Israel says it's killed Iran's top security chief

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1:29You're listening to the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service. Hello, I'm Oliver Conway. We're recording this at 16 Hours GMT on Tuesday 17th March. Israel says it's killed one of the most powerful figures in Iran, Ali Larijani. A top US counter-terrorism official resigns over the war, saying Iran posed no imminent threat. and medical sources in Afghanistan say more than 100 bodies have been recovered after a Pakistani airstrike on a drug rehabilitation centre. Also in the podcast...

2:12..what we've learned from the earliest known recording of whale song.

2:20After the Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei was killed at the start of the US-Israeli offensive 17 days ago, Iran's powerful security chief Ali Larijani reportedly took over behind the scenes. Now, according to Israel, he has suffered the same fate as his former boss.

2:43Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and I have instructed the IDF to continue to hunt the leadership of the terror and oppressive regime in Iran, to cut off the head of the octopus and not let it grow. I was updated by the Chief of Staff that the Secretary of the National Security Council, Larry Jani, and the head of the Basij, the main oppression body of Iran, were eliminated overnight. The Israeli Defense Minister, Israel Katz, announcing the deaths of Ali Lerijani and Holam Reza Suleimani, head of the IRGC's volunteer paramilitary force, the Basij. Iran hasn't commented. Ali Lerijani was one of the most powerful leaders left alive in Iran after more than two weeks of attacks.

3:31He was a former parliamentary speaker, IRGC commander and the country's nuclear negotiator. He reportedly tried and failed to get his brother chosen as the next supreme leader, but was said to be close to the man who did get the job, Mujtaba Khamenei. Ironically, Ali Larijani recently told President Trump to be careful, quote, not to be eliminated. As recently as Friday, he was seen walking defiantly through the streets of Tehran for the annual Al-Quds Day march. The problem with Trump is that he's not intelligent enough to understand that Iranians are a mature and strong and determined nation.

4:11The more pressure he exerts, the stronger our nation's willpower will become. Well, Paham Gurbadi from the BBC Persian service told me that if his death is confirmed by Iran, it would be extremely significant. He is one of the people who was left behind the scene that was seen as a person who was running the country because the supreme leader of the country, Ali Khamenei, has been killed on the first minute of the war when it broke out. His son, who has become the third supreme leader of Iran, his whereabouts is unknown. His health condition is unknown. Nobody knows if he's in a shape and form to be able to run the country or not.

4:49We know that a few days ago, one Iran's member of parliament said that there was an assassination attempt on his life not once, but twice. Once in a hospital, once on the first day of the war. However, Ali Larijani comes from a family that the entire family is extremely powerful. He was, as you mentioned, the speaker of Iranian parliament for 12 years. Before that, he was the head of Iran's national TV. And before that, he was also comes from Revolutionary Guard because Iran has two armies, one conventional regular army. The other one is the Revolutionary Guard that is very loyal to the supreme leader, extremely ideological.

5:26So he has come from that kind of background. Now, in today's politics, he was seen as a bridge between the military, between the Revolutionary Guards and different faction of the powers. He was a conservative, but he was seen as a pragmatic conservative. However, his rhetoric changed tremendously after the war broke out. As you played one of his audios, he became more belligerent to the United States, to also Donald Trump. Once, even during the 12-day war, he threatened to kill the head of International Energy Agency, implying that he would be killed because he said, let the dust settle and we'll come after you.

6:05because IAEA's report, Iranians believe, that paved the way for the first round of the war with Israel. Regardless, he was a very important figure. And in today's Iran scene, there are not a lot of people who can run the country. So after he is killed, one of the very few people who is left is Mohamed Bogher Khalibov, the current Speaker of the Parliament. He, after the 12-day war, he said that because so many commanders, Iranian commanders, Revolutionary Guards commanders were killed, He was the person in charge of the military operations against Israel. So he was running the fight against the country.

6:42He is, I wouldn't be surprised if he's now leading the fight and also running the country because he also is a pilot and he also comes from Revolutionary Guards and he has a Revolutionary Guard background. Yeah, talking of the Revolutionary Guards, they are basically in control of the streets in Iran along with the besiege militia, that volunteer group which works under them. And now the head of the Basij has also been killed. That's correct. So Basij, for your non-Iranian audience, it's a paramilitia group that is a kind of sub-branch of revolutionary guards. This is where they recruit the youth in the mosques.

7:16So in the mosques, they have this Basij headquarters. Then the young people, they try to recruit the young people as young as 14 and 15. And we've received some reports that kids as young as 14 and 15, they're holding rifles on the streets to be able to exert their power and to show that they're still dominant in Iran. Paham Gurbadi from the BBC Persian service. And we have more on the reported death of Ali Larijani on our YouTube channel. Search there for BBC News and you'll find the Global News podcast in the podcast section. The conflict in Iran is not universally popular back in the US and has even been criticised by some of President Trump's strongest supporters.

