Author: Keyvan Rafiee

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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The HILL – Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said Sunday his country could feasibly defend itself in the event of a U.S. ground incursion.

“For the time being we are capable enough. We have very brave soldiers, who are waiting for any enemy who enters into our soil to fight with them, and to kill them and destroy them,” Araghchi told host Kristen Welker on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

President Trump and other administration officials have not ruled out sending ground troops into Iran, as the U.S.-Israeli conflict with the Middle Eastern country enters its second week. So far, seven U.S. service members have died in the conflict.

“[It would] have to be [for] a very good reason. And I would say if we ever did that, they would be so decimated that they wouldn’t be able to fight at the ground level,” the president told reporters aboard Air Force One on Saturday, on sending ground forces.

The foreign minister pushed back on Trump calling for Iran’s “UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER” to end the war, saying Iran will “never” do so.

Araghchi also slammed the president for arguing he should be involved in selecting the country’s next leader.

“We allow nobody to interfere in our domestic affairs,” Araghchi said Sunday. “This is up to the Iranian people to elect their new leader. They have already elected the Assembly of Experts, and the Assembly of Experts will do the job. It’s only the business of the Iranian people, and nobody else’s business.”

The Iranian Fars News Agency reported later Sunday that the country’s Assembly of Experts selected Mojtaba Khamenei, the son of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei — who was killed on the first day of U.S.-Israeli airstrikes — as the next supreme leader of Iran. Trump told Axios on Thursday that the younger Khamenei would be an “unacceptable” choice as the next leader.

As of Saturday, U.S.-Israeli strikes in Iran have also killed 1,205 people, including at least 194 children, according to the U.S.-based Human Rights Activists News Agency.

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Bristol24/7 – Two protests took place less than 50 metres apart in Bristol city centre on Sunday afternoon as rival groups gathered to voice sharply different views on the escalating conflict involving Iran.

Amid dancing, drumming and music, a carnivalesque atmosphere ensued as Iranian monarchists – who support the restoration of the monarchy that ruled Iran before the Iranian Revolution – expressed support for the actions of the United States and Israel and called for “freedom for Iran”.

‘This is not a war – this is a mission to save humanity’, ‘Stop executions’ and ‘Thank you, president Trump’ were among the placards held aloft.

Just a stone’s throw away at Cascade Steps, a smaller anti-war counter-protest gathered to “raise awareness and demand that Iran not be subjected to aggression or bombings”.

Organised by Rana Basharat Ali Khan, around 15 demonstrators listened to speeches while waving Iranian flags alongside the Union Jack.

“We are small in number but big in heart. Peace and love,” said one speaker into a microphone.

At several points during the early afternoon, tensions between some members of the two groups briefly flared.

Police officers formed a human barrier to keep the groups apart.

Protesters from both sides could be heard shouting “shame on you” across the divide.

Views among Iranians are deeply polarised between a pro-regime minority that supports the Islamic Republic’s stability and regional policies and others demanding change amid economic hardship and political repression.

The US and Israel are continuing large-scale strikes on Iran, including an attack on an oil depot on Saturday.

Human Rights Activists News Agency says 1,205 civilians have been killed in Iran since February 28 during the unrest.

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NOTUS – Top House Armed Services lawmakers say they don’t have a clear picture of how the U.S. military is using AI in the ongoing war with Iran.

The U.S. military used Anthropic’s AI software to plan thousands of bombings in Iran late last month despite top Pentagon officials announcing a ban on the company, The Wall Street Journal reported. Anthropic’s software was reportedly paired with the military’s Palantir-developed tool, Maven Smart System, to leverage massive amounts of classified data to orchestrate attacks with the help of AI.

It’s the first time an AI model like Anthropic’s has been used by the U.S. for major war operations, but the specifics are unknown to the public — and to many lawmakers who oversee the military.

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Rep. Adam Smith, the top Democrat on the Armed Services Committee, said he does not think Congress has enough visibility into how the military is using AI for these strikes.

“I think it’s something that we should pay more attention to and learn more about how they’re using AI in the battlefield,” Smith told NOTUS. “It’s something we need a lot more information on for sure.”

He said that “without question” he would “push and work on” obtaining classified briefings with senior officials about the use of AI on the battlefield.

Armed Services Committee Chair Mike Rogers told NOTUS Congress does not have a detailed enough view into how the Pentagon is using AI to know whether there is always a person involved in approving strikes.

“I don’t have that kind of fidelity into it,” Rogers said. “My plate is full already. I’m not looking for detail like that.”

