CNN‘s Frederik Pleitgen recently returned after a week from inside Iran, as part of the first American network team to enter the country since the start of U.S. and Israeli airstrikes on the country.
Along with photojournalist and producer Claudia Otto, Pleitgen trekked by vehicle to Tehran and back, reporting on the apocalyptic scene of strikes on oil facilities, the devastation in an eastern neighborhood of the city and pro-government demonstrations, among other stories.
There were some elements of normalcy, Pleitgen said, with some shops and restaurants open, and he and Otto stayed at the same small apartment hotel complex that they have in previous visits. A difference is the concern over being near a potential target, as they “took a lap around the block” to see if there were any government buildings close by.
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Pleitgen also said that he detected more hostility, given the airstrikes, than in previous visits, whether that be at demonstrations or at other sites where they visited. “It wasn’t outright violence, but you could tell that these were very emotional [people], very angry,” he said.
Now back home in Berlin after his eight-day visa expired Wednesday, Pleitgen spoke with Deadline on Friday about the challenge of covering amid the threat, their ability to report as the government restricted certain areas, and why he thinks that the hardline regime may have consolidated messaging and “the path forward.”
DEADLINE: What is the hardest thing to convey to Americans right now about what it what it is like in Tehran?
FREDERIK PLEITGEN: The hardest thing to convey is how much under threat you feel the entire time in Tehran, because when you’re there on the ground, then you almost constantly hear airstrikes somewhere. … And also the intensity of the of the of the bombings, the explosions — they make you realize that if you are in the proximity of something being hit, then you are in real danger of getting hurt really badly or getting killed. So the fact that right now, if you’re living in Tehran, if you’re in Tehran, you really don’t ever have a moment when you feel totally safe, just because of the size of the bombs that are being dropped on the place, and the fact that they don’t have shelters in in the houses, they don’t have air raid sirens, so it can hit you at any point. So I think that the whole city is on edge. And certainly we were. We were on edge the whole time that we were there.
DEADLINE: What sort of precautions did you take before going in?
PLEITGEN: I was already in Iran during the 12-Day War last year, so I knew what it was like being in the city when there was air strikes going on. They were a lot more intense this time, but I sort of knew what to prepare for, and it’s a lot different than a lot of the other wars that I’ve been in. For instance, Ukraine. I was in Syria a lot. I was in Iraq a lot. But this was very different, just because it’s a complete air war, and the threat that you have there is mostly that either they would get coordinates wrong, or there would be collateral damage, you being in the area of a place getting hit. … What we usually did is when we went to places to film, we would take a lap around the block with our car, see if there were any police stations or any other institutions of the state there that might be targets. And then also just making sure to not be on the ground too long when you went to places was also very important. Usually, when we heard that there were air strikes going on in the vicinity where we’re staying, we would go to the ground floor of the hotel that we were in, just to put as much hotel between us and anything that might drop on it. But we also knew that if that place did take a direct hit, then we’d be in a lot of trouble.
DEADLINE: Was there a moment when there was a close call?
PLEITGEN: Absolutely. First of all, we were a two-person team. It was me and Claudia Otto, our producer and photojournalist, and she’s amazing, and has been through everything, and she does all the logistics. And so she was also really calm under under duress.
But we had one instance where we were filming the aftermath of an airstrike that had taken place about a half a day before that. This was in eastern Tehran, and something had been targeted, and a residential building next to it had been badly damaged. The Iranians were saying that 40 people had been killed there. And we were filming around that area, and as we were filming, I felt my internal clock sort of telling me that we’ve been there about as long as we should be there. But then the the security forces who were down there, who’d secured the area, told us, “Look, you can go to the side street and then film this building from the other side.” And as we as we went there and started filming, anti-aircraft fire started going off, and we heard jets in the air, and then we sort of started running away. And as we were running away, there was what certainly appeared to me to be a pretty big explosion behind us. And I don’t know if that same place got hit, or if the area around there got hit, but it certainly seemed to us as though something was very close. So we got out of there as fast as possible.
DEADLINE: How different was it in Tehran compared to when you were there during the 12-Day War?
