Original subtitles

Hello and welcome to Global Eye,

a programme that brings you the very best of our reporting

and investigations from across the BBC World Service.

With reporters who are embedded in their communities around the globe,

our mission is to help you make sense of the world we live in.

I'm Carine Torbey, the BBC's correspondent here in Beirut,

where I was born and grew up.

I've reported on the extraordinary power shifts here

in the Middle East for over a decade,

but the events of the last week have been seismic.

Over the next half hour,

I'll be your guide to what brought us to this point

and what the coming weeks could bring.

Coming up on the programme, Nawal Al-Maghafi reports on

the events of the last week and looks at how BBC Persian,

banned from operating in the country,

gets information from inside Iran.

And the ultimate act of defiance -

star of an Oscar-winning film, Taraneh Alidoosti,

whose photo without a headscarf on

social media became one of the

defining images of the 2022 anti-government uprising in Iran,

speaks about the impact of the protests and her time in prison.

Lebanon is the second front in the war,

with Israel pounding large parts of

the country and displacing hundreds of thousands of people.

This came after Lebanon's Shia group, Hezbollah,

acting in alliance with Iran, launched rockets on Israel to avenge

the killing of the Iranian supreme leader,

Ali Khamenei, and retaliating

to near daily attacks by Israel,

despite a ceasefire that put an end to another full-blown war

just over a year ago. So how did it come to this,

an entire region now consumed by an escalating conflict?

Nawal Al-Maghafi reports on the events of the last week.

Operation Epic Fury, one of the largest,

most complex military offensives in modern history,

is a culmination of longstanding tensions that,

on February 28th, finally erupted into open conflict.

A short time ago, the United States military began

major combat operations in Iran.

Our objective is to defend the American people

by eliminating imminent threats from the Iranian regime -

a vicious group of very hard, terrible people.

Its menacing activities directly endanger the United States,

our troops, our bases overseas, and our allies throughout the world.

Israel and the US went to war with Iran just after breakfast time,

hitting the capital and sites across the country.

Donald Trump wants to bring down what he described as a very wicked,

radical dictatorship. Meanwhile, millions of ordinary Iranians

are caught in the middle.

This is a country scarred by months of protests and deadly crackdowns.

In January, 92 million people were cut off from the internet

following the deaths of thousands of anti-government protesters.

Now, within hours of their attacks,

Iran once again fell under an almost total internet blackout.

Getting accurate information out of the country is a challenge.

This is the heart of our coverage. BBC Persian,

which broadcasts across multiple platforms

and is consumed by 24 million people a week around the world -

the majority in Iran, despite being blocked and routinely jammed

by Iranian authorities.

Within hours of the offensive, reports came in of a strike

at a school in Minab, southern Iran,

near an Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps base

which has previously been a target.

Iranian authorities say 168 people,

including children, were killed.

BBC Persian teams cannot visit Iran.

They have a forensic journalism team dedicated

to sifting through video material that's coming out of the country.

They were one of the first media teams

in the world to report details of the school attack.

When I first heard about the school being hit,

first thing come to my mind was that where it was exactly, to geolocate

the school on the map and see, maybe there was any other,

like, military targets around it and it was a mistake.

So that was initial thoughts coming to my mind.

And you could see on some satellite images that there are marks

on the playground, that you could see this is a school.

Initially we thought that

this is just a girls' school, primary school.

But then we're trying to verify the killed children.

And there was this massive funeral for them.

And we looked at the pictures and we realised

more than half of them were boys.

I wanted to ask you about who was responsible for this attack.

We are digging on videos and everything online to see

if we could see any remnants of the missile,

so would have give us some clues about the make of the missile.

Where does it come?

Which army uses this kind of missile?

But so far we haven't found anything.

And we carry on investigating, and we are pressing both Pentagon...

Our reporter in Washington asked

the US Defence Secretary about, did you hit the school?

And the Secretary said that we never deliberately hit any school,

but he didn't deny it, that it was them, and he didn't confirm it.

Thirty bombs are thought to have hit the Supreme Leader's compound,

killing Ayatollah Khamenei and a significant

number of other senior intelligence, military and security personnel.

The Iranian regime hit back

in a series of attacks

aimed at the extensive network of US bases in the Gulf,

sending shock waves across the region.

Thousands of supporters of the Iranian regime gathered

for the first of 40 days of mourning for the Supreme Leader.

This was a city under attack,

but the regime maintains a solid base of support,

and its power is centred on a complex network

of political and religious institutions.

Iran is not a monolith.

There are different groups of people in Iran. There is a minority

who fully support the Islamic Republic of Iran,

and its, you know, aggressive agenda

and anti-American, anti-Israeli agenda,

think that Iran is right to follow a path of resistance.

There is also another group of people who are so fed up

with the Islamic Republic that they are cheering the bombings,

and they think it's a price worth paying

in order to see regime change in Iran.

But there is also a third group,

that you may not hear from them all the time,

who want a major change

in terms of how the country is run and, you know,

want a different Iran and would welcome a regime change.

But they think regime change couldn't and shouldn't come through

bombings from 20,000-30,000ft.

