BBC Verify Live: Verified videos capture Tehran blasts, plus new Iran satellite images analysed
Date: 10:00 BST
Title: Verified videos show blasts across Tehran
Content: Peter MwaiBBC Verify senior journalist
We've been sourcing and authenticating videos showing a series of loud explosions overnight in eastern Tehran following another night of Israeli air raids.
The footage we've verified shows huge plumes of smoke rising into the night sky above the Iranian capital.
We can tell where the strikes have taken place by looking at physical features in the footage such as mountain ranges and matching them against online mapping services like Google Earth.
In the footage we can see smoke coming from slightly behind the mountain range to the east of Tehran which matches the location of the Khojir missile production complex - an expansive military installation near the town of Hajarabad.
The location also matches heat sources captured by Nasa satellites, external that are used to track wildfires and other thermal signals.
Update:
Date: 09:27 BST
Title: Wednesday on BBC Verify Live
Content: Rob CorpBBC Verify Live editor
Good morning from the newsroom in London.
We have a number of stories to chase and verify today as the team continues to update and inform the BBC's reporting on the conflict between Iran and Israel.
Because BBC News cannot operate freely in Iran we use verified footage and images to get a better understanding of what is happening in the country.
So today we're looking at:
We'll also be updating our data on the number of English Channel small boat crossings by migrants as the UK government warns the situation is "deteriorating".
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Times
15 hours ago
- Times
Inside Iran's great ‘spy' purge: thousands of arrests in brutal crackdown
I ran has arrested tens of thousands of people after the 'humiliated' regime in Tehran ordered security forces to hunt down spies who helped Israel kill the country's top military leaders. An appeal to Iranians to turn over 'suspicious' people to the police led to thousands of arrests, state media reported, as the country's top judge said he would deal 'decisively and legally' with spies. He spoke a week after Iran executed another alleged spy for Israel. The crackdown has particularly targeted ethnic and religious minorities in Iran and has drawn condemnation from the UN. Iran has expelled thousands of Afghans, and those arrested have included journalists and human rights advocates, according to the UN. Protests in Tehran in June against the US and Israel ABEDIN TAHERKENAREH/EPA Iran had been badly humiliated in the war with Israel, which began with a covert Israeli mission that crippled the country's air defences before a wave of airstrikes that decapitated the Iranian military and killed almost two dozen nuclear scientists. The attacks suggested Israeli intelligence had deeply penetrated the country at the highest levels, while also setting up networks of commando cells who sprang into action during the war.
Reuters
16 hours ago
- Reuters
Diplomacy or defiance: Iran's rulers face existential choice after US-Israeli strikes
DUBAI, Aug 14 (Reuters) - Weakened by war and diplomatic deadlock, Iran's clerical elite stands at a crossroads: defy pressure to halt its nuclear activity and risk further Israeli and U.S. attack, or concede and risk a leadership fracture. For now, the Islamic Republic establishment is focusing on immediate survival over longer-term political strategy. A fragile ceasefire ended a 12-day war in June that began with Israeli air strikes, followed by U.S. bunker-busting bombings of three underground Iranian nuclear sites. Both sides declared victory but the war exposed the military vulnerabilities and punctured the image of deterrence maintained by a major Middle East power and Israel's arch regional foe. Three Iranian insiders told Reuters the political establishment now views negotiations with the U.S. - aimed at resolving a decades-long dispute over its nuclear ambitions - as the only way to avoid further escalation and existential peril. The strikes on Iranian nuclear and military targets, which included killings of top Revolutionary Guard commanders and nuclear scientists, shocked Tehran, kicking off just a day before a planned sixth round of talks with Washington. While Tehran accused Washington of "betraying diplomacy", some hardline lawmakers and military commanders blamed officials who advocated diplomacy with Washington, arguing the dialogue proved a "strategic trap" that distracted the armed forces. However, one political insider, who like others requested anonymity given the sensitivity of the matter, said the leadership now leaned towards talks as "they've seen the cost of military confrontation". President Masoud Pezeshkian said on Sunday that resuming talks with the United States "does not mean we intend to surrender", addressing hardliners opposing further nuclear diplomacy after the war. He added: "You don't want to talk? What do you want to do? ... Do you want to go (back) to war?" His remarks were criticised by hardliners including Revolutionary Guards commander Aziz Ghazanfari, who warned that foreign policy demands discretion and that careless statements could have serious consequences. Ultimately, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei holds the final say. Insiders said he and the clerical power structure had reached a consensus to resume nuclear negotiations, viewing them as vital to the Islamic Republic's survival. Iran's foreign ministry did not immediately respond to requests for comment. U.S. President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have warned they will not hesitate to hit Iran again if it resumes enrichment of uranium, a possible pathway to developing nuclear weapons. Last week, Trump warned that if Iran restarted enrichment despite the June strikes on its key production plants, "we'll be back'. Tehran responded with a vow of forceful retaliation. Still, Tehran fears future strikes could cripple political and military coordination, and so has formed a defence council to ensure command continuity even if the 87-year-old Khamenei must relocate to a remote hideaway to avoid assassination. Alex Vatanka, director of the Iran Program at the Middle East Institute in Washington D.C., said that if Iran seeks to rapidly rebuild its nuclear capacity without securing diplomatic or security guarantees, "a U.S.