PLEITGEN: What happened during the 12-Day War was that almost all of Tehran was evacuated. You recall that President Trump at some point said that people should evacuate Tehran, and back then, most people did that. And so when we got there last time, all the shops were closed, gas stations were still open, but only minimally. It was really difficult to actually even buy food in many cases. In this case, now, fewer people evacuated. The people that we spoke to told us [it was] because they’re already used to it now, to air campaigns. And so a lot of them stayed behind. I would say about 30% of Tehran, from what I could see, the people were still there. More shops were open this time the last time. But at the same time, the bombardment now was a lot more intense and a lot more frequent than last time. And you can also feel on the ground now that the government there feels that they’re in an existential fight for their survival. So there’s a lot more checkpoints on the ground now. … They try to project a lot more that they’re still in control than I think they felt they needed to last time.
DEADLINE: During your reports, CNN has included a message that you were operating there by permission of the Iranian government, but that the network maintained full editorial control. What does that mean?
PLETIGEN: We obviously had to get a visa from the from the Iranian government, to get a press card, also, to be able to work on the ground to film. And so as far as editorial control, basically, we decided what we wanted to film when we were there. But we did did speak to the the Iranian culture ministry if we went to especially sensitive locations. One good example was when the oil storage facilities around Tehran were attacked. … We asked the the culture ministry whether it was possible to go there also, because those sites are obviously then secured. They are considered to be sensitive sites. And if you show up there without any sort of permission or prior knowledge by these people, then that can lead to a lot of questioning and a lot of problems there. There, [the culture ministry] had to sort of call ahead and say, “Look, CNN is coming over.” And then we were able to get through the security cordon and get in and film next to that facility.
DEADLINE: Did you have a minder, someone who was with you all the time?
PLEITGEN: No. We have a translator that we pay and we choose. Whenever we want to go somewhere that requires prior approval to get into, then we contact, usually the culture ministry. The foreign media wing of the culture ministry are the ones who are responsible for foreign media that operates in Iran.
DEADLINE: One thing that you mentioned in some of your reports is that you were not seeing the dissolution of public order. Did that surprise you?
PLEITGEN: It didn’t didn’t really surprise me, because I had talked to a lot of people that we knew on the ground before, and a lot of them were saying that the state does still retain control over over public life. The government there is also very much trying to project that, trying to show that they’re still in control. If you go around, the amount of checkpoints, also the amount of plainclothes security forces that you see around is immense. And so you can see that maintaining that grip on on public life, on public order, is definitely something that’s very important for them. [There is] also the fact that they’re bringing so many people to the streets. You have huge events … There was one event that we attended where they pledged allegiance to the new Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and they also brought tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of people on the streets. And I think that also is a show that they retain control, that they still have backing from their base, and that that base has been energized. And then also, if you look at daily life and some of the stuff that we saw, there were still a good amount of shops that were open, not only food and fuel but also clothing shops, cafes, some restaurants were open. And just that gives a little bit of a sense of normalcy, even though you do have that backdrop of the bombings frequently.
DEADLINE: Did you sense there is a certain level of dissent?
PLEITGEN: I think, right now, people who are who are dissenting, a lot of them are remaining indoors. There were some people who did give us the notion that they were not unhappy by the fact that this was going on, but none of this was with us openly on camera. However, there were some people who did say they weren’t against what was going on. I think a lot of people are just right now living in fear, and want this to end one way or the other.
DEADLINE: Do you did you get a sense that that everyday Iranians are getting news access? You hear about the internet blackout.
PLEITGEN: It’s a very interesting question, and I know that for a lot of people, it’s very difficult. But at the same time, I think that a lot of folks are still fairly well connected. So when they talk about having cut the internet, what they’ve actually done is that they’ve nationalized the internet. For instance, when we were in Tehran, if you do a speed test on your phone, you’ll see that there’s internet there, but it can’t reach any international sites or any international messaging apps. People try to reach that. At certain points, VPNs do work. Other VPNs work better than ever. People communicate with one another. That’s something that we’ve also seen, is that people we knew were getting information from friends that they have. There are still Telegram channels. … And so I think people are fairly well informed, even though the government does try to keep a lid on the sort of international communication that can take place. There are also people who managed to use Starlink. We were [at the airport] flying out of Turkey after going across the border, and there were people telling me that they were still using Starlinks in Iran.
