Winnipeggers with ties to Iran celebrate at rally after U.S., Israel launch major attack
CBC
Members of the Iranian diaspora living in Winnipeg celebrated in the aftermath of major attacks U.S. President Donald Trump says will topple the Iranian government.
The U.S. and Israel launched the attacks earlier on Saturday. Iranian state media said more than 200 people had been killed.
In Winnipeg, Iranians rallying in the parking lot at Polo Park shopping centre on Saturday said they hope this is the beginning of the end for the Islamic republic.
"I don't think anyone in the Iranian diaspora has slept yet," said Shervin Shahidian.
"Are we in a war and people are feeling afraid of the war? No. Actually, people are thinking that this is the way of the liberation that is happening for Iranian people."
More than a dozen people showed up for Saturday's rally, the latest in a series of weekly gatherings held in the city since late December, when the Iranian government began a crackdown on widespread protests that activist groups say killed thousands.
"I think most of the Iranian people back home and in diaspora that you have seen from Munich to Toronto to L.A. … were asking for Trump's support," Shahidian said.
"This is a surgical attack that is happening, but of course there are innocent lives that will be lost, too. And of course, that's unavoidable."
The first apparent strike Saturday hit near the offices of Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. He has not spoken publicly since the strike.
After Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said there were growing signs Khamenei was killed in the strike, Trump said in a Saturday afternoon post to Truth Social that Iran's supreme leader was dead, calling Khamenei "one of the most evil people in History."
While Iranian authorities had not confirmed Khamenei's death by late Saturday afternoon, and earlier insisted the Ayatollah was safe, satellite images show significant damage to the leader's Tehran compound, one of the first targets of the bombing campaign.
Shahidian said he hopes the attack will lead to the establishment of a democracy with a transition period steered by Reza Pahlavi, the exiled son of Iran's last shah. The shah was deposed in the Islamic revolution in 1979.
Nafiseh Kiamanesh said the country "absolutely needed" foreign help to be freed.
"We are so thankful to President Trump and Bibi Netanyahu," she said at Saturday's rally, referring to Israel's prime minister.
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