A severe and sustained wave of explosions has struck multiple Iranian cities, including Tehran and Ahvaz, with citizens reporting continuous bombardments, low-flying jets, and earthquake-like tremors from suspected bunker-buster strikes.
Beginning Thursday, March 12, and escalating into the early hours of Friday, March 13, multiple Iranian cities experienced waves of devastating aerial bombardments. Vahid Online, a prominent crowdsourced citizen-journalism channel known for amplifying grassroots and opposition-aligned reports from inside Iran, published torrents of eyewitness accounts detailing continuous and extraordinarily heavy strikes across Tehran, Ahvaz, and Qom.
The first major wave was reported in Ahvaz on Thursday morning. Between 06:58 and 07:01 AM, the city experienced five to six severe explosions, with fighter jets reportedly flying overhead for half an hour, according to Vahid Online. Residents shared footage of smoke rising over the Kianpars area, noting that the blasts intensely shook local homes and suggesting that the military's 92nd Armored Division may have been the target, via Vahid Online.
The strikes intensified drastically on Friday morning in the capital. Starting at 04:40 AM, Vahid Online received a flood of messages detailing more than 20 massive explosions across eastern, western, and southern Tehran, as well as suburbs like Eslamshahr and Rey. Citizens described the attacks as earth-shattering and unlike anything experienced previously. One resident reported the impact felt like a "9-magnitude earthquake," according to Vahid Online. Eyewitnesses across the city reported low-flying jets, shattered windows, and violently shaking buildings.
As the bombardment continued past 05:00 AM, the nature of the explosions appeared to shift to deeper, seismic impacts. Citizens reported hearing heavy bunker-buster munitions and suspected the presence of high-altitude bombers operating without audible jet noise. "They are completely plowing the ground, some explosions are so deep they must have brought bombers... all of Tehran woke up from the intensity of the explosions," one user reported according to Vahid Online. In the southern suburb of Eslamshahr, the unrelenting blasts reportedly drove terrified residents to flee their homes into the streets.
The continuous strikes lasted for nearly an hour, a sustained duration that residents noted was highly irregular and far exceeded previous attack patterns, via Vahid Online. The widespread scale of the offensive was further corroborated by خبرفوری ࡆ اخبارفوری مذاکره ࡆ جنگ فوری, a rapid-alert channel focused on conflict and breaking news, which confirmed simultaneous explosion reports in Ahvaz, Qom, and Isfahan according to NE_WG.
The background context regarding the Afghan currency exchange rate was excluded from this digest as it bears no relevance to the military strikes in Iran. Vahid Online's feed provides a raw, panicked look at the attacks through crowdsourced messages, reflecting widespread civilian terror and immediate, unverified speculation regarding specific weapon types (e.g., Tomahawks, B1/B2 bombers).