For a moment Tehran resembled a city at peace, with birdsong, joggers and tranquil views of the snow-capped Alborz mountains in the distance. Then the sound of another explosion ripped through the air.
A week ago, opening strikes by the US and Israel killed Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, upended residents’ lives and transformed the city streets into a battleground.
In Tehran’s west, a block that belonged to the security forces had been blasted apart, and the entire surrounding area was choked with rubble.
Bizarrely, a green gate and fence enclosing the site stood untouched.
None were surprised by the war, and few had believed the nuclear talks then taking place between Iran and the US would avert it.
The broad-daylight strike at the country’s power centre was nevertheless a shock.
Chaotic scenes followed of panicked passers-by, parents scrambling to retrieve their children from school, queues at bakeries and endless traffic jams.
A week on, the noise and energy have ebbed, giving way to a rare, disquieting calm in a capital usually thronging with 10 million people.
The city is at times granted breaks of a few peaceful hours before another string of explosions shatters the air.
– Mushroom clouds –
Another block, this one in the city centre, had also been gutted.
Men stood guard, some of them heavily armed despite their apparent youth.
The blast was powerful enough to sow chaos through a nearby primary school, breaking windows and carpeting the playground with rocks and rubble.
Dust coated a row of motorbikes parked nearby.
In another neighbourhood, only the steel framework of a bombed-out building had survived, still supporting a massive antenna on the roof.
Local people busied themselves with clearing away the rubble and recovering a few possessions.
They loaded salvageable sofas and home appliances onto decrepit blue pickup trucks in the unmistakable 1960s design of local brand Zamyad.
On the horizon, yet another black mushroom cloud reached skywards.
– ‘Ramadan War’ –
In the first days of the war, Tehran could seem like a ghost town.
But pedestrians were again venturing outdoors: a father walking with his daughter on a scooter, children playing with a ball, or locals sunning themselves in a park.
Runners and cyclists resumed their exercise. More shops were open again.
But the semblance of normality is skin-deep.
Along major roads, armed men in plain clothes and others in military fatigues and body armour inspected random cars at checkpoints.
The blockades made for traffic jams on the avenues, where other traffic was mostly restricted to scooters and delivery riders.
Forbidding armoured vehicles appeared on high alert, one of them flying the banner of the Islamic republic.
At prayer time, armed Revolutionary Guards checked the faithful as they filed into a mosque.
One week after his death, posters and placards bearing Khamenei’s image were everywhere on the streets.
Some walls bore street art-style portraits in his honour that appeared in recent days.
In a neighbourhood grocery shop, one employee was anxiously following the latest in what state TV had dubbed the “Ramadan War” across the Middle East.
