Month: March 2026

ABC News – Even as the attacks on Iran continue, with smoke rising from airstrike targets, some Iranians are privately expressing hope that the turmoil could yield change that many have yearned for.

Watching conflicts, especially three of them in less than a year, has been “terrifying” for Amir, an Iranian journalist who asked ABC News not to use his real name over security concerns.

He lived through last June’s 12-day war between Iran and Israel and reported on it as more than 1,200 people were killed, according to Iranian state media. After the U.S. targeted Iran’s nuclear sites, that war ended with a ceasefire, which did not last more than eight months until a new war broke on the last day of last month.

He then witnessed what he also describes as “a war” in January, when the ruling regime of Iran committed massacres and killed its own citizens in different cities across the country.

In an almost complete communication blockade, the Islamic Republic security forces killed at least 6,800 protestors, according to the Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA), a U.S.-based group that relies on a network of activists in Iran.

And then, the new war broke as the U.S. and Israel launched a military operation on multiple targets in Iran on Feb. 28, following months of mediated and indirect talks between Tehran and Washington over Iran’s nuclear program, during which American military started building up its military presence in the Persian Gulf.

The ongoing war against Iran by U.S. and Israeli forces, however, is “distinctive” to Amir and many others, especially since the news of killing Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader of the country, was confirmed.

While Khamenei’s supporters took to the streets in big crowds mourning his death following the confirmation on March 1 of his death, other Iranians celebrated his death by dancing, singing and setting off fireworks in the country and abroad.

“Some people, at least in the early days, were happy about the war. Especially with the news of the assassinations,” Amir told ABC News on Wednesday. “But gradually, some also began to feel scared.”

While Iranian state media extensively airs images of the regime’s supportive crowds as they commemorate the slain leader and express their loyalty to the new leader, voices of those who celebrate Khamenei’s death and insist on ending the war are silenced.

ABC News received text and voice messages from several people on the ground who said they want the war to continue until the Iranian regime falls. They asked that ABC News to not use their names for their safety, fearing they could be detained or worse for speaking out.

An Iranian woman in Tehran, who asked to be called Sahar, told ABC News this week that it was President Donald Trump fulfilling his promise to Iranians, saying she wants the war to continue until the regime falls.

“We are worried that maybe this war stops before the regime change, and we want this war as help, as Mr. Trump has promised us,” Sahar said.

Mohsen, a 36-year-old, started to believe that “only outside pressure could remove the regime in Iran,” after he witnessed the regime’s brutal suppression of 2009’s peaceful nationwide protests.

He explained how the Islamic Republic consistently killed and imprisoned protesters and activists who pursued change over decades.

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Xinhua – Regional tensions have remained high since joint U.S.-Israeli strikes on Tehran and other Iranian cities starting from Feb. 28, to which Iran and Iran-aligned groups responded with attacks on Israeli and U.S. interests across the Middle East.

As of mid-March, various reports indicated that over 1,300 civilians have been killed in Iran due to U.S. and Israeli strikes, with data from the U.S.-based Human Rights Activists News Agency suggesting 1,168 to over 1,200 deaths in the initial weeks of the conflict.

More than 10,000 civilians have been injured, and about 3.2 million have been displaced, according to Iranian health officials and the UN High Commissioner for Refugees.

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BBC – “I don’t even think it was his message,” an Iranian woman in her 40s told the BBC after her country’s new Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei gave his first official address in the form of a statement read out on state TV.

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HIRU News – The US-Israeli military assault on Iran has damaged at least 42,914 civilian units, a government spokesperson reported Saturday, as regional violence triggered by the campaign entered a third week.

Of those, 36,489 were residential units and were 43 emergency bases, the spokesperson added. At least 120 schools have been damaged.

More than 1,300 people have been killed in Iran, the country’s ambassador to the UN said Tuesday. However, the death toll could be much higher, according to the US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) on Friday, which said at least 1,858 people killed. Iranian authorities have not updated the official tally in more than a week.