DEADLINE: You also had this interview with the senior Iranian official [Kamal Kharazi] who talked about “false narratives” and that there would be no more diplomacy. How much was propaganda?
PLEITGEN: I think that right now, what’s gone on is that the hardliners have sort of consolidated the messaging, and have consolidated the path forward. I think what happened was you had a phase where the president, Masoud Pezeshkian, who is a moderate, tried a bit of an outreach to the Gulf neighbors, said that he was sorry for some of the attacks that happened on American bases in the Gulf region. And President Trump shot that down really quickly, and said that the Iranians had surrendered to their neighbors. And it was really after that that we saw that the hardliners really consolidated and took over the messaging. Right now, the people that you hear from the most are the head of the Supreme National Security Council, Ali Larijani, and the head of Parliament, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, and both of them are hardliners, are conservatives; and then the military; and then obviously new supreme leader Ayatollah Khamenei. They’re all on the same page, and that’s also when the messaging changed, in the foreign ministry and in other institutions, where what they’re saying now is they don’t want negotiations with the United States, and they’re gearing up for for a long war at this point.
DEADLINE: How difficult was it to secure that interview?
PLEITGEN: It took a couple of days. I think at some point they were also keen to get that message out. So then they said, “Okay, you can come over.” I mean, for us, it was obviously also a bit dicey, because speaking to an official inside a government building, you didn’t want to stay on the ground for too long.
DEADLINE: What was the drive like from the border to Tehran, and back?
PLEITGEN: It was long. So we drove nine hours from Yerevan to the border, and then it took us an hour to get across the border, and then I would say it’s another 12 hours from the Armenian border to Tehran. And we drove past a couple of places that had obviously gotten hit by airstrikes. We also saw some plumes of smoke from some fairly fresh air strikes. But it’s a difficult trek. At the same time, there were a lot fewer checkpoints on the road there than I would have anticipated. So the driving was relatively free, as far as not getting held up by checkpoints. What we did do was when we got into the vicinity of Tehran, we heard that there were big airstrikes going on in the city, and so we actually overnighted in a small town called Qazvin on the way there, just because it seemed to us as though it could be dangerous going down that road when there were big airstrikes going on in the west of Tehran, which we would have had to pass through.
DEADLINE: Did you sense resentment because you were from a U.S. outlet?
PLEITGEN: Yes, that’s a very interesting question also, and that’s something that really built up as the air campaign was going on. I’ve been going there for a long period of time, and I was in Iran when the U.S. killed Qasem Soleimani, the head of the Revolutionary Guard Corps, in 2020. I was there many times when there were a lot of tensions between the United States and Iran. And this time when we were there, especially at larger gatherings, the hostility towards us as American media was a lot more than before. People didn’t get violent or anything, but you could sense that there was a good deal of resentment at what the U.S. is doing right now. And they obviously projected that onto onto American media to a certain degree. For instance, when we were at that that airstrike site, there were people who were clearing out the debris and … they also started screaming, “Death to America” and “Death to Israel” while we were there, just to show their anger. So I think that’s building up, and it was definitely something that we noticed was a lot more pronounced than before, which I guess is also no wonder, just because of the scale of the air campaign that’s going on right now.
DEADLINE: How do you think this is going to end?
PLEITGEN: Right now, to me, it seems as though the power structure of the Islamic Republic, meaning the supreme leader, the security forces in the military, the political wing, with the presidency, I think right now, they feel that they’re on a lot more solid footing than they were at the beginning, when Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was killed. They’ve managed to reconstitute the apparatus. They have a new supreme leader. He’s in line with the military, and I think right now that they feel that they are in control. I also feel that they believe that they have some leverage in this conflict. It’s asymmetric. The U.S. and Israel are able to bomb in Tehran and other places, almost at will, but the Iranians have that leverage, as far as the Strait of Hormuz is concerned, and they said they’re going to continue to use that. So it’s obviously impossible for me to say how this ends, but I think that the leaders of Iran feel they have a pretty good chance at the Islamic Republic surviving this. I think that they feel that they’re in a lot better position now than they were before. And I also think that they believe they retain control on the ground as well with their security forces and also the people that they’re bringing out on the street.