–Israeli strike won't just be possible - it will be all but inevitable". "Re-entering talks could buy Tehran valuable breathing room and economic relief, but without swift U.S. reciprocity it risks a hardline backlash, deepening elite divisions, and fresh accusations of surrender," Vatanka said. Tehran insists on its right to uranium enrichment as part of what it maintains is a peaceful nuclear energy programme, while the Trump administration demands a total halt - a core sticking point in the diplomatic standoff. Renewed United Nations sanctions under the so-called "snapback" mechanism, pushed by three European powers, loom as a further threat if Tehran refuses to return to negotiations or if no verifiable deal to curb its nuclear activity results. Tehran has threatened to quit the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. But insiders say this is a pressure tactic, not a realistic plan - as exiting the NPT would telegraph an Iranian race for nuclear bombs and invite U.S. and Israeli intervention. A senior Western diplomat said Iran's rulers were vulnerable as never before, and any defiance was a gamble liable to backfire at a time of rising domestic unrest, impaired deterrence power and Israel's disabling of Iran's militia proxies in wars around the Middle East since 2023. Among ordinary Iranians, weariness over war and international isolation runs deep, compounded by a growing sense of failed governance. The oil-based economy, already hobbled by sanctions and state mismanagement, is under worsening strain. Daily blackouts afflict cities around the country of 87 million people, forcing many businesses to cut back. Reservoirs have receded to record lows, prompting warnings from the government of a looming 'national water emergency.' Many Iranians - even those opposed to the Shi'ite theocracy - rallied behind the country during the June war, but now face lost incomes and intensified repression. Alireza, 43, a furniture merchant in Tehran, said he is considering downsizing his business and relocating his family outside the capital amid fears of further air attack. "This is the result of 40 years of failed policies," he said, alluding to Iran's 1979 Islamic Revolution that toppled the Western-backed monarchy. "We are a resource-rich country and yet people don't have water and electricity. My customers have no money. My business is collapsing." At least 20 people across Iran interviewed by phone echoed Alireza's sentiment - that while most Iranians do not want another war, they are also losing faith in the establishment's capacity to govern wisely. Despite broad discontent, large-scale protests have not broken out. Instead, authorities have tightened security, ramped up pressure on pro-democracy activists, accelerated executions and cracked down on alleged Israeli-linked spy networks - fuelling fears of widening surveillance and repression. However, sidelined moderates have resurfaced in state media after years of exclusion. Some analysts see this as a move to ally public anxiety and signal the possibility of reform from within - without "regime change" that would shift core policies.
The Guardian
a day ago
- The Guardian
Israeli airstrikes on Tehran killed inmates in ‘apparent war crime'
Israeli airstrikes on Tehran's Evin prison in June killed scores of detainees, visitors and staff in what Human Rights Watch (HRW) has called an 'apparent war crime'. Iranian authorities have since subjected survivors to abuse, enforced disappearances and inhumane detention conditions, the rights group said on Wednesday. HRW's investigation, based on satellite imagery, videos and witness accounts, found the 23 June Israeli airstrikes destroyed visitation halls, prison wards, the central kitchen, the medical clinic and administrative offices. No evident military targets were identified in the facility, which held more than 1,500 prisoners at the time, many of whom had been jailed for peaceful activism. 'Israel's strikes on Evin prison on June 23 killed and injured scores of civilians without any evident military target in violation of the laws of war and is an apparent war crime,' said Michael Page, deputy Middle East director at HRW. 'The Israeli attack placed at grave risk the already precarious lives of Evin's prisoners, many of them wrongfully detained dissidents and activists.' At least 80 people died in the attack, which occurred during visiting hours, when public areas were at their busiest. HRW described the strike as unlawfully indiscriminate. Israeli officials have called Evin a 'symbol of oppression' but have provided no evidence of military use. The prison attack took place during a 12-day conflict between Israel and Iran in which hundreds of civilians were killed on both sides. US-based rights group Human Rights Activists in Iran (HRAI) said the Israeli strikes on Iran resulted in at least 5,665 casualties, including 1,190 killed and 4,475 injured, both military and civilian. The Iranian security forces also arrested 1,596 individuals during the 12-day war, the group added. In the aftermath, HRW said, Iranian authorities moved prisoners to two main detention centres in Tehran province – Shahr-e Rey prison, or Qarchak, for women, and the Greater Tehran Central Penitentiary, or Fashafouyeh, for men – shackling male inmates in pairs, beating some with batons and using electric shocks (on return to Evin) for protesting their handcuffing and the transfer of death row prisoners. Women were locked in their ward without water or phone access before being moved on 24 June to Qarchak, notorious for overcrowding and inhumane conditions. 'Iranian authorities have committed a catalogue of violations against prisoners in the aftermath of the attack, including beatings, insults, and threats during transfers, and holding prisoners in appalling conditions that have endangered their lives and health. Death-row inmates and those forcibly disappeared are now at heightened risk of torture or execution,' added Page. Some detainees were returned to Evin 46 days later only to face similar violence during transfers. Authorities have withheld information on the fate and whereabouts of some detainees held by security and intelligence agencies, including dissidents, human rights activists, and dual or foreign nationals. Among them is Swedish-Iranian physician Ahmadreza Djalali, on death row since 2017. Families have reported only brief, monitored calls from missing prisoners, with no information on their location or condition, a situation HRW says amounts to enforced disappearance. Transferred prisoners have faced overcrowded, insect-infested cells, with some forced to sleep on floors. 'Iranian authorities should not use Israel's strikes on Evin prison as another opportunity to subject prisoners, including those who should never have been in prison in the first place, to ill-treatment,' he said. HRW has called for independent investigations into violations by both Israel and Iran, with those responsible held accountable for possible war crimes.