Up to 3.2 million people have been displaced in Iran, the UN’s refugee agency said on Thursday. Migrant workers and refugee families from other war-ravaged nations in the region are among those most vulnerable, the UN added.

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Shafaq News – The United States targeted military fortifications on Iran’s Kharg Island on Saturday, warning that energy infrastructure could become the second target.

Iran’s Fars News Agency reported that the US attack on Kharg Island —located about 25 km off Iran’s southwestern coast and roughly 483 km northwest of the Strait of Hormuz— struck military defensive positions and the Joushan naval base without damaging oil facilities.

US President Donald Trump said American forces had “obliterated” Iranian military targets on Kharg Island and warned that oil infrastructure there could be attacked next, accusing Tehran of seeking an agreement he said Washington would reject.

Iranian officials said any attack on the country’s oil or economic infrastructure would prompt strikes on facilities linked to the United States across the region.

The commander of the aerospace force of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps also revealed that the accuracy of Iranian missile strikes had doubled over the past 48 hours.

The escalation follows coordinated US and Israeli attacks launched against Iran on February 28, which triggered a wider confrontation across the region and disruption in the Strait of Hormuz, a critical global energy shipping route.

At least 13 American soldiers have been killed since the start of the conflict, according to reported figures, including six crew members of an aerial refueling aircraft that crashed in Iraq on March 12.

Estimates by the Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) as of March 13 recorded 4,765 casualties in Iran, including 205 children, while 20 hospitals, 36 schools, and 98 residential buildings or neighborhoods have been damaged. At least 3.2 million people have been internally displaced across the country.

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Deutsche Welle – The ongoing US-Israeli war against Iran has triggered a renewed communications blackout, with many people inside the country simply not reachable per telephone or via the internet.

Still, DW managed to contact a single mother from Tehran, who fled the Iranian metropolis on the third night of the war last week.

“I left the city after a building in our street was bombed,” she told DW. “We saw multiple rockets coming down.”

Initially, the 42-year-old photographer expected targeted strikes against senior Iranian officials. She believed she could simply wait out the bombing in her apartment building, and hoped the military campaign would eventually bring liberation.

But with bombs raining down on her neighborhood, she decided to flee. The woman, who asked to remain anonymous, left Tehran with her child and drove to stay with a relative living in the outskirts. She said she is happy to no longer be in the city.

Fear of poisoned rain in Tehran

People who stayed behind are now facing the growing danger of acid rain, after the US-Israel strikes hit multiple oil depots around the Iranian capital.

Thick, dark clouds of smoke gathered over the metropolis after the strikes, and the Iranian environment agency has urged citizens to stay at home. The Red Crescent warned that rain could contain chemicals harmful to skin and lungs.

Oil tanks aren’t the only sites being hit inside the densely populated Iranian city of nearly 10 million people. Every strike has reportedly claimed civilian lives — and with officials not sounding air raid sirens and providing no access to bomb shelters, ordinary people don’t know how to protect themselves.

Many people are also unable or unwilling to leave Tehran, home to their jobs and livelihoods.

More than 1,200 civilians killed

The US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) estimates over 1,200 civilians have already been killed in Iran, including at least 194 children. HRANA has also recorded the deaths of 187 Iranian troops, alongside 316 others whose status — civilian or military — has yet to be determined.

The civilian victims include at least 110 schoolchildren between the ages of 7 and 12, who were killed in an airstrike on at a girls school in Minab, in southern Iran, on February 28. The US has said it is investigating the strike.

No guidance for ordinary Iranians
“No party in this war is playing by the rules,” said Moin Khazaeli, an Iranian human rights researcher based in Sweden.

“Infrastructure, like Iranian oil depots, are not exactly military targets, and neither are civilian infrastructure and residential areas, that the Islamic Republic is targeting in the neighboring countries. The Islamic Republic is not protecting its own population. There are no bomb shelters or air raid alerts, and no information is provided to tell people how to behave, now that the internet is off.”

