Beirut — Terrified by explosions rocking their homes in Tehran and other cities, tens of thousands of Iranians have packed up and left, seeking shelter in small, remote towns to await massive bombardment from Israel and the United States.
Pouya Akhgari, 22, lives in a family home with an aunt and cousins in a village 200 kilometers (120 miles) from her home in the capital, Tehran. As the snow falls in the mountainous countryside of Zanjan province, he mostly spends his days watching movies and TV shows and sometimes going to the nearest main town.
The village has avoided the strikes, but Akhgari’s friends in Tehran tell of explosions all around them.
“It’s very chaotic. I thought it was very short but it’s dragging on,” he told The Associated Press via a messaging app. “If it continues like this, we’re out of money.”
The UN refugee agency said about 100,000 people fled Tehran, a city of about 9.7 million, in the first two days of the war. While it did not have figures for later days or flights from other cities, it said the displacement rate was much higher.
The 39-year-old lawyer endured a day of blasts that rocked his home in the city of Ahvaz, 800 kilometers (500 miles) southeast of Tehran. The next day, March 2, she packed her things and hit the road with her brother, sister and their families – and their dogs Coco and Maggie.
He went to his family’s strawberry farm in a small town several hours away. She and others reached by the AP spoke on condition of anonymity to prevent retaliation and asked that the town not be identified.
The town has no military bases, so it is relatively safe. Still, southern Iran has been the target of some of the most intense bombings. He said the next town — still small — saw an explosion when a strike hit a munitions site belonging to the Revolutionary Guard, the nation’s most powerful armed force.
They worry that the strikes could target a gym used by Guard members down the road a few hundred meters from their farm. The airstrikes hit several sports facilities around Iran, as the Guard often uses such sites as rallying points. The gym is probably far enough away that it wouldn’t affect them if it hit, he said, “but just the same, the risk exists.”
No one is going to work, and children are away from school. To pass the time and get away from things, they walk the dogs, play board games and pick strawberries.
The peacefulness of nature around them helps make the war feel far away – the clouds rolling in the green hills, the bleating of their neighbour’s goats at sunset. A bright spot was when Maya, one of two farm dogs, gave birth to puppies, the lawyer said.
Still, uncertainty hangs over everything.
“From morning to night, we talk about what’s happening, our worries, how everything gets more expensive every day, how much our money stretches,” he said.
“If this situation continues, we will face problems in meeting basic needs.”
The US-Israeli campaign has dealt heavy blows to Iran’s leadership, killing Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and top military figures. It specifically targeted the paramilitary Revolutionary Guard and the all-volunteer Basij force, tasked with protecting the cleric-led Islamic Republic. The Basij force has been responsible for crushing waves of anti-government protests, including in January.
The leadership retains its grip. Khamenei’s son, Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, was named the new Supreme Leader this week. Gard and Basij have shown that their local networks are in place so far.
On the rare occasions she left the farm to go to town, she saw members of the Basij now heavily armed on the streets, the lawyer said.
“They are waiting for the slightest movement” to show dissent, he said.
She once campaigned against the mandatory hijab – in fact, she was briefly arrested in the past – and stopped wearing it years ago. But after the war, she wears one when she leaves the house for fear of provoking Basij.
The town is traditionally considered pro-government, and many residents have taken state positions or joined the Guard, he said. Religious and patronage loyalties run particularly deep in rural areas as the Islamic Republic brought basic services to the countryside and small towns of Iran.
Yet, she sees signs of growing discontent even here. January’s anti-government protests drew large crowds in the town, he said, and the state’s official week of mourning for Khamenei was muted, with some people wearing black as authorities insisted.
One man described how the explosions left his 6½-year-old son shaking with fear, before fleeing home in Tehran.
“You put him in the bed between you and your wife, you think he’ll be safe,” she said, but he still screamed in his sleep. He decided it was time to leave.
As they drove through the capital, they saw cars on the side of the road, their windows shattered by explosions. Leaving the city in the foothills of the Alborz Mountains north of Tehran, he saw columns of smoke rising into the cloudy sky from different parts of the city.
“The scene is like terrorizing the city,” he said.
On the highway west of Tehran, heavy with traffic, the explosions shook his car and scared his son, he said. Finally they reached the family home in a small village on the other side of the mountains northwest of the capital overlooking the Caspian Sea.
There they spend their days in their home, paddy fields, snow-capped mountains in the distance. Every day, he and his wife take their son for a walk.
“Boys have a lot of energy, and in the village, he doesn’t have much fun,” she said. In the evening, his wife’s mother and father, who fled Tehran, visit.
Amidst all the chaos, local residents show “amazing kindness”.
He said he went to a neighborhood bakery to buy bread and found a long line. When the baker realized he was not from the area, he called him to the front of the line, then tried to refuse payment for the bread.
“Others in line were very friendly, asking if I had a place to stay and if I needed anything,” she said.
Leaving home is not an option for everyone.
A 53-year-old man in Tehran said his elderly parents could not move and stayed at home. The pressure is immense, he said.
“At night, I go to the parking garage, sit in my car and scream out loud,” she said. “I pray for calm and peaceful days.”
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Rodji and Keith report from Cairo.
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