Michigan’s Iranian American community is concerned about the recent escalation of hostilities with Iran. 

The U.S. bombed several sites in Iran on Sunday, joining Israel’s war aimed at destroying the country’s nuclear program. 

Camron Michael Amin, a professor of Middle East and Iranian diaspora studies at University of Michigan-Dearborn, says some people were not able to get in touch with their loved ones due to an internet outage in Iran. 

“Communication seems to have improved over the course of the week, but many people couldn’t reach anybody starting sort of a week ago,” he said. “Sunday, it was hard to reach people, and that seems to have been largely driven by internet outages.”

Amin says many Iranian Americans are nervous about any escalations in the war, especially those with loved ones in Iran.

“I can’t speak for everybody, obviously, but generally speaking, Iranian Americans are nervous about and wary of anything that escalates and prolongs the war. However they feel about the Iranian government, however they feel about the issues between Iran and the United States… because they have people they know or people they care about in Iran that might be at risk they themselves visit when they can,” he said.

Amin says recent polling shows that Iranian Americans frequently keep in contact and travel to Iran as tourists or to visit family.

“So anything that makes that more dangerous or more fraught is unwelcome,” he said.

Amin says one concern is getting dual-national Iranian Americans out of Iran during the conflict.

“Certainly, dual nationals in Israel, from several countries, including the U.S., have ways to get out of that country during the fighting. And I think there’s a similar concern about dual nationals, who are Iranian Americans, who might be stuck in harm’s way during the fighting right now,” he said. 

Amin says Iranian Americans are looking to policymakers and legislators to prioritize helping people stuck in Iran.

President Donald Trump announced Monday that a ceasefire had been reached between Iran and Israel, after the deal initially faltered. 

The night skies over Tehran have been flashing with fire since Israeli jets began piercing Iranian airspace. They have been targeting nuclear facilities that Israel insists pose an imminent threat. Hundreds have been killed in Iran and thousands injured. 

Iran has responded by firing missiles into Israel, where at least 24 have been killed.

An American-brokered ceasefire fell apart this morning with reports of Israeli and Iranian airstrikes coming after the announcement. 

President Donald Trump’s post on Truth Social Tuesday morning demanded Israel’s compliance: “ISRAEL. DO NOT DROP THOSE BOMBS. IF YOU DO IT IS A MAJOR VIOLATION. BRING YOUR PILOTS HOME, NOW!”

Meanwhile, the world has been watching anxiously. That anxiety grew Saturday when Trump escalated the conflict, deploying American B-2 bombers and launching Tomahawk missiles in an aggressive campaign. The president has openly hinted at regime change. 

Iran responded by striking an American air base in Qatar, home to thousands of U.S. troops. 

Diplomacy now teeters on a knife-edge as fears of broader conflict intensify. These fears are held among many in metro Detroit, especially among the hundreds of thousands of Arab and Middle Eastern residents here. Many have been watching violence and conflict erupt across the region and it brings back painful memories of the wars that forced them to leave their homes and flee to the U.S. in the first place.

Some analysts say this latest move by Israel is an attempt to entirely reshape the Middle East, which is stoking further tension and anxiety among people in the diaspora here.

Fariba Pajooh, an Iranian-American scholar of communication and media studies at Wayne State University, joined The Metro to help us understand this moment. Pajooh spent years working as a journalist in the Middle East covering conflicts. Some of that coverage led to her imprisonment by Iranian authorities. 

Use the media player above to hear the full conversation.

Listen to The Metro weekdays from 10 a.m. to noon ET on 101.9 FM and streaming on-demand.

More stories from The Metro

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — U.S. President Donald Trump said a ceasefire between Iran and Israel was in effect Tuesday after the deal initially faltered, and the American leader expressed deep frustration with both sides.

Israel had earlier accused Iran of launching missiles into its airspace after the truce was supposed to take effect, and the Israeli finance minister vowed that “Tehran will tremble.”

The Iranian military denied firing on Israel, state media reported, but explosions boomed and sirens sounded across northern Israel in the morning, and an Israeli military official said two Iranian missiles were intercepted.

Trump told reporters at the White House before departing for a NATO summit that, in his view, both sides had violated the nascent agreement. He had particularly strong words for Israel, a close ally, while suggesting Iran may have fired on the country by mistake.

But later he said the deal was saved.

“ISRAEL is not going to attack Iran. All planes will turn around and head home, while doing a friendly “Plane Wave” to Iran. Nobody will be hurt, the Ceasefire is in effect!” Trump said in his Truth Social post.

Indeed, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said he held off on tougher strikes against Iran after speaking to Trump.