Throughout the day, Israeli forces carried out

air strikes against targets in Iran.

Again, the retaliation was swift.

Nine people were reported dead in the Israeli city of Beit Shemesh.

America suffered its first casualties.

Donald Trump promised to avenge their deaths.

Yet even as Washington hardened its rhetoric,

the conflict was spilling deeper into the Gulf,

Iran striking targets across at least nine countries - Israel,

Bahrain, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Qatar,

the UAE, Oman, Jordan and Kuwait.

This is a war that most Arab governments

didn't want and tried to prevent.

And now they've found themselves on the front line.

March 2nd saw significant escalation,

with a new front opening up in Lebanon.

The Lebanese Health Ministry reported at least 50 people dead

from Israeli strikes.

And as missiles continued to strike Iran,

the Iranian Red Crescent reported more than 550 fatalities.

For BBC Persian, reaching audiences cut off inside

the country became even more critical.

We are on satellite. We have a satellite TV.

They even try to jam that.

And we have tried to diversify our ways of,

you know, getting the information to people.

We have started a lifeline radio that you can listen to on,

you know, short wave or medium wave.

Here's the thing - there is a need for BBC Persian in Iran

because there are no independent, impartial media outlets in Iran,

and people rely on the BBC and BBC Persian to have accurate,

up-to-date information.

Iran is the seventh nation in which Trump has authorised

strikes in his second term.

The US Defence Secretary, Pete Hegseth, said the operation

wouldn't lead to endless war.

The mission of Operation Epic Fury is laser focused -

destroy Iranian offensive missiles, destroy Iranian missile production,

destroy their navy and other security infrastructure,

and they will never have nuclear weapons.

But critics argue the White House had failed

to make a consistent case for why the war started,

or what America hopes to achieve.

By the fifth day, the war had escalated

far beyond the Middle East.

A US Navy submarine torpedoed an Iranian warship

off the coast of Sri Lanka, raising further questions about

the legality of America's claim that this is a war of self-defence.

For some Iranians living under daily bombardment,

the only option was to flee.

BBC Persian spoke to some of those crossing the border into Turkey.

Honestly, people are completely stressed.

The situation is critical. No-one is really themselves.

Because of the rising prices and everything that was already

going on, people were already under a lot of pressure,

and now that the war has started again,

the situation has become even worse.

I don't really know what will happen.

The only thing I do know is that I absolutely don't

want anything to do with the clerics.

I think most people feel the same way.

The US and Israel argue that their actions will pave

the way for peace and stability,

but in a country almost three times the size of Iraq,

further violence and instability could lead

to a new refugee crisis across the Middle East and beyond.

As this conflict goes into its second week,

with the news Iran has named Mojtaba Khamenei,

a son of the deceased Supreme Leader, as his father's successor,

BBC Persian staff focus on what they are there to do,

despite the many challenges.

We try our best to be there as storytellers.

Our job is to find out information and share that with our audience

anywhere we can, and that is what we try to focus on.

It's not easy.

You see people in tears,

you see people very upset,

and we try to support each other as much as we can,

but it has never been easy.

If it was easy, there wouldn't be a need for BBC Persian.

The reason there is a BBC Persian is that there are people

who need us to do this job.

Iran's geographical location is key to understanding

the regional and global impact of this conflict,

in particular its ability

to curtail the flow of oil and gas

through one of the world's most important shipping lanes,

the Strait of Hormuz.

It gives Iran huge leverage over the world's economy.

The BBC's global journalism team has taken a look at how the geography

of the region could affect the future direction of the war.

This is the Strait of Hormuz.

It's what is called a choke point.

It's a narrow strategic route for global trade that is used 24/7.

This bit here is just 39km wide.

This shipping route is how we get 20% of the world's oil and gas,

as well as 30% of urea that helps us make fertiliser to grow food.

Iran is using its military to disrupt traffic through the strait,

which is something they've done before.

It's a very important trump card.

Shipping companies are no longer going to

the Strait of Hormuz because they're worried

their tankers or their ships might get stuck.

Gulf countries use this strait to import some food and products

from other parts of Asia,

so closing it comes at a price for Iran too.

This is something the Iranian regime has decided,

"We're just going to have to bear the economic cost of this,

"bear the burden of this, but we're just going to make everybody hurt

"as a consequence of this."

And we can see the impact of that already -

the price of oil has gone up,

and you can see from this time lapse how the strait was incredibly busy

before, and now it's not.

And there's another choke point that could disrupt global trade.

It's not in Iran's control,

but it's close to one of its remaining allies - the Houthis,

the militia group based in Yemen.

Ships cross the narrow Bab el-Mandeb Strait to go through the Suez Canal

and up into the Mediterranean Sea.

The Houthis have attacked ships in this region before.

And the alternative route - going around the Cape of Good Hope -

is longer and a lot more expensive.

The Middle East and this region, really, it's a key point

in the global supply chain.

It just depends how long this conflict is going to go on for.

Could well see an impact in terms of food security,

in terms of inflation.

So what began with strikes in Iran

has had a ripple effect through the region and beyond.

Please raise your right hand and repeat after me...

Donald Trump campaigned for the presidency on a commitment

to restore America's greatness

and a pledge to stay out of foreign wars.

