. sends proposed details, the officials say the response can take a long time because of how hard it is to reach the supreme leader in the first place. A White House spokesperson declined to comment on intelligence about the supreme leader’s whereabouts or Iranian communication methods.
On Sunday, a senior administration official said the supreme leader had agreed to the contours of the current draft agreement. President Trump later posted on Truth Social that he anticipated final word in the next few days.
The communication picture is tied. officials say. to the way Iran’s leadership has adjusted since the strikes that injured the supreme leader. Iran’s Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei—who was injured in U.S. and Israeli strikes in Operation Epic Fury—is taking extreme measures to avoid strikes similar to the ones that killed his father. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. who ruled Iran from 1989 until Feb. 28. Mojtaba Khamenei has not been officially seen or heard in public since before the start of the war.
U.S. and Israeli intelligence obtained from inside the Iranian government. one official said. has made it possible to locate and eliminate much of the Iranian senior leadership during the war. At this point. the officials say. most Iranian leaders don’t see daylight. spending weeks inside highly fortified bunkers and avoiding speaking to each other unless absolutely necessary.
“One official said: “Watching them try to figure out how to talk to each other is almost like watching a sitcom. They are completely exasperated.”
Within that broader system, officials say the most cautious measures are being taken by the supreme leader. By design, even officials at the highest levels of the Iranian government don’t know where he is and have no way to contact him directly.
Instead, they say, messages are passed through a network of couriers created to obscure the supreme leader’s location.
“This is why you see people saying things like, ‘The supreme leader has agreed to the framework,’ or ‘We’re waiting to hear back on the final deal points.’ Every piece of information he receives is dated and there’s a lot of latency to his responses,” one official said.
Officials say the supreme leader has communicated in broad terms to his subordinates, giving them direction on what issues they can negotiate on and which issues shouldn’t be discussed.
The result is a bottleneck that U.S. officials describe in plain terms: draft agreement language may move forward. but the final answer depends on how quickly couriers can carry messages to the man officials say has been kept deliberately unreachable—and how long it takes for those answers to circle back.
Iran supreme leader Mojtaba Khamenei U.S. intelligence couriers draft agreement Trump administration Truth Social Operation Epic Fury Ayatollah Ali Khamenei bunkers