In the aftermath of the initial strikes, U.S. officials told Reuters it is likely the U.S. military played a role in a drone strike of an Iranian girls’ school that killed over 170 civilians, most of them students, in southern Iran, according to local authorities. The human rights group Human Rights Activists News Agency hassaid that civilian targets like hospitals and parks have been hit since the U.S. and Israeli attacks began.

The Pentagon did not respond to requests for comment about the use of AI in these strikes.

Anthropic’s contracting dispute with the Pentagon has brought increased scrutiny into the use of AI on the battlefield. Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei refused to give the Pentagon unfettered access to the company’s AI tools over concerns of domestic mass surveillance and fully automated attacks.

The Pentagon has said it is not looking to eliminate human oversight over attacks, but would not let Anthropic impose conditions on the department. Anthropic was officially declared a supply-chain risk in retaliation on Thursday.

Lawmakers including Sen. Mark Kelly have started asking defense officials for transparency into how the military is using AI on the battlefield.

“Companies like Anthropic and others in the AI industry have published their own safety frameworks of how advanced AI systems should be deployed,” Kelly said in a hearing with senior defense officials on Thursday. “But Congress has not yet set any kind of clear statutory framework for how AI can be used in lethal military operations.”

“Before we rapidly scale up production and field more of these systems that have AI incorporated into their capability, we need a clear answer on this,” he added.

Some lawmakers are supportive of AI integration into defense. Republican Rep. Rob Wittman, a member of the Armed Services Committee, told NOTUS he is confident that there is a human in the loop during military strikes.

“There’s programs, like Maven and others, that use AI to help gather information in helping the decision-making process. There’s never a situation where a human’s not in the loop to make a decision about the deployment of a weapon,” Wittman said.

He described AI as “an enabler for folks in the battle space,” adding: “It’ll never replace a human being.”

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Radio New Zealand – Israel’s onslaught against Iran has entered a new phase, targeting energy resources in the country including fuel storage sites.

Meanwhile, Iranian clerics are close to picking the country’s next supreme leader, according to state media, but the chosen candidate has not yet been named. The new figurehead would replace Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the leader of nearly four decades who was killed in the war’s opening salvo.

Iran’s retaliatory strikes against US-friendly Gulf nations appear to be continuing, despite President Masoud Pezeshkian apologising on Saturday for previous attacks on the oil-rich kingdoms and suggesting they would end.

US President Donald Trump said American ground troops could “possibly” be sent to Iran, but added there would have to be a “very good reason.”Here’s what to know:

What are the main headlines?

• Uncertainty over leader annnouncement: Hours after suggestions that a new supreme leader had been selected in Iran, no public statement has been made by the body responsible for choosing the successor to Khamenei. Some senior clerics in the 88-member Assembly of Experts have complained about the delay. Adding to this lack of clarity, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi told NBC News on Sunday that “nobody knows” who will be the next supreme leader.
• Iranian oil targeted: Israel has begun striking oil storage sites in Iran as part of the next phase of the war. The Israeli military said it hit fuel sites in the capital Tehran on Saturday evening that distribute fuel “to various consumers, including military entities in Iran.” A CNN team in Tehran saw blackened rain fall on the city on Sunday morning.
• ‘Surprises prepared’: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a recorded statement that Israel and the US have achieved “almost complete control” over Iranian skies, and that there are “many more targets and surprises prepared.”
• Gulf attacks continue: Countries across the Persian Gulf reported airstrikes and interceptions heading into early Sunday morning. The various drone and missile attacks come despite Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian apologizing to Gulf nations for the past week’s attacks on US bases in the region, saying Iran would stop striking its neighbours unless it came under attack.

What’s happening in Iran and Lebanon?

• Focus on Gulf states: Iran is using more of its firepower on neighboring Gulf states than it is on targeting Israel, with a spokesperson for the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) saying Tehran is using 60% of its offensive capabilities to attack US assets in the Middle East, and 40% to fire at targets of the Israeli regime. “We consider the Americans the main enemy in this war, and for this reason, they are prioritized for punishment,” the spokesperson said.
• US warning: US Central Command issued a warning to the Iranian people that Iran was putting them at risk by using “heavily populated civilian areas” to launch drones and ballistic missiles, potentially making those areas military targets.
• Over 1200 dead: At least 1,205 civilians have been killed in Iran since the conflict began last Saturday, according to the US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA). The total, which includes 194 children, is as of 5 p.m. ET on Saturday, HRANA said.
• ‘Quagmire’: Iran’s top security official said Trump’s war against Iran is the result of his “international miscalculation,” in that Trump thought he could repeat the Venezuela model in Iran. In an interview broadcast on Iranian state TV, Ali Larijani said the US is now “stuck in the quagmire of its own miscalculations,” and that Trump had failed to achieve his aims through strikes on Iran.
• Central Beirut hit: At least four people have been killed and 10 others wounded after an Israeli strike hit a hotel in central Beirut, Reuters reported early Sunday, citing Lebanon’s health ministry. The attack notably hit the heart of Beirut, rather than the Hezbollah-controlled southern suburbs. Israel’s military said it had “conducted a precise strike” targeting key commanders in the IRGC’s Quds Force. Overall, at least 394 people have been killed in Lebanon since Israel began striking the country earlier this week, according to its health ministry.