Khazaeli told DW that international bodies should make sure that Iranians gain access to humanitarian aid.

The exiled political scientist and criminologist also said the regime was “responsible for what is happening right now.”

Khazaeli said the international organizations need to push the regime toward a peaceful transition of power, which would allow the Iranian people to “decide for themselves how they want to live.”

But to many, the calls to oust the Islamic regime amid the US-Israeli strikes sound like a distant dream.

Khamenei after Khamenei

After surviving the brutal protest crackdown in January, government critics may have hoped that the US would stage a regime change through targeted killings of senior Iranian officials.

These hopes were fueled by the airstrike on the Tehran residence of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on the first day of the conflict, which killed the supreme leader and many other senior state officials and military commanders.

But with every passing day of the war, hopes of a quick regime change are fading.

The regime seems shaken, but so far not broken by the airstrikes, and the surviving clerics have moved to appoint a new supreme leader — Mojtaba Khamenei, the son of the late ayatollah.

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Iran

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The Telegraph – Several members of Iran’s national women’s football team have refused to board a flight home over fears of execution.

The 13-member squad was subjected to death threats after refusing to sing the Iranian national anthem at their first game of the Asian Cup, played in Australia two days after the US and Israel launched strikes against Iran.

Five of the players, including the captain, had escaped their handlers and sought asylum on Monday night.

On Tuesday, Tony Burke, Australia’s home affairs minister, confirmed that the women had been granted humanitarian visas and taken to a safe house.

Two more sought refuge at the last minute before their flight from Sydney to Iran via Kuala Lumpur, sources told The Telegraph.

Golnoosh Khosravi, a 24-year-old winger, is believed to have refused to board at the departure gate where activists protesting against their departure had gathered. One demonstrator held up a sign written in Farsi that read: “Golnoosh, your mum said to stay.”

Mohadeseh Zolfi, also requested and received asylum before the flight, according to Iran International, an independent outlet.

As the remaining players boarded the plane, some were seen crying. One had earlier been seen dragging her teammate on to the transport to the plane.

The team, nicknamed Iran’s Lionesses, had been described as “wartime traitors” by Iranian state media, which pushed for harsh punishments, after they did not sing the national anthem on March 1.

Their silence, interpreted as an act of protest two days after Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was killed, made headlines around the world and turned them – willing or not – into symbols of resistance against the regime.

Their families in Iran were then threatened and some relatives detained.

Skylar Thompson, deputy director of HRA, a US-based Iranian human rights organisation, warned that the returning players “risk interrogation, travel bans, suspension from sport, or other forms of retaliation by the regime”.

However, their punishment might be more extreme. One source told Iranwire that the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) was planning to arrest the players and put them on trial for charges such as “cooperation with a hostile state” and “propaganda against the regime”.

The choice of some players to remain also brings its own risks. Ms Thompson told The Telegraph that the players’ families are likely to “face questioning, harassment, or other forms of pressure”.

“Iranian authorities have historically used pressure on the family members of activists, dissidents, and critics as a means of coercion and deterrence.”

The players who were granted asylum on Monday included captain Zahra Ghanbarim, Fatemeh Pasandideh, Zahra Sarbali, Atefeh Ramazanzadeh and Mona Hamoudi.

Their decision to flee was prompted by a message smuggled out of Iran, via Turkey, from a player’s family telling the women “to stay”, the Australian reported on Tuesday.

Just as news of their escape broke, Donald Trump criticised Australia’s government for making a “terrible humanitarian mistake” of allowing the team to be “forced back to Iran, where they will most likely be killed”.

“Don’t do it, Mr Prime Minister, give ASYLUM. The US will take them if you won’t,” he wrote on his Truth Social platform.

Minutes later, he retracted the comments after Anthony Albanese informed him the country was offering them refuge. “He’s on it,” wrote Mr Trump. “Five have already been taken care of, and the rest are on their way.”

At the airport, dozens of Iranian-Australians had tried to get messages to the players who were ringed by officials and Iranian security detail.

