The U.S.-Israeli air war on Iran is leaving a trail of destruction across the capital of Tehran, spreading a sense of dread and paranoia across a 1,000-year-old city that has seen war before but never anything like this.
The first missiles fired in the war on Feb. 28 exploded in the center of Tehran and have rarely let up. Over eight days of conflict, over a third of at least 705 locations struck across Iran were located in Tehran, according to Human Rights Activists in Iran, a nonprofit tracking the war.
The U.S.-Israeli focus on the sprawling capital is part of a decapitation strategy that began with the 30 munitions that killed Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and a host of senior leaders. It has continued with the destruction of hundreds of sites, including an underground bunker on Friday, connected to Iran's military and security institutions, which are all run from Tehran.
But the campaign has also hit fuel tanks, cultural heritage sites, sports stadiums and tourist attractions. Golestan Palace, the former royal residence dating back to the 16th century and a World Heritage site, was damaged when airstrike shock waves shattered glass and caused debris to fall in the building.
Late Saturday, strikes set fire on oil storage tanks at a refinery in the south of the capital, the first time energy infrastructure was hit. A Tehran resident said explosions at the depot violently shook his apartment windows. When he stood to see what happened, he could see a massive wall of fire in the distance.
The airstrikes have hit dozens of local units of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and its volunteer militia, the Basij, an attempt to tear down the regime's repression apparatus and ensure the safety of protesters who rose up in December before a brutal crackdown. But those security forces are located in busy residential areas, often causing collateral damage, residents said.
More than 1,200 civilian Iranians have been killed in the conflict, Human Rights Activists in Iran said, more than twice the number in the 12-day war with Israel last summer.
The U.S. and Israeli military say they aren't targeting civilians. On Friday, U.S. Central Command -- which is overseeing the war -- said it had targeted command centers, military headquarters, air-defense systems, the navy, ballistic missile sites and military communications centers, among other things.
Tehran residents, known as Tehranis, said the city was functioning but thinned out after a mass exodus of people who had the means to leave and secure a place elsewhere. Those who venture outside are finding that Tehran's streets -- normally clogged with soul-crushing traffic -- are empty in some neighborhoods. There are only motorcycles zipping around the rubble.
Residents described a tense, surreal atmosphere across the metropolis of 17 million people. Missiles regularly streak across the sky. Explosions have become part of everyday life, rocking their homes.
Tehranis have taken to gathering on the rooftops of high-rise apartment buildings to watch airstrikes through the night, sharing food and drinks and filming explosions that light up the night sky.
"It's like an absurd picnic," one woman in Tehran said. "People sit, eat snacks and ask each other where the missile hit."
There was a feeling of exhilaration when the bombing began as people who hated the Islamic regime began to believe it could finally be toppled. But those emotions are now mixed with a sense of dread and paranoia as the airstrikes continue without a foreseeable end.
The regime's security forces are still out in force on the capital's streets, often in plainclothes, masked, and blending in with civilians, residents said. The Basij has set up checkpoints where armed men search each vehicle's trunk for satellite dishes, weapons and anything else suspicious, Tehran residents said.
The city's regular police force has been hit by airstrikes for a week. Some police officers are sleeping in cars out of fear of missiles hitting their homes or station houses, residents said. Shopkeepers have been told to shut down before nightfall, as the police can't respond to robberies, looting or other crimes.
The Ministry of Intelligence is sending text messages to all mobile phones in the city, warning that anyone taking pictures of damaged buildings could be an Israeli spy and asking citizens Wednesday to turn in neighbors for "any suspicious movements."
Late Friday, Iran's police chief, Ahmad-Reza Radan, ordered his forces to shoot looters on sight, according to a text message sent to Iranian mobile subscribers. If "officers encounter thieves, armed confrontation is on the agenda," the communication said.
A second message said police had taken the "firm decision to not appease" protesters, saying some had "plans to kill." It advised families "to take care of their youth and teenagers."
Tehran has never experienced an intense bombing campaign in such a short period. In the 1980s, Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein bombed Iranian cities with jet fighters and missiles to pressure Iran into a cease-fire. Aerial bombings by Iraq over Tehran in 1986 killed 422 people over a one-year period. During another campaign in 1988, Tehran was hit by at least 118 missiles over 52 days, killing hundreds.
By contrast, the Israeli military, backed by a formidable U.S. military arsenal deployed in the region, struck 500 military targets in Iran on just the first day of the conflict.
"The Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s involved two regional powers for most of its duration," said Farzin Nadimi, an Iran-focused senior fellow with the Washington Institute, a U.S.-based think tank. "Iran is now facing a military superpower, the U.S., and the most powerful military in the Middle East, Israel, together."
Airstrikes have hit the heart of civilian life, inflicting damage on hospitals, schools and residential buildings, according to state media, witnesses and videos verified by Storyful, which is owned by News Corp., parent of The Wall Street Journal.
The Coordination Council of Iranian Educators' Associations, a teachers trade union, called on the U.S. and Israel to ensure that no civilians would be hit in their strikes.
"Schools and hospitals must be safe and nonmilitary zones; places for education, treatment, and care, not war targets," it said on social media Wednesday. The council has supported antiregime protests and continues to report about arrests of government opponents.
Some of these strikes killed security forces, which are sometimes embedded in civilian facilities and blend in with the population as volunteer paramilitaries.
On Thursday, a strike flattened the Besat stadium, which normally hosts volleyball games. Afterward, security officers were filmed laying on the pavement, injured, inside the sports venue, according to videos verified by Storyful. Military experts said the men's attire was consistent with Iran's so-called counterterrorism Special Force, which played a key role in the deadly crackdown on protesters in January.
Grocery stores remain stocked, but the cost of living -- already a trigger behind recent protests -- is escalating. The government partly blames wartime profiteers and insists there are no shortages of food.
The simple act of buying groceries, residents said, suddenly feels fraught with dangers. One Tehran woman said an airstrike hit a fruit shop shortly after she left it.
"I can't shake the thought that if the shop had been open that day, I might have been killed," she said.