What’s happening in the rest of region?

• Strikes continue: Countries across the Persian Gulf reported airstrikes and interceptions. The Kuwaiti Army said that a “wave of hostile drones” targeted fuel storage at Kuwait International Airport. Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, the UAE and Qatar also all reported fresh aerial attacks.
• Desalination plant: During the ongoing strikes a desalination plant was damaged in Bahrain; however Bahraini authorities told CNN that water supplies were not disrupted. Across the Gulf, water desalination plants are critical infrastructure, providing between 60% and 90% of drinking water by desalination of seawater.
• Israeli casualties: Two Israeli soldiers were killed in southern Lebanon early Sunday morning, according to the Israeli military, marking the country’s first military deaths since the war began. Additionally, at least 14 Israeli soldiers have been injured in the latest fighting across the Israel-Lebanon border.
• Travel chaos continues: Some airlines in the Middle East are running limited flight schedules, while other operations remain suspended, as aviation disruption persists. Meanwhile approximately 2000 travellers are set to depart on 40 scheduled flights Sunday from Ben Gurion Airport in Israel, in the first outbound flights from the airport since the war began.

The latest from Trump

• Possible escalation: Trump said US troops could “possibly” be sent on the ground in Iran, as the war continues, but there would have to be a “very good reason.”
• Kurdish involvement: Trump said the US does not want Iranian Kurdish groups involved in the war with Iran, contradicting previous efforts by the CIA, reported by CNN, to arm them in the hopes of sparking an uprising. “We’re not looking to the Kurds going in. We’re very friendly with the Kurds, as you know, but we don’t want to make the war any more complex than it already is,” Trump said.
• Shifting blame: The president cast blame on Tehran for the strike on an Iranian elementary school that killed at least 168 children and 14 teachers, despite analysis by CNN and experts suggesting the US military was likely responsible.

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CBC – Members of the Iranian diaspora in New Brunswick have been celebrating what they see as the beginning of change in their home country, but not without anxiety over how that change will happen.

Tabassom Tallaie moved to Fredericton from Iran about 10 years ago. She said many of her fellow Iranian-born New Brunswickers have mixed feelings about the current war, which began in the early hours of Feb. 28 with air strikes on Iran by the United States and Israel.

But despite concerns over the safety of friends and loved ones in Iran, “the joy is outweighing the stress,” Tallaie said.

Most Iranians have been “dearly and eagerly asking for a foreign assistive intervention,” Tallaie said. “They knew that this was the ultimate way that could give them some hope to overthrow the regime.”

Tallaie gathered with dozens of other New Brunswickers in Miramichi on Feb. 28 to show solidarity with Iranian protesters who have been calling for an end to the 47-year-old Islamic Republic regime.

In January, Iran’s government cracked down violently on protests, killing more than 7,000 people according to the U.S.-based Human Rights Activists News Agency. Some Iranian New Brunswickers are convinced the death toll is much higher, in the tens of thousands.

Shayan Faal moved to New Brunswick from Tehran four years ago. He helped organize the Miramichi event to show support for the protesters in Iran.

“They wanted freedom,” Faal said of the protesters across Iran. “They come on the street, have a peaceful gathering, but the government didn’t accept their voices, and they decided to murder them.”

Faal said the crowd in Miramichi raised the historic lion and sun flag of Iran, now used by those opposing the Islamic Republic. About an hour after the flag went up, Faal said the crowd learned that Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader of the Islamic Republic, had been killed.

“That made us all happy,” Faal said. “We were crying out of joy, because you can’t imagine how hard it was being under this regime.”

Fariba Breau couldn’t make it to Miramichi but was part of informal gatherings of fellow ex-pat Iranians in Moncton.  Breau left Iran in 1983 and eventually found her way to New Brunswick in 2010.

“I was waiting for something like this for so many years,” Breau said. “It’s such a huge emotion that I’m going through.”

