CHESTERFIELD COUNTY, Va. — A Midlothian man who fled Iran as a teenager said he was elated to learn that Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was killed in US-Israeli airstrikes as part of Operation Epic Fury.
Ozzie Mirkhah, who has not returned to Iran since fleeing at age 16, said he praised President Donald Trump after the United States military and Israel sent missile strikes into Iran, killing the country's supreme leader.
"People are so elated to see the knights in shining armor arriving," Mirkhah said. "You've got to be desperate enough to want your country to be bombed by another country just so that you can be free and so that you can live a normal life."
Mirkhah described the past 47 years under the Iranian dictatorship as "misery" and said his father sent him out of the country before the revolution took hold.
"My dad sent me out because I think he smelled the revolution coming and he didn't want me to get stuck," Mirkhah said.
Mirkhah said Iranians are not cowering in fear over the strikes, they are celebrating them.
"You'd think people would be afraid and be in bunkers, instead they are on the rooftops joyfully watching what's going on and cheering as the missiles hit the targets," Mirkhah said. "That shows how desperate they are to see the cavalry arriving to get rid of this monster that's imprisoned them for the past 47 years."
Not everyone shares Mirkhah's enthusiasm for the military action.
A series of protests in Richmond called for the United States to end the bombing.
"We have to demand our politicians are not creating these disasters all around the world," Adam Malinowski-Liu, director of the Richmond Liberation Center, said.
Watch: Richmond protester calls US strikes on Iran illegal
The Iranian Red Crescent Society said that the U.S.-Israeli operation has killed at least 555 people.
In Israel, where several locations were hit by Iranian missiles, 11 people were killed.
Israel's retaliatory strikes against Hezbollah killed dozens of people in Lebanon.
Four American troops have been killed, three people were reported killed in the United Arab Emirates, and one each in Kuwait and Bahrain.
Mirkhah pushed back on characterizations of the strikes as an act of aggression.
"One thing I want to clarify is: President Trump did not start a war. President Trump is ending a war," Mirkhah said.
As Mirkhah awaits the day he can take his family back to his homeland, he said he is encouraging Americans to cherish the freedom and opportunities they have.
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