The conflict, now in its 12th day, began with Israel targeting Iranian nuclear and military sites, saying it could not allow Tehran to develop atomic weapons and that it feared the Islamic Republic was close. Iran has long maintained that its program is peaceful.

Many worried the war might widen after the U.S. joined the attacks by dropping bunker-buster bombs over the weekend and Israel expanded the kinds of targets it was hitting.

But after Tehran launched a limited retaliatory strike on a U.S. military base in Qatar on Monday, Trump announced the ceasefire.

Israel accuses Iran of violating the truce. Iran denies that

The deal got off to a rocky start.

An Israeli military official who spoke on the condition of anonymity in line with military regulations said Iran launched two missiles at Israel hours into the tenuous ceasefire. Both were intercepted, the official said.

Iranian state television reported that the military denied firing missiles after the start of the ceasefire — while condemning Israel for predawn strikes of its own.

One of those attacks killed a high-profile nuclear scientist, Mohammad Reza Sedighi Saber, at his father-in-law’s residence in northern Iran, Iranian state TV reported.

As Trump spoke to reporters at the White House before departing for the NATO summit, he expressed disappointment with both sides.

Iran “violated it, but Israel violated it too,” Trump said. ”I’m not happy with Israel.”

Trump’s frustration was palpable, using an expletive to hammer home his point.

“We basically have two countries that have been fighting so long and so hard that they don’t know what the f—- they’re doing,” he said.

Later, however, he announced that Israel had backed off its threat to attack Tehran and would turn its jets around.

Netanyahu’s office said Israel struck an Iranian radar site in response to the Iranian missile attack early Tuesday, but Israeli forces held off on something bigger.

Following Trump’s conversation with Netanyahu, “Israel refrained from additional attacks,” Netanyahu’s office said.

Breakthrough announced after hostilities spread

Netanyahu said Israel agreed to a bilateral ceasefire with Iran, in coordination with Trump, after the country achieved all of its war goals, including removing the threat of Iran’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs.

It’s unclear what role Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s leader, played in the talks. He said earlier on social media that he would not surrender.

Trump said Tuesday that he wasn’t seeking regime change in Iran, two days after floating the idea himself in a social media post.

“I don’t want it,” Trump told reporters on Air Force One. “Regime change takes chaos and, ideally, we don’t want to see much chaos.”

Before the ceasefire was announced, Israel’s military said Iran launched 20 missiles toward Israel. Police said they damaged at least three densely packed residential buildings in the city of Beersheba. First responders said they retrieved four bodies from one building and were searching for more. At least 20 people were injured.

Outside, the shells of burned out cars littered the streets. Broken glass and rubble covered the area. Police said some people were injured while inside their apartments’ reinforced safe rooms, which are meant to withstand rockets but not direct hits from ballistic missiles.

The attack followed a limited Iranian missile attack Monday on a U.S. military base in Qatar, retaliating for earlier American bombing of its nuclear sites. The U.S. was warned by Iran in advance, and there were no casualties.

Drones attacked military bases in Iraq overnight, including some housing U.S. troops, the Iraqi army and a U.S. military official said Tuesday.

A senior U.S. military official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to comment publicly, said U.S. forces shot down drones attacking Ain al-Assad in the desert in western Iraq and at a base next to the Baghdad airport, while another one crashed.

No casualties were reported, and no group claimed responsibility for the attacks in Iraq. Some Iran-backed Iraqi militias had previously threatened to target U.S. bases if the U.S. attacked Iran.

Conflict has killed hundreds

In Israel, at least 28 people have been killed and more than 1,000 wounded in the war. Israeli strikes on Iran have killed at least 974 people and wounded 3,458 others, according to the Washington-based group Human Rights Activists.

The group, which has provided detailed casualty figures from Iranian unrest, said of those killed, it identified 387 civilians and 268 security force personnel.

The U.S. has evacuated some 250 American citizens and their immediate family members from Israel by government, military and charter flights that began over the weekend, a State Department official said.

There are roughly 700,000 American citizens, most of them dual U.S.-Israeli citizens, believed to be in Israel.

Reporting by Jon Gambrell, David Rising and Melanie Lidman, Associated Press

TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — The United States struck three sites in Iran early Sunday, inserting itself into Israel’s war aimed at destroying the country’s nuclear program in a risky gambit to weaken a longtime foe despite fears of a wider regional conflict.

Addressing the nation from the White House, President Donald Trump asserted that Iran’s key nuclear were “completely and fully obliterated.” There was no independent damage assessment.

