CNN
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US President Donald Trump’s decision to launch a direct strike against Iran’s nuclear site sparked a wave of national rage.
“The people of Iran are people of honor and we definitely give a strong response,” one man told CNN. “We’ve been standing strong for the past 40 years,” he added.
On Sunday evening, a large crowd gathered at Enkelab Square in central Tehran to protest the strike. The footage, published by the state’s Fars News Agency, showed people waving Iranian flags and punching the air with signs that read, “Down with Israel, with America.”
Politician Hamid Rasaye said even those critical of the administration are protesting.
“Many of the people standing here may have been critics of the Islamic Republic’s policy, many of whom have their slogans against the US. But today we are all standing in one line behind the Supreme Leader,” he told CNN.
Trump ordered an attack on three of Iran’s most important nuclear facilities early on Sunday morning. This is a move that places the United States at the heart of the Israeli-Iran conflict.
Iranians have been facing the possibility of US intervention since Israel launched a strike on nuclear and military targets last week, but they believed many actions were days apart.
That’s because Trump decided on Thursday whether to attack Iran within two weeks and said it appears to have opened a window for negotiations. Everything changed early on Sunday when American bombers dropped more than dozens of “bunkerbuster” bombs at Iran’s Fordow and Natantz nuclear facilities, and Tomahawk missiles fired from the sea hit Isfahan.
One Tehran man told CNN he believes Trump is acting solely in his own interests.
“No one is dirtyer than Trump. First, he gives us two weeks of time, but two days later he will hit us,” the man told CNN. Like other Iranians CNN spoke to, he preferred not to give his name for safety reasons.
“We don’t have nuclear weapons, so why is he attacking us?” he hinted at the Iranian regime’s claims, adding that the country’s nuclear program is peace. Trump has dismissed his own intelligence news community claiming Iran is weeks away from his acquisition of nuclear weapons and that Iran is still years away from his weapons.
Trump claims that three sites attacked by the US have been “completely wiped out,” but his defense secretary said the full impact is still being evaluated. And unlike the recent Israeli strike, some of them targeted densely populated areas, but US attacks were concentrated in places that were off limits for most civilians.
Residents of QOM, a city about 30km (18 miles) from the Fordow nuclear site, were awakened to the sound of emergency vehicles sirens and news that the secret complex had been bombed several hours ago.
Five people living in QOM said they were surprised to learn what happened when they hadn’t heard anything overnight.
QOM does not have an air attack warning system, so residents would not have issued warnings before the strike.
QOM is considered the sacred city, home to Iran’s largest and most famous Siah Seminary. Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, studied at QOM Seminary, as well as some of the former Iranian presidents.
Similarly, people living in the village about 35 kilometers (22 miles) from the Natantz facility said they had not heard anything overnight.
In Tehran, far from targeted nuclear sites, many people were asking Iran to respond with strength. Fars has released a compilation of a short interview with people on street Sundays in the capital.
Each of the eight urged retaliation. Most people say Iran should attack our bases in the region and close the Strait of Hormuz on Iran’s south coast.
In Iran, signs of objection tend to be quickly counteracted, putting people at risk expressing their disagreement with the regime.
But Mohsen Milani, an Iranian scholar who has lived in the United States for decades, said that US attacks on the United States could spark more authentic support for the regime.
“It ignites a new wave of nationalism and could undermine the future of US-Iran relations than the 1953 coup, accelerating Tehran’s pivot towards Russia and China, and fundamentally reconstructing Iran’s defense, deterrence and nuclear stance,” he said in a post in X.
Some of this sentiment was already on display in Tehran on Sunday.
One demonstrator at the evening protest at Enqelab Square told CNN that he would stay there “even if the missile had descended on my head.”
“I will stay here and sacrifice my life and my blood for my country,” she said.
Everywhere around her, people were protesting against America. Some of the posters ended up on the ground where people were engraved on them.
One resident said CNN previously supported Khamenei in his life. “He’s moving forward for our land,” he said.
Speaking to CNN at a local market, the woman told CNN she believes Iran is just defending herself.
“We were living our normal lives and they attacked us. If someone hits the US, wouldn’t they answer? Of course they would,” she said.
Another person living in Tehran said he believes the administration has been greatly weakened by the US strike.
“The claim that the Iranian regime is always being made – it attacks all American bases and closes the Strait of Hormuz – they closed all these claims and saw the whole world (US) came and easily attacked the Fordow and Natantz sites… But Iran was completely quiet and if Iran was not protected, it was without defence or defence.
“Sane people, even their supporters, do not stand by vulnerable people,” they said.