US-Israel Strike Hits Iran's Top University, AI Center
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- Sharif University of Technology was bombed Monday, destroying an AI center that had been training Persian-language models for two years and served hundreds of companies, with President Masoud Tajrishi saying the strike targeted "symbols of Iran's progress" rather than the governing establishment.
- The attack fits a broader pattern — Iran's science minister Hossein Simaei Saraf said more than 30 universities have been hit since the war began on February 28, including the century-old Pasteur Institute, a photonics lab at Shahid Beheshti University, and a satellite development lab, with no official US or Israeli explanation given.
- Trump threatened to bomb Iran's power plants and bridges, declaring "a whole civilisation will die tonight" and claiming reconstruction could take 100 years if the war continues, while Israeli forces struck Iran's railway network on Tuesday, hours before Trump's deadline for Iran to capitulate.
- The IRGC declared US- and Israeli-affiliated universities "legitimate targets" in response, prompting Tehran University President Mohammad Hossein Omid to initially urge restraint in a letter from 15 university heads, before reversing course under hardline media pressure and demanding retaliatory strikes.
- Iranian students pushed back against both the attacks and their own government, writing in a joint statement that "a child whose school is bombed does not grow up" and that the establishment's policies put the country on a "collision course," while the Fars news agency blamed dissident professor Ali Sharifi Zarchi for leaking coordinates — a claim he denied, noting the center was marked on Google Maps.
Why it matters: For Iranian scientists, the loss of 30+ universities since the war began February 28 — including AI labs, the century-old Pasteur Institute, and satellite research — destroys domestically developed R&D that Tajrishi said was built in isolation under sanctions. The IRGC's declaration that Western-affiliated universities are now "legitimate targets" expands the conflict to academic institutions worldwide.
