Iranian universities and scientific research centers have come under a series of attacks in recent days, raising concerns that academic institutions are becoming a new frontline in the widening war.
Iran’s Ministry of Science said at least 21 universities have been damaged in strikes since the war began, and academics themselves have been targeted, in what Tehran claims is an attempt to weaken the country’s scientific and cultural foundations.
CNN has geolocated several videos showing damaged buildings at the Iran University of Science and Technology, an engineering-focused institution in the capital that has long trained specialists in fields relevant to Iran’s industrial and defense sectors.
One video filmed before sunrise on Saturday shows a research center at the university reduced to rubble, with twisted metal, bricks and debris scattered across the site. A nearby building appears to be on fire. Another posted later shows plumes of smoke rising from the wreckage, with windows in adjacent buildings shattered.
The university, founded in 1929 as Iran’s first institution dedicated to training engineers, said US-Israeli strikes had caused damage but no casualties. It condemned the attack, calling strikes on academic institutions a violation of international law.
The attacks have triggered warnings of Iranian retaliation which has already disrupted higher education in Lebanon, Qatar and other Gulf states.
“Universities are normally civilian infrastructure, and directly attacking them can constitute a war crime unless they are being used for military purposes,” said Janina Dill, professor of global security at the University of Oxford and co-director of the Oxford Institute for Ethics, Law and Armed Conflict.
“Storing weapons or planning attacks from a university building could make it a legitimate military target, but education or research alone is not generally considered enough to turn the building into a military object,” she said.
The Israeli military said it had targeted what it described as military infrastructure at some university sites, including the IRGC-affiliated Imam Hossein University on Monday in Tehran, alleging the facilities were used for weapons development.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said Israeli strikes have killed several Iranian nuclear scientists, framing the campaign as part of a broader effort to degrade Iran’s nuclear program.
The University of Tehran’s Deputy for Research, Manouchehr Moradi, said the strikes go beyond military objectives.
“Universities are homes of thought and dialogue, and any violence or threat in this space is considered an attack on the foundations of national progress and human dignity,” he told Iran’s state news agency IRNA.
He called on the international academic community to respond, saying it has a duty to defend “academic independence.”
The strikes on universities are raising uncomfortable questions for Iranians who live nearby.
“The universities are basically empty, so people are asking: ‘What is beneath the surface? Are they producing ballistic missiles? What are they doing?’ People are frightened,” said one Tehran resident who asked to be anonymous for fear of retribution.
Iran threatens US-linked campuses
Analysts say the targeting of universities, and Iran’s threats of retaliation against academic institutions abroad, point to a widening conflict and potentially diverging objectives among the parties involved.
“The strikes demonstrate that Israel’s objectives aren’t necessarily aligned with those of the United States,” said Dina Esfandiary, Middle East lead at Bloomberg Economics. “Israel aims to disrupt, change the government and sow chaos. A weak Iran is less of a threat to it.”
Esfandiary said Iran’s response so far has followed a calibrated pattern.
“Iran has followed a ruthless, but step-by-step escalation. They’ve responded to each US/Israeli hit in their country by threatening to hit the same in the Gulf Arab states, but giving the US and Israel time to back down before they follow through on their threat,” she said.
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) said it would target American- and Israeli-affiliated universities in the Middle East in response to strikes on Iranian academic institutions.
Its threat has been taken seriously.
The American University of Beirut said on Sunday it would operate completely remotely for two days “out of an abundance of caution,” while the Lebanese American University also announced a shift to online learning “as a precaution given the broad threats to educational institutions in the region.”
Many universities moved online when the war began more than a month ago.
Qatar’s Education Ministry ordered all schools and universities to switch to distance learning on February 28, the first day of the conflict. US-affiliated campuses in the country, including those linked to Georgetown University, Texas A&M University and Virginia Commonwealth University School of the Arts, remain online-only.
In an email to students sent on Sunday and seen by CNN, the dean of Northwestern University in Qatar, Marwan Kraidy said: “In light of recent developments and as a precautionary measure, we will temporarily close access to the NU-Q building until further notice.”
US-affiliated institutions in the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait have taken similar measures.
“There is little doubt they could, if they wanted to, hit US universities in the Gulf,” Esfandiary said. “But this would likely erase any remaining sympathy for them internationally.”
In Iran, a new academic term will begin in early April, but all classes will be held virtually until further notice.
Shrooq Alyafei and Farida Elsebai contributed to this report.
