Iran war: What's life like inside Iran?

Mar 14, 2026

Guest

Sarbas Nazari

Guest

Taraneh Fathalian

Guest

Ghoncheh Habibiazad

Sarbas Nazari, BBC Monitoring analyst on Iranian media; Taraneh Fathalian, BBC Persian reporter on civilian impacts; Ghoncheh Habibiazad, BBC Persian correspondent with contact inside Iran. They describe life under internet blackouts and costly satellite options. They discuss AI-made videos complicating verification, state media control and shrinking independent reporting. They recount daily fear, polarized public sentiment and Kurdish political dynamics.

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ANECDOTE

Gen Z Sharing Starlink For Huge Prices

Taraneh Fathalian described tech-savvy Gen Zers sharing Starlink connections and selling tiny data bundles at extortionate prices inside Iran.
She cited 1 million toman per gigabyte (~$6) while average monthly salaries are around $200–$300, making access unaffordable for many.

INSIGHT

Short Clips And A New Wave Of AI Fakes

Short videos circulating from Iran are harder to verify and there's a surge in AI-generated content used to mislead.
Ghoncheh Habibiazad noted this wave of AI fakes is unprecedented compared with past unrest.

INSIGHT

State Controls Flow Of Information Inside And Out

The regime is blocking information both out of and into Iran, using jamming and domestic apps while flooding phones with threatening government messages.
Sarbas Nazari framed this as longstanding paranoia: the state tightly controls narratives to avoid humiliation from citizen-filmed strikes.

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The United States and Israel have now been at war with Iran for two weeks, since 28th February. In that time, there have been over 1200 civilian deaths in Iran, including 168, most of them children, at a girls’ school in Minab, central Iran. Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, who had ruled Iran for over forty years, was killed on the first day of the war. There have been wider casualties throughout the region. Iran has fired missiles at neighbouring countries, including Dubai, Kuwait, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Qatar, Bahrain and Israel.

For journalists at BBC Persian, reporting on the war from outside of the country has been incredibly difficult. The internet has been shut down on the 90 million people living inside Iran, making it difficult for people to get information on what is happening round them and which locations are being hit by bombing. It is also extremely difficult for Iranians outside the country to contact those inside.

BBC Persian's Ghoncheh Habibiazad and Taraneh Fathalian; and BBC Monitoring's Sarbas Nazari, discuss what is known about the situation within Iran. This edition was recorded on 12th March 2026.

The Fifth Floor is at the heart of global storytelling on the BBC World Service, bringing you the best stories from journalists in the BBC's 43 language services. We're here to help you make sense of the stories making headlines around the world; to excite your curiosity and to get to grips with the facts. Recent episodes have investigated Russia’s youth armies and how they make soldiers of Ukrainian children; featured the BBC team who were the first journalists to the site of the Nigerian school kidnappings and reflected the effects of internet blackouts in Iran, Uganda and India. If you want to know more about Venezuela’s acting president, Delcy Rodriguez, and the legacy of Hugo Chavez; or how Vladimir Putin’s network of deep cover spies operates; or why Donald Trump signed an executive order granting white South Africans asylum in the US, we have all those stories and more.

Presented by Faranak Amidi.

Produced by Caroline Ferguson and Laura Thomas

(Photo: Faranak Amidi. Credit: Tricia Yourkevich.)