US-Israeli attack triggers fear and panic in Iran
Iranians are fleeing cities in search of safety, stocking up on food and forming long queues at gas stations, while the attack by the US and Israel is causing fear and panic throughout the country.
Explosions rocked Tehran as strikes began on Saturday morning, sending columns of smoke rising into the sky and shaking the city at the start of the Iranian work week.
Israel said Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was killed in the operation, but Iranian officials have not confirmed his fate.
State media reported that 40 people were killed in an Israeli airstrike on a school. Reuters could not independently verify the reports.
Citizens reached by phone described scenes of chaos and alarm as they rushed to pick up their children from school or prepare to leave home.
Gholamreza, a shopkeeper from Tehran and father of two children, said, “We are going to our hometown Yazd, Tehran is not safe anymore. They said the roads are safe, but I am worried.”
“I’m leaving everything behind in Tehran,” Gholamreza said.
It marks the latest uprising for Iranians, weeks after thousands of people were killed in the government’s crackdown on nationwide unrest, and comes just eight months after last year’s 12-day war with Israel in which the United States bombed Iran’s nuclear facilities.
Iran’s top security establishment said it expected attacks on Tehran and some other cities to continue and urged people to “travel to other cities as much as possible so that you do not suffer from the acts of aggression of these two regimes.”
Schools and universities are closed until further notice.
“We are afraid, we are terrified. My children are shaking, we have nowhere to go, we will die here,” said Minou, a 32-year-old mother of two from the northern city of Tabriz, one of many areas where explosions were reported.
US President Donald Trump said the operation would eliminate the security threat to the US and offer the Iranians a chance to overthrow their rulers.
An Iranian from the central city of Yazd said he hoped the attack would topple the religious institution that has ruled the country since the 1979 Islamic Revolution. “Let them bomb,” said a Yazd resident.
Samira Mohebbi, speaking from the northern city of Rasht, disagreed.
“I’m against this regime, to hell with it. But I don’t want my country to be attacked by foreign powers, I don’t want my Iran to turn into Iraq,” he said, referring to the neighboring country that suffered years of chaos and bloodshed following the US-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein. he said.
Eyewitnesses said, “Security forces blocked the roads in the Tehran area, where the offices of Khamenei, President Masoud Pezeshkian and the parliament are located.”
In Tabriz, two residents said people rushed to supermarkets to buy food, fuel and generators.
“They said the nuclear talks were going well. They deceived us again,” said a person living in Tehran.
Western governments have long suspected that Iran was planning to build a nuclear bomb. Tehran has always denied this.
