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People in Tehran woke up to inky black rain on Sunday, according to witnesses, after Israeli-US strikes reportedly hit oil storage depots in and around the Iranian capital overnight.
Others say that large parts of the city are open as usual with shops and gas stations continuing to operate. But they also described Tehran as remaining largely under the control of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
“I went out a few places [on Saturday],” a 47-year-old man living in Tehran told CBC News via voicemail.
Iran’s ruling clerics have maintained an internet blackout in the country, making it difficult to communicate directly with Iranians.
We protect a man’s identity to protect him.
US-Israeli strikes hit four Iranian oil storage depots and refineries in Tehran overnight, killing four people. At least four people were also killed in an Israeli airstrike on an apartment in the Ramada hotel building in central Beirut early Sunday morning. Tehran says it is close to naming a new leader after the assassination of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
“The streets were full of security guards, some on motorcycles,” he said. “They were all armed.
“They put riot control vehicles and SWAT vehicles on the streets.”
The Belligerents promised to rise
As the war is now in its second week, both Israel and the United States have pledged to increase their attacks on what they describe as the regime’s targets, with US President Donald Trump saying he will accept nothing less than “Iran’s complete surrender.”
Israeli military spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Nadav Shoshani called the fuel depots a “legitimate military objective,” saying they were being used to fuel Iran’s war by producing or storing ballistic missiles.
Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman, Esmaeil Baghaei, accused Israel and the United States of poisoning people by releasing dangerous and toxic substances into the air.
On Friday, Iran’s ambassador to the United Nations, Amir Saeid Iravani, said that 1,332 Iranians have been killed in the war so far.
The US-based Human Rights News Agency (HRANA) has put the number at more than 1,000, including 181 children under the age of 10.
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian condemned the Israeli and US attacks as “bullying.”
“It is impossible for our heroic country to back down easily in the face of threats,” he told the Iran-based West Asia News Agency (WANA) on Sunday.
‘There is no other way’
Some opponents of the ruling regime in Iran oppose the US-Israeli invasion of their country.
“I know that many civilians are also dying and that makes me sad,” said the 47-year-old man, whose identity is being protected for his safety.
“But it feels like there is no other way. So we have to accept it, and tolerate it, to move on to the Islamic Republic.”
Chief political reporter Rosemary Barton talks to former US Middle East envoy Dennis Ross about the Iran war, and what it means for relations between countries in the region. Also, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Ret. Adm. America’s Mike Mullen discusses Iran’s uncertainty, what may come next and what the chances of regime change are. And Amanda Williams, a Canadian in Qatar, shared her efforts to find a way back to Canada.
Another resident of Tehran, also a 47-year-old man, described daily life as feeling “very contradictory.”
“We don’t want our country to be invaded and destroyed,” he told CBC News in another voice note.
“But on the other hand we don’t want the Islamic Republic to stay in power.”
This morning, March 7, we heard 19 explosions near us. Even now we still think it’s okay.
“All this destruction is fixable. But what this government can do if it continues to rule, that cannot be reversed.”
‘What is the end result of this game?’
Whether it will be able to do that, of course, is an unanswered question.
On Sunday, members of the Assembly of Experts of Iran were quoted by Iran’s state news agency as saying the body had elected a new leader, a week after Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was killed in a targeted assassination.
Among the most prominent candidates to succeed Ayatollah Ali Khamenei as Iran’s supreme leader is his son, Mojtaba. Here’s what we know about him.
If they have, their identity has not been revealed. And Israel said any new supreme leader elected would be considered a target.
Few analysts believe that a full regime change in Iran is possible through airstrikes alone.
Oraib al-Rentawi, director-general of the al-Quds Center for Political Studies in Amman, Jordan, says the Trump administration has not offered a realistic endgame scenario.
About That Host Andrew Chang joins The National to break down the mixed messages from President Donald Trump and his administration about why the US and Israel chose this time to attack Iran.
“I’m not suggesting that the most popular regime in Iran, the most popular in their country,” he told CBC News in an interview.
“But there is a large part of the Iranian population that still clings to this regime. That’s why any change that ignores this basic fact will ease the whole situation in Tehran.”
“What is the end result of this game? This is Iran, with over 90 million people and 1.6 million square kilometers. It’s a continent, for God’s sake.”
