Between bombs and blackouts, Iranians are trapped in a deepening crisis | CNN

The streets of Tehran are eerily quiet – until the bombs come. “It feels like a ghost town. No one is coming and going. It feels like a soulless city, zombies – like the walking dead – if you see anyone in the streets,” one 30-year-old Tehran resident told CNN on Friday morning, hours after intense airstrikes pounded the Iranian capital for a sixth day. “People were panicking. But some were watching the jets from the windows, as if they had come to the movies,” he said. “These are really strange and unknown days we are living through,” another Tehran resident told CNN on Wednesday. “We’re all stuck between not knowing whether to be happy or sad.” The United States and Israel have conducted coordinated strikes on Iran since February 28, prompting retaliatory attacks that have escalated into a widening war across the Middle East. For many Iranians, the war stirs a complicated mix of emotions. For those who have long wished to see the brutally repressive regime of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei gone, there is hope. For pro-regime supporters, the days of mourning have only just begun, amid questions over the regime’s future following US President Donald Trump and Isra