They said, "He will start a war." I'm not going to start a war.

I'm going to stop wars.

But since he returned to office last year,

he has expanded US military reach,

removing former Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro from power,

and now going to war with Iran

in what has the potential to become the biggest US military campaign

since Afghanistan and Iraq.

But Washington and Tehran were once close allies,

so how did their relationship become so fractured?

Oil was discovered in southwestern Iran

at the start of the 20th century.

This redefined the role

of the country on the global stage

and began a complex journey with the West,

and especially the United States.

A British company that would later become BP

set up Iran's oil industry and business was good.

But over time, there were growing calls from Iranians

for more control.

The problem was there was so much

wealth to be gained from the oil

that was being extracted,

that then they could see all of that money just leaving the country,

and so it's that history of feeling that this is oil

on Iranian territory, under their ground,

and they're not getting any of the benefit from it.

One of the strongest voices was Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh.

He came to power promising to nationalise Iran's oil,

which he did in 1951.

As a result, Britain, supported by America,

boycotted Iranian oil, causing exports to all but collapse

over the next two years.

Then, in 1953, American and British intelligence agencies

orchestrated a coup to push him out.

So America saw Mosaddegh as being someone who would develop ties

between Iran and Russia, so, basically, it was an opportunity

that then allowed American oil companies

to get a foothold in the Iranian market.

The coup cemented control of the Western-backed Shah,

or king of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.

For the next 26 years, with support from the US,

the Shah built infrastructure, started land reforms,

improved education and gave women the vote.

These very fast-paced social changes that are happening

alongside this influx of enormous amounts of oil wealth

into the country, and we see very fast transformations within society.

The reforms boosted the economy,

but not everyone benefited equally,

and some religious leaders felt they were a threat to Islamic values.

Then the Shah increased political control over society.

In Iran, under Mohammad Reza, Shah Pahlavi becomes much stronger

and he has American support to train up his secret police,

to interrogate people and to try and stamp out

any possible areas of opposition.

In time, the Shah's feared secret police, his opulent lifestyle

and pro-Western policies sparked riots, strikes and mass protests

from across Iranian society.

And all this led to the Iranian Revolution in 1979,

which changed the country completely.

The religious leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini

returned from exile and established an Islamic republic.

This transformed not only Iran, but how it saw the world.

The shift from friends to enemies starts in 1979,

partly just because of where the revolution ended up going

under the leadership of Khomeini, whose rhetoric was anti-American.

In November 1979, a group of students who said

they were angry about America's treatment of Iran

stormed the US embassy in Tehran and held dozens

of Americans hostage inside for more than a year.

When the hostage crisis happened,

the relationship fundamentally changes.

Iran was no longer a friend and overnight becomes an enemy.

In response, the US applied economic sanctions for the first time,

banning all trade with Iran, including oil.

Since then, US concerns that Iran could develop

a nuclear weapons programme

have strained relations further and meant more sanctions.

Iran has repeatedly

said its nuclear programme was only for peaceful purposes.

There were attempts at reconciliation,

but a breakthrough didn't come until 2015,

when, after more than a decade of negotiations,

Iran signed an agreement to limit its nuclear programme.

In exchange, the US

and others stopped crippling economic sanctions,

allowing Iran to once again sell its oil internationally.

This fell apart during Donald Trump's first presidency.

He took the US out of that agreement and reimposed sanctions.

At the heart of the Iran deal was a giant fiction

that a murderous regime desired only

a peaceful nuclear energy programme.

In June 2025, the UN's nuclear watchdog said Iran

had breached its nuclear obligations under the nonproliferation treaty.

Iran condemned the resolution as political

and has always said it

has never looked to develop a nuclear weapon.

Israel launched a series of strikes on Iran,

resulting in a 12-day war between the two countries.

This culminated in direct US involvement,

including air strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities.

Our objective was the destruction of Iran's

nuclear enrichment capacity and a stop to the nuclear threat.

Since the Iranian revolution, the US and Iran

were fighting each other in different arenas.

Diplomatic, economic, political,

espionage, cyber. The only thing that had not happened

was the use of military force. But he broke that taboo.

With that final taboo broken, the course towards a much bigger

conflict was set, and the two countries' journey

from close friendship to deadly hostility was complete.

While access to information from Iran remains limited,

social media has long been a vital communications lifeline

for the Iranian opposition.

In 2022, acclaimed Iranian actress Taraneh Alidoosti

expressed solidarity with the Woman, Life, Freedom protests

when she posted her picture online without a headscarf.

The image went viral and she was taken into detention.

Speaking before the current conflict,

she sat down with BBC Persian.

This is her extraordinary story.

CHEERING

CHANTING

A leading Iranian actress, Taraneh Alidoosti...

She expressed solidarity with the anti-government protests.

She's one of the most prominent actresses in Iran.

One of Iran's most famous female actors has been arrested.

UPROAR

SCREAMING

HORNS BLARE

CHEERING

Thanks for joining me in Lebanon.

We want your feedback on Global Eye.

Let us know what you think on social media

using the hashtag...

We'll be back next week. Goodbye.