Gilan, Iran – Iranians inside and outside the country have been closely monitoring and reacting to rapidly unfolding events after United States President Donald Trump ordered the bombing of Iran’s top nuclear sites amid the ongoing conflict with Israel.
US bunker-buster bombs dropped from B-2 Spirit strategic bombers and Tomahawk cruise missiles launched from naval platforms hit Iran’s three main nuclear sites at Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan early on Sunday. Trump claimed the nuclear facilities were “totally obliterated”, though there has been no evidence shown as of yet to confirm that.
Iranian authorities confirmed the strikes after several hours, but said there was no radioactive leak. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) also confirmed there was no off-site contamination.
Iranian state media appeared to downplay the impact, with the government-run IRNA reporting from an area near Fordow, the most significant and hard-to-reach nuclear site, that there was only limited smoke rising from the place where air defences were believed to be stationed and no major activity from emergency responders.
Satellite images circulating on Sunday appeared to show possible impact sites at Fordow, where the massive GBU-57 bombs are believed to have burrowed deep underground before detonating in an attempt to destroy the Iranian nuclear facilities dug beneath the mountains.
The head of Iran’s Red Crescent Society, Pir Hossein Kolivand, said there had been no deaths in the US strikes.
Images also showed substantial movement of trucks and bulldozers around Fordow in the days preceding the strikes, in what appeared to be an attempt by Iran to move out equipment and nuclear materials stored at the protected site in anticipation of US strikes.
Heavy machinery also appeared to have been deployed to fill the entrance tunnels of the facility with earth, in a move aimed at limiting damage at the site from the incoming bombs.
Speaking in Turkiye’s Istanbul, where he was attending a meeting of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi indicated a military response by Tehran is inevitable.
“My country has been invaded, and we must respond,” he told reporters. “We must remain patient and show a proportionate response to these aggressions. Only if these measures are stopped, then will we make decisions about diplomatic pathways and the possibility of restarting negotiations.”
In a televised message issued last week from an unknown location, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei had warned that it would be to the detriment of Washington if it chooses to directly enter the war.
“The damage it will suffer will be far greater than any harm that Iran may encounter. The harm the US will suffer will definitely be irreparable if it enters this conflict militarily,” he said.
Hardliners call for action
Iranian state media and many hardline politicians led a furious response after the US strikes.
State television’s Channel 3 showed a map of US military bases across the region, including in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain, and Iraq, which are within range of Iranian missiles.
“It is now clearer than ever, not just for the Iranian nation but for the whole peoples of the region, that all US citizens and military personnel are legitimate targets. We were negotiating and progressing through a diplomatic path, but you chose to spill the blood of your soldiers. The US president in the Oval Office chose to take delivery of the coffins of up to 50,000 US soldiers in Washington,” the channel’s anchor Mehdi Khanalizadeh said.
Amirhossein Tahmasebi, another anchor who had released a defiant video from inside the state television IRIB buildings in northern Tehran after they were bombed by Israel last week, said he “spits” on Trump and anyone who claims he is a president of peace.
Hossein Shariatmadari, the Khamenei-appointed ultraconservative head of Keyhan daily newspaper, wrote: “It is now our turn to immediately rain missiles down on the US naval force in Bahrain as a first measure.”
He also renewed his longtime call for Iran to close the strategic Strait of Hormuz and said Tehran must deny access to ships from the US, the United Kingdom, France, and Germany.
Hamid Rasaei, one of the most hardline members of Iran’s parliament who is close to the Paydari (Steadfastness) faction led by security council member and failed presidential candidate Saeed Jalili, went one step further and said Iran must hit US bases in Saudi Arabia.
Relations between Tehran and Riyadh, however, have thawed considerably in recent years.
Threats against ‘treachery’
Most Iranians in the country are still unable to go online due to state-imposed internet restrictions, but those who have managed to find a working proxy connection are also reacting angrily to the war.
“Thirty years of Iranian oil money and thirty years of economic opportunities that could have turned tens of millions of people into citizens like the rest of the world have become three deep pits,” wrote one user on X, in reference to the nuclear sites.
“Trump says let me just drop the heaviest bomb in the world and then it will all be about peace,” another user sarcastically wrote.
“Stalwart like Damavand, to the last breath for Iran,” wrote two-time Oscar-winning film director Asghar Farhadi on Instagram with a picture of Mount Damavand, the highest peak in Iran at 5,609 metres (18,402 feet) and a symbol of national pride.
But some Iranians living overseas who are against the ruling theocratic establishment, along with some inside the country, were in favour of the US and Israeli attacks in the belief that they may help overthrow the governing body.
This has prompted denunciations, and even threats, by Iranian authorities and state media against any form of “treachery”.
Elias Hazrati, the head of President Masoud Pezeshkian’s communications council, said during a late-night state television interview on Saturday that the state views those who side with Israel and the US as “dishonourable opposition” who are selling out their own country.
In a statement on Friday, Iran’s Supreme National Security Council said those who have willingly or unwillingly collaborated with Israel have until the end of Sunday to turn themselves in – or face “the harshest punishment as fifth column and colluders with a hostile country during wartime”.
Iran has executed several people since the start of the war, including one person on Sunday morning, after convicting them of “spying” for Israel.