It was not clear whether the U.S. would continue attacking Iran alongside its ally Israel, which has been engaged in a nine-day war with Iran. Trump acted without congressional authorization, and he warned that there would be additional strikes if Tehran retaliated against U.S. forces.

“There will either be peace or there will be tragedy for Iran,” he said.

Iran’s top diplomat, Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, warned in a post on X that the U.S. attacks “will have everlasting consequences” and that Tehran “reserves all options” to retaliate.

Iran’s ambassador to the United Nations called for an emergency Security Council meeting to discuss what he described as the U.S.’s “heinous attacks and illegal use of force” against Iran.

In a letter obtained by The Associated Press, Ambassador Amir Saeid Iravani said that the U.N.’s most powerful body must “take all necessary measures” to hold the U.S. accountable under international law and the U.N. charter.

The U.N. nuclear watchdog said later that there has been “no increase in off-site radiation levels” at the locations that the U.S. hit. The International Atomic Energy Agency sent the message via the social platform X.

Early Sunday morning Israel alerted the public of an Iranian missile launch and urged people to take shelter. Sirens sounded in Jerusalem a short while later and a series of booms were heard.

Iranian has been firing missile barrages at Israel since the war began but they have decreased in size as Israel targets Tehran’s missile launchers. The Islamic Republic may also be keeping some arms in reserve.

The Atomic Energy Organization of Iran confirmed that attacks took place on its Fordo, Isfahan and Natanz sites, but it insisted that its work will not be stopped. Iran said there were no signs of radioactive contamination at the three locations and no danger to nearby residents.

Iran has maintained that its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes only, and U.S. intelligence agencies have assessed that Tehran is not actively pursuing a bomb. However, Trump and Israeli leaders have claimed that Iran could quickly assemble a nuclear weapon, making it an imminent threat.

The decision to directly involve the U.S. in the war comes after more than a week of strikes by Israel on Iran that aimed to systematically eradicate the country’s air defenses and offensive missile capabilities, while damaging its nuclear enrichment facilities. But U.S. and Israeli officials have said American stealth bombers and the 30,000-pound (13,500-kilogram) bunker-buster bomb they alone can carry offered the best chance of destroying heavily fortified sites connected to the Iranian nuclear program buried deep underground.

“We have completed our very successful attack on the three Nuclear sites in Iran, including Fordow, Natanz, and Esfahan,” Trump said in a post on social media. “All planes are now outside of Iran air space. A full payload of BOMBS was dropped on the primary site, Fordow. All planes are safely on their way home.”

Trump added in a later post: “This is an HISTORIC MOMENT FOR THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, ISRAEL, AND THE WORLD. IRAN MUST NOW AGREE TO END THIS WAR. THANK YOU!”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu praised Trump’s decision to attack in a video message directed at the American president.

“Your bold decision to target Iran’s nuclear facilities, with the awesome and righteous might of the United States, will change history,” he said. Netanyahu said the U.S. “has done what no other country on earth could do.”

Israel announced Sunday that it would close the country’s airspace to both inbound and outbound flights in the wake of the U.S. attacks. The war has disrupted air travel throughout the Middle East.

The White House and Pentagon did not immediately elaborate on the operation. U.S. military leaders are scheduled to provide a briefing at 8 a.m. Eastern.

The attack used bunker-buster bombs on Iran’s Fordo nuclear fuel enrichment plant that is built deep into a mountain, a U.S. official said. The weapons are designed to penetrate the ground before exploding. The official spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss military operations.

In addition, U.S. submarines launched about 30 Tomahawk missiles, according to another U.S. official who also spoke on condition of anonymity.

The strikes are a perilous decision, as Iran has pledged to retaliate if the U.S. joined the Israeli assault, and for Trump personally. He won the White House on the promise of keeping America out of costly foreign conflicts and scoffed at the value of American interventionism.

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said he was “gravely alarmed” by the “dangerous escalation” of American strikes.

“There is a growing risk that this conflict could rapidly get out of control — with catastrophic consequences for civilians, the region, and the world,” he said in a statement.

Trump told reporters Friday that he was not interested in sending ground forces into Iran, saying it’s “the last thing you want to do.” He had previously indicated that he would make a final choice over the course of two weeks.

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei warned the United States on Wednesday that strikes targeting the Islamic Republic will “result in irreparable damage for them.” And Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei declared “any American intervention would be a recipe for an all-out war in the region.”

Trump has vowed that he would not allow Iran to obtain a nuclear weapon, and he had initially hoped that the threat of force would bring the country’s leaders to give up its nuclear program peacefully.

