(Photo by neighbor)
By Alireza Bahrami
Correspondent for AsiaN
TEHRAN: Have you ever had the experience of your house shaking so much that the walls cracked and the windows shattered after hearing what you knew was a missile explosion? have you experienced this situation repeatedly and more intensely over the course of 45 minutes?
If you had been in your home in Tehran on Sunday, March 1, 2025, you would have experienced this terrifying situation.
The Middle East has been experiencing another war situation since Saturday; the difference is that this time 7-8 countries in the region have been targeted by military operations. Is this the end of all theorizing about world peace?
On Saturday morning (the first day of the Iranian week), my colleague and I at the news agency were sitting behind our monitors discussing the progress of the popular protests in Iran and their possible outcomes.
Suddenly, we heard the continuous sound of a fighter jet. The sound grew louder and louder within a few seconds, and then the sound of several explosions shook the news agency building.
When we went out into the street and realized from the smoke of the explosion which direction the attack had come from, I immediately guessed that the target of the attack was the Iranian leader.
His residence was a few hundred meters away from the news agency building in the city center. Based on the evidence, it was logical that he had been killed. But I could not write this anywhere; both because of the war situation and because I did not have any reliable sources for the news.
I had guessed this, because both the evidence said so, and because I had already thought that Trump and Netanyahu’s new project of attacking Iran would be accompanied by the scenario of eliminating the Iranian leader. This was what my 26 years of experience as a journalist in Iran told me.
The second thing that came to my mind was what the Iranian leader said a month ago. He said in a speech that if they attack Iran again, this time it would be a regional war. And that’s exactly what happened.
During the nuclear negotiations between Iran and the United States, Israel attacked Iran, Trump supported this attack, and the Iranian government attacked countries in the region in addition to Israel; countries that host US military bases.
This is an unpleasant event. People who are not on either side of the war are also paying the price. Of course, Iran’s attacks on countries in the region are carried out by drones. And the Israeli and US attacks on Iran, unlike the 12-day war last spring, are mostly carried out with heavy missiles and advanced bombers. For this reason, the intensity of the explosions is greater.
On Sunday afternoon, I had not yet left the house when the attacks began. The shaking of the house was intense and endless. My wife our two sons and I sat together on a couch in a corner of the house, hugging each other and comforting each other. The hardest thing was explaining to my youngest son, who has not yet gone to school, why this thunderstorm is so intense and will not end.
The world’s politicians are looking for more power and wealth, but ordinary people want a quiet and simple life. Politicians around the world are looking for justifications for human deaths to justify their ambitions.
Sometimes they shoot protesters with guns on the streets of the city, under the pretext of maintaining security and preventing chaos, sometimes they kill people with bombs in their homes or workplaces, under the pretext of freedom!
As a journalist, I have always cared about human lives, not the philosophies of politicians who pretend that human lives are not important to them.
Our house is near an army barracks and a courthouse that was attacked today. I walked there. The closer I got, the more people I saw with broken windows. Instead of glass, they were gluing nylon to the windows.
About 200 meters below the bombed area is a gas station. Fortunately, the gas station did not explode. I had this cinematic image in my mind that in the event of an explosion, a number of citizens would experience a tragic death.
Above that is the central Tehran Book City store. The windows on the main street were cracked, but the windows on the north side, which connects to a park, were completely destroyed, along with part of the wall. I thought of those who were reading in the book cafe when the explosion occurred.
Then I thought of the old men playing chess in the park.
Beyond the park is a hypermarket. Its windows and part of its walls had collapsed. I thought of a family who was taking breakfast chocolates from one of the shelves at that moment.
Across the street from the park, across the street, is the showroom of a luxury car dealership. Its windows were shattered and several luxury cars (Benz, BMW, and Hyundai) were destroyed. I remembered how many colorful balloons they had brought on the day the store opened.
I spoke to one of the local shopkeepers. He said it was a very terrifying experience; but the most terrifying moments were when they were pulling bodies out of the rubble.
Several hours had passed and the loaders were still busy removing the rubble and smoke was still rising from the site of the missile strike. The smell of smoke mixed with silence and anguish filled the place.
I visited a local mini-market. I asked the salesman about the experience of the explosion. He pointed to the tempered glass behind him that had shifted a few centimeters. And the shelves that had collapsed. He said, I didn’t know what to do? Should I stay or run!
I bought ice cream for my sons. As I was leaving, I was wondering if I could still buy ice cream for my kids tomorrow?
Politicians are fighting for more power and wealth, and people are losing their normal lives.
More than a journalist, I hope the war in my country ends soon. And I hope the war in the countries of the region ends at this stage of Soft and Slow.
For a normal life!