Australian media reported that during the tournament the women were guarded closely by officials belonging to the IRGC, denied access to mobile phones and their movements restricted.

After the team’s Asian Cup exit on Sunday, crowds had surrounded their bus, banging on it and chanting “let them go” and “save our girls”. One of the players appeared to be seen using sign language to signal “SOS” through the bus window.

Activists had urged Australian police to arrest their handlers and airline staff to block their entry on to the flight.

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The Guardian – Several members of Iran’s national women’s football team have refused to board a flight home, fearing possible execution after receiving death threats.

The 13-member squad reportedly faced intimidation after refusing to sing the Iranian national anthem during their opening match at the Asian Cup in Australia. The protest came two days after the United States and Israel launched strikes against Iran.

Five players, including the team captain, reportedly escaped from their handlers on Monday night and sought asylum. On Tuesday, Australia’s Home Affairs Minister, Tony Burke, confirmed the women had been granted humanitarian visas and relocated to a safe house.

Two additional players sought refuge shortly before their scheduled flight from Sydney to Iran via Kuala Lumpur, sources told The Telegraph.

Golnoosh Khosravi, a 24-year-old winger, reportedly refused to board the aircraft at the departure gate, where activists had gathered to protest the team’s return to Iran. One demonstrator held up a sign written in Farsi that read: “Golnoosh, your mum said to stay.”

Another player, Mohadeseh Zolfi, also requested and received asylum before the flight, according to Iran International, an independent news outlet.

As the remaining players boarded the plane, some were seen crying. One was reportedly seen dragging a teammate toward the transport vehicle that ferried them to the aircraft.

The team, nicknamed Iran’s “Lionesses,” had earlier been branded “wartime traitors” by Iranian state media after they refused to sing the national anthem on March 1. Their silence—widely interpreted as an act of protest following the reported killing of Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei—made global headlines and turned the players, willingly or not, into symbols of resistance against the regime.

Following the incident, relatives of several players in Iran were allegedly threatened, with some reportedly detained.

Skylar Thompson, deputy director of Human Rights Activists (HRA), a US-based Iranian human rights organisation, warned that players who return to Iran could face serious consequences.

“The returning players risk interrogation, travel bans, suspension from sport, or other forms of retaliation by the regime,” Thompson said.

However, some reports suggest the punishment could be far more severe. A source told IranWire that Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) was considering arresting the players and putting them on trial on charges such as “cooperation with a hostile state” and “propaganda against the regime.”

Even those who remain abroad may face repercussions through their families.

“Iranian authorities have historically used pressure on the family members of activists, dissidents and critics as a means of coercion and deterrence,” Thompson added.

Players granted asylum on Monday reportedly include captain Zahra Ghanbarim, Fatemeh Pasandideh, Zahra Sarbali, Atefeh Ramazanzadeh and Mona Hamoudi.

Their decision to flee was reportedly influenced by a message smuggled out of Iran via Turkey from a player’s family urging the women “to stay,” according to The Australian.

Meanwhile, former US President Donald Trump initially criticised Australia’s government, describing the decision to allow the players to return to Iran as a “terrible humanitarian mistake.”

“Don’t do it, Mr Prime Minister, give ASYLUM. The US will take them if you won’t,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform.

Minutes later, he retracted the statement after Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese informed him that the country was already offering the players refuge.

“He’s on it,” Trump wrote. “Five have already been taken care of, and the rest are on their way.”

At the airport, dozens of Iranian-Australians attempted to pass messages to the players, who were surrounded by officials and Iranian security personnel.

Australian media reported that throughout the tournament, the players were closely monitored by officials believed to be linked to the IRGC. They were reportedly denied access to mobile phones and had their movements tightly restricted.

After the team’s Asian Cup elimination on Sunday, crowds surrounded the team bus, banging on it and chanting: “Let them go” and “Save our girls.”

One player was also seen signalling “SOS” in sign language through the bus window.

Activists have since urged Australian police to arrest the team’s handlers and called on airline staff to block their departure.

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