The Israeli military said Saturday it was preparing for the possibility of a lengthy war, while Iran’s foreign minister warned before the U.S. attack that American military involvement “would be very, very dangerous for everyone.”

The prospect of a wider war loomed. Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen said they would resume attacks on U.S. vessels in the Red Sea if the Trump administration joined Israel’s military campaign. The Houthis paused such attacks in May under a deal with the U.S.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Thursday that Trump planned to make his decision on the strikes within two weeks. Instead, he struck just two days later.

Trump appears to have made the calculation — at the prodding of Israeli officials and many Republican lawmakers — that Israel’s operation had softened the ground and presented a perhaps unparalleled opportunity to set back Iran’s nuclear program, perhaps permanently.

The Israelis say their offensive has already crippled Iran’s air defenses, allowing them to significantly degrade multiple Iranian nuclear sites.

But to destroy the Fordo nuclear fuel enrichment plant, Israel appealed to Trump for the bunker-busting American bomb known as the GBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrator, which uses its weight and sheer kinetic force to reach deeply buried targets and then explode. The bomb is currently delivered only by the B-2 stealth bomber, which is only found in the American arsenal.

It was the first combat use of the weapon.

The bomb carries a conventional warhead, and is believed to be able to penetrate about 200 feet (61 meters) below the surface before exploding, and the bombs can be dropped one after another, effectively drilling deeper and deeper with each successive blast.

The International Atomic Energy Agency has confirmed that Iran is producing highly enriched uranium at Fordo, raising the possibility that nuclear material could be released into the area if the GBU-57 A/B were used to hit the facility.

Previous Israeli strikes at another Iranian nuclear site, Natanz, on a centrifuge site have caused contamination only at the site itself, not the surrounding area, the IAEA has said.

Israeli strikes on Iran have killed at least 865 people and wounded 3,396 others, according to the Washington-based group Human Rights Activists. The group said of those dead, it identified 363 civilians and 215 security force personnel.

Trump’s decision for direct U.S. military intervention comes after his administration made an unsuccessful two-month push — including with high-level, direct negotiations with the Iranians — aimed at persuading Tehran to curb its nuclear program.

For months, Trump said he was dedicated to a diplomatic push to persuade Iran to give up its nuclear ambitions. And he twice — in April and again in late May — persuaded Netanyahu to hold off on military action against Iran and give diplomacy more time.

All the while, Trump has gone from publicly expressing hope that the moment could be a “second chance” for Iran to make a deal to delivering explicit threats on Khamenei and making calls for Tehran’s unconditional surrender.

The military showdown with Iran comes seven years after Trump withdrew the U.S. from the Obama-administration brokered agreement in 2018, calling it the “worst deal ever.”

The 2015 deal, signed by Iran, U.S. and other world powers, created a long-term, comprehensive nuclear agreement that limited Tehran’s enrichment of uranium in exchange for the lifting of economic sanctions.

Trump decried the Obama-era deal for giving Iran too much in return for too little, because the agreement did not cover Iran’s non-nuclear malign behavior.

Trump has bristled at criticism from some of his MAGA faithful who have suggested that further U.S. involvement would be a betrayal to supporters who were drawn to his promise to end U.S. involvement in expensive and endless wars.

Reporting by Sam Mednick, Aamer Madhani and David Rising, Associated Press. AP writers Mehmet Guzel, Josef Federman, Samy Magdy, Matthew Lee, Josh Boak, Farnoush Amiri and Jon Gambrell contributed.

On Friday, Israel launched attacks on Iran, intending to hit Iran’s uranium enrichment site, where it is building nuclear arms, as well as the country’s military sites.

Iran has since retaliated with aerial attacks on Israel. Over the course of a week, the Israeli military has killed at least 224 people in Iran, and Iran has killed 24 people in Israel. This past weekend, Israel asked the U.S. to join its side in the war, since Israel lacks the capacity to destroy the space where Iran is developing nuclear weapons. 

Although, CNN reports that U.S. intelligence officials are saying Tehran was up to three years away from fully developing a weapon, and that it’s not actively pursuing a bomb. Still, the U.S. continues to provide weapons and warplanes to Israel, including a recent shipment. But it has yet to directly engage militarily in the war, and Trump, thus far, has called for Iran’s “Unconditional surrender.”

Saeed Khan, an associate professor of teaching in near eastern studies at Wayne State University, joined The Metro on Wednesday to discuss what this says about Israel’s role in the Middle East, and how America will respond.

Use the media player above to hear the full conversation.

Listen to The Metro weekdays from 10 a.m. to noon ET on 101.9 FM and streaming on-demand.

More stories from The Metro