“At this moment, you really need to be around people who can understand you, and to support each other emotionally.

“I know it’s really odd to wish for an attack from a foreign country, but people are at this stage where they can’t fight this regime empty-handed, by themselves.”

Contact with friends and family restricted

Meysam Bakhti left Iran in 2021 and now lives in Moncton.  Like others, he’s had difficulty staying connected with friends and family in Iran ever since the Islamic Republic restricted internet access in January.

“I have lost contact with my family, but I receive every now and then messages from my friends,” Bakhti said.

In those messages he’s heard that the Iranian regime soldiers are still heavily armed, and making efforts to avoid the strikes by Israel and the U.S.

“The resistance will continue on the part of the regime officials, until they will all be hit by the United States and Israeli missiles and airplanes,” Bakhti said.

Hope for Pahlavi to lead transitional government

Bakhti said a lot now depends on Reza Pahlavi, the son of the former shah of Iran, who is offering to serve as a transitional leader for the country, if the Islamic Republic government falls.

“I think that he’s got a very high chance of running the country,” Bahkti said, until Iranians can “vote for the future system of government.”

Faal said that many in the diaspora agree that Pahlavi is the one to transition Iran away from nearly 50 years of the Islamic Republic.  “We have not been united, either in Canada nor in Iran… as we are today,” said Faal.

Breau also believes that Pahlavi is the key to Iran’s future, should the Islamic Republic fall.

“We are not all monarchists,” Breau said, but see Pahlavi as “the safest choice for a transition government.”

Tallaie said she looks forward to a “secular, democratic, people-held regime” for the future of Iran.

Once the current regime reaches its “maximum weakness point” under assault from the U.S. and Israel, “that’s when the people are planning to go back to the streets and claim the government and the power for themselves,” Tallaie said.

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Common Dreams – US and Israeli missiles have hit a school in Iran for the fourth time in six days, according to videos shared on social media by a spokesperson for the Iranian Foreign Ministry on Friday.

Spokesperson Esmaeil Baqaei said that the Shahid Hamedani School, an elementary school in Niloufar Square, Tehran, had been “targeted by the American/Israeli aggressors.”

He posted a video showing the school filled with dozens of young students prior to the attack, followed by scenes of the school in ruins, with several empty classrooms filled with rubble.

Baquaei said it showed “how the United States administration is helping the people of Iran.” He did not include any information about the number of casualties or the circumstances of the attack.

According to the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), at least 192 children have been killed across the Middle East since the US and Israel launched a regime change war this past Saturday.

Most of them were girls ages 7-12 who were killed on Saturday during an attack at a girls’ school in the southern Iranian town of Minab.

At least 175 people were reported to have been killed in the attack, which unnamed officials have said was “likely” carried out by the United States, according to Reuters. HuffPost reported that Pentagon officials have briefed Congress that the US “was most likely responsible.”

Eyewitnesses and relatives of the victims have told Middle East Eye that the attack was a “double-tap” strike in which survivors and first responders were targeted following the initial bombing. An Al Jazeera investigation has concluded that the attack was likely “deliberate.”

Iranian media have also published CCTV video of a separate strike on the same day, in which a missile landed next to a boys’ school in Qazvin, resulting in scenes of terrified students and teachers running for their lives.

On Thursday, two other schools in the town of Parand, southwest of Tehran, were hit by missiles fired by the US and Israel, according to Iranian state media. The Fars News Agency shared photos of a classroom filled with debris. So far, no casualties from the attack have been reported.

US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has said that as it wages its war in Iran, the US is not abiding by “stupid rules of engagement,” and has boasted of raining down “death and destruction from the sky all day long.”

According to data analyzed by the Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA), part of a US-based human rights monitor for Iran, at least 1,168 civilians have been killed by US-Israeli attacks since Saturday. The Iranian government on Friday put the death toll at 1,332 people.

More than 3,643 civilian sites have been damaged in attacks attributed to the US and Israel, according to figures released by the Iranian Red Crescent Society—among them have been 3,090 homes, 528 commercial centres, 13 medical facilities and nine Red Crescent centres.

Amjad Iraqi, a senior analyst at the International Crisis Group, told Al Jazeera that these routine attacks on civilian infrastructure increasingly resemble those carried out by Israel during its more than two-years of genocide in Gaza.

“There are straight lines between what Israel has attempted to do… in Gaza, to completely decimate and collapse the systems that existed there,” Iraqi said, “to what we are seeing in Iran, on a much more massive and dangerous scale, to bring down the Islamic Republic and to cause as much devastation as possible.”

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