Destruction spreads across Tehran as US-Israeli strikes intensify

Tehran has come under intense US and Israeli airstrikes targeting military and security infrastructure, causing widespread destruction and civilian disruption. Intelligence assessments suggest the campaign may damage Iran’s military but is unlikely to quickly topple its leadership.

Washington: Tehran has emerged as the epicentre of an intensifying war as US and Israeli airstrikes pound targets across Iran’s capital, leaving widespread destruction and deepening fears of a prolonged conflict, a media report said.

Thousands of munitions have struck locations across the sprawling city, hitting military sites, security installations, and infrastructure tied to Iran’s defence apparatus. The strikes have also damaged cultural landmarks and civilian areas, underscoring the scale of the bombardment in a metropolis of nearly 17 million people, the media outlet said.

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According to the Wall Street Journal, the US-Israeli air campaign has “left 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.”

Missiles have repeatedly exploded across the city, with plumes of smoke rising from neighbourhoods and industrial districts. One refinery in southern Tehran caught fire after airstrikes struck oil storage tanks, marking a major escalation as energy infrastructure became a target.

Residents described a city living under constant bombardment.

“It’s like an absurd picnic,” one woman in Tehran told the Wall Street Journal. “People sit, eat snacks, and ask each other where the missile hit.”

The strikes have targeted command centres, missile sites and installations linked to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and its Basij militia, according to US officials. The operations appear aimed at weakening Iran’s military command and internal security forces.

But the conflict has also hit civilian life. Hospitals, schools, and residential areas have suffered damage from the repeated bombardment.

“Schools and hospitals must be safe and nonmilitary zones; places for education, treatment, and care, not war targets,” the Coordination Council of Iranian Educators’ Associations said in a statement cited by the Wall Street Journal.

Iranian officials have vowed retaliation and warned the conflict could widen.

“We will not let Trump go, he must pay the price,” senior Iranian security official Ali Larijani said in remarks broadcast on Iranian state television, according to CNN.

Israeli leaders have signalled that the campaign will intensify.

Israel will continue striking Iran “with all our might,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a recorded statement reported by CNN, adding that there are “many more targets and surprises prepared.”

US President Donald Trump has also suggested the war could expand if Tehran refuses to back down. Speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One, he said Washington wanted Iran to have leadership that would not lead the country into further wars.

“We don’t want to come back every five years or every 10 years and do this,” Trump told reporters, according to CNN. “We want to pick a president that’s not going to be leading their country into a war.”

Across Tehran, daily life has been upended. Traffic has thinned in many neighbourhoods as residents flee the capital, while those remaining gather on rooftops at night to watch explosions light up the sky.

Missiles streaking overhead and the sound of air-raid sirens have become a routine part of the city’s nights.

The bombardment has also revived memories of the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s, when Iraqi forces carried out missile strikes on Iranian cities. Analysts say the current campaign is far more concentrated and technologically advanced than those attacks.

Even as the strikes intensify, US intelligence officials have cautioned that the war may not quickly achieve Washington’s stated political objectives.lkj/

According to a report by The Washington Post, a classified US intelligence assessment concluded that even a large-scale military assault on Iran would be “unlikely” to topple the country’s entrenched clerical and military establishment. Officials said Iran’s leadership structure is designed to preserve continuity of power even if senior figures are killed.

Analysts say that assessment highlights the central dilemma facing Washington and its allies: while the air campaign has inflicted major damage on Iran’s military infrastructure, the country’s political system may prove far harder to dislodge.