Iran

Iran was plunged into its deepest crisis since the 1979 Islamic Revolution on 28 February 2026, when the United States and Israel launched a massive joint military assault on the country, striking Tehran and other cities in an operation that killed Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, several senior military and security officials, and members of Khamenei's own family. Hundreds of civilians were reported killed in the first days of the attacks, including more than 100 children at a primary school in southern Iran, according to Iranian authorities. The attacks drew widespread condemnation, with the United Nations, China, Russia, and numerous other governments describing them as a violation of international law and Iranian sovereignty.

US President Donald Trump called on Iranians to ‘take over your government’ in a video posted on Truth Social on 28 February, framing the attacks as an opportunity for regime change. Under the UN Charter, the use of force between states is permitted only in self-defence against an armed attack or with Security Council authorisation. Neither condition applied: Iran had not attacked the United States, and no Security Council resolution authorised the strikes.

UN Secretary-General António Guterres condemned the operation at an emergency Security Council session, saying it had ‘squandered a chance for diplomacy’. UN Special Rapporteur Ben Saul described the strikes as ‘not lawful self-defence’ and said they amounted to ‘the international crime of aggression’. Most Western governments avoided addressing the legality of the strikes directly — the UK, France, and Germany issued a joint statement urging Iran to seek a negotiated solution without commenting on the lawfulness of the attack, while German Chancellor Friedrich Merz argued that international law should not protect Iran. Whether any political transition serves the interests of ordinary Iranians, or primarily those of external powers, remains the central question.

After 28 February 2026 the human cost of the conflict escalated rapidly. Iran launched retaliatory strikes on Israeli targets and US military bases across the Gulf, hitting sites in multiple countries, while Israel carried out further waves of bombardment in Tehran. Civilian infrastructure, residential areas, and air hubs were damaged across the region, with airspace closures, mass flight cancellations, and disruption to oil shipments through the Strait of Hormuz. US service members were among the casualties, while the full scale of Iranian civilian deaths has remained difficult to verify due to a near-total internet and communications blackout imposed on the country's 92 million citizens. According to HRANA, at least 1,168 civilian deaths were reported in Iran in the first week of the attacks.  The attacks plunged Iran into a leadership crisis without clear precedent. A three-member Provisional Leadership Council — comprising President Masoud Pezeshkian, judiciary chief Gholamhossein Mohseni-Ejei, and cleric Alireza Arafi — assumed interim authority. The 88-member Assembly of Experts, the body constitutionally responsible for selecting a new supreme leader, was itself targeted by an Israeli strike in Qom on 3 March as it reportedly convened to begin the succession process, throwing the timeline for any transfer of power into further doubt. The fate of Mojtaba Khamenei, the late leader's son and once a leading succession candidate, remained unclear amid conflicting reports.

The military action followed years of escalating US and Israeli operations against Iran, including the June 2025 Twelve-Day War that targeted Iran's nuclear and military sites, the reimposition of UN "snapback" sanctions in September 2025, and the systematic dismantling of Iran's regional allies — Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon, and the Assad government in Syria. Iran's economy had been devastated by decades of international sanctions, with the rial losing the vast majority of its value, inflation year-on-year exceeding 60% at the end of 2025, food prices rising by more than 70% year on year, and nearly one in five young Iranians unemployed. The protests that erupted in December 2025 were driven by this economic collapse, but quickly evolved into the largest popular uprising since the Woman, Life, Freedom movement of 2022. The role of foreign actors in the protests also drew scrutiny. A Mossad-affiliated Farsi-language X account posted on 29 December that operatives were “with you in the field” while former US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo praised “every Mossad agent walking beside” the protesters. Israeli Heritage Minister Amichai Eliyahu told Army Radio on 8 January that Israel had “some of our people operating there right now”, and US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told a Senate hearing that Washington had “created a dollar shortage” in Iran that came to a “grand culmination in December” when “the Iranian people [came] out on the street”.    Iranian authorities first cut internet access on 8 January 2026 to suppress coverage of nationwide anti-government protests, and connectivity dropped to roughly 4% of normal levels following the 28 February attacks. Human rights organisations warned that the shutdown was being used to conceal the true scale of state violence, both from the earlier protest crackdown — which left thousands dead — and from the bombardment. US and Israeli cyber operations also contributed to the disruption. Israel reportedly launched a large-scale cyber campaign alongside its air strikes, targeting government news sites, IRGC communications infrastructure, and even popular civilian apps, which were hijacked to broadcast regime-change messaging. With Iranian media largely inaccessible and independent reporting severely constrained, reliable information from inside the country remained extremely limited, making outside scrutiny of all parties' claims essential.