7:57Now a senior counter-terrorism official there has resigned, saying he could not in good conscience back the war in Iran. Trump appointee Joe Kent, director of the US National Counter-Terrorism Centre, said Iran posed no imminent threat to the nation and he urged the president to reverse course. Our Washington correspondent, Helena Humphrey, spoke to Leila Nathu. Joe Kent is the first senior Trump administration official to resign over the war in Iran. And what all of this is exposing is a split inside President Trump's own America First base. So if you want to know more about Mr. Kent ideologically, just to begin with, it's worth noting that along with being a high-ranking official and a veteran, he also twice ran for Congress unsuccessfully as a Republican backing President Trump.

8:44So in this letter, which he posted on X, Joe Kent said that Iran posed no imminent threat to the United States. He argued that this war was started under pressure from Israel and its allies in Washington. And he claimed that the president had been misled by what he called misinformation from Israeli officials and influential U.S. voices. He was quite blunt in that letter, which I've got in front of me. He says at one point that this was a lie. And so I think what all of this is highlighting is this growing unease within the America First wing of the Republican Party, because many analysts will say that this is the exact kind of foreign entanglement that President Trump promised to avoid.

9:25I mean, you've got some others, more traditional Republicans who are supportive of confronting Iran, but certainly we're seeing this divide reemerge. I mean, he's not a marginal figure. He's a former special forces operative, a CIA officer, really embedded in counterterrorism. And I think it's also worth noting that his wife was killed in a suicide bombing in Syria in 2019. So when he's talking about the cost of these wars, you know, I think that carries weight. Right. And he is the first senior official to actually leave his job over this on a matter of principle and disagreement over this strategy.

10:04Do you think that we could see more now, more figures in the Trump administration at least speaking out more forcefully against the war? Indeed, Leila, that is what everybody will be watching for now. I think it's fair to say we haven't had comment yet publicly from the White House. But certainly, as you say, this resignation raises questions about internal dissent, whether others might follow. And I think it goes to the heart of President Trump's political identity as well, because, as I'd mentioned, you know, he was campaigning against ending so-called forever wars in the Middle East. And so if you've got a senior official resigning, saying that this war contradicts that, I think it's politically sensitive, especially as we head towards the midterm elections in November.

10:45and it will raise those kind of questions about whether we could see others in his wake. Helena Humphrey in Washington talking to Leila Nathu. Well, before Iran, the US carried out a military operation against Venezuela, seizing the authoritarian president there, Nicolas Maduro, on the 3rd of January. With his departure came a cautious hope for change among Venezuelans, though the rest of the Maduro regime is still in power. So how are things going now? Ione Wells has been to find out.

11:17I'm at the Central University of Venezuela in Caracas to hear from some students about what they hope for from the future. My name is Eleazar Bosque. I'm a student. I'm a medicine student and 30 years old. A transition should happen in a peaceful, calm way. It wouldn't happen overnight.

11:40Today, there's a meeting here of a new political movement in Venezuela called We Save Venezuela. It's a group of young people of different political persuasions getting together to discuss what the future of Venezuela might look like, possible opposition candidates, and how a transition might work. I feel intervention in any country isn't the best thing, but it was the firm hand Venezuela needed to move forward and be a free country with democracy, where everyone can raise their voice without fear of being arrested. It's absurd that we, as a country with the largest oil reserves in the world, have these deficits.

12:21Yesterday, I was without power for six hours there in Maracay. The energy issue ends up paralyzing the economy and the progress of the country. The real hope of Venezuelans is that we can live in freedom and that our rights will be respected.

12:47There are still regular government rallies for Nicolás Maduro, with supporters demanding his release. But away from the main crowd, some young people told me they were public sector workers who were compelled to attend or risk penalties at work. I hope that the world knows everything they see on government media is false. It's all a lie. This 22-year-old worker, Elena, whose voice and name we've changed, says last month public employees received a$150 bonus for attending Pro Maduro marches on top of a$120 monthly salary. Friends who didn't go didn't get it. La economía continua igual. The economy remains the same.

13:28The government remains the same. The fear of expressing yourself still exists because the figures that represent the most terror in government remain in post. I asked how she felt about the idea of living in a democracy.

13:46Elena doesn't want to emigrate like the millions of Venezuelans who have fled the economic crisis, but others told me they no longer see a future for themselves here. One of them is Ana, whose name we've also changed, a 25-year-old teacher from Maracaibo, hoping to move to Spain. I don't know what it is like to be able to go on the street and don't feel like you could get killed at any point in time just because you posted the wrong thing in social media. I want to earn money and feel like I can live somewhere that actually has electricity. She grew up watching her mother cry when the family did not have enough money for the week and people looting shops in her hometown, Maracaibo, when power cuts lasted a week.

14:29She's lived through too many cycles of things getting better, then worse again to believe things will be different just because Maduro is gone. It can be very lonely. Most of my friends had to flee the country to pursue something better. Not all young people are convinced by the US's intervention. But one thing I clearly heard that unites many young Venezuelans who have never lived through a change of political party is they want less polarisation and corruption, with crucially the freedom to speak without fear. Ioni Wells reporting from Venezuela. And still to come in this podcast, What's wrong with that?

15:08Edmund Dorff? All the best English and have foreign names. Much more convincing. I'm sorry, I just don't feel like an Edmund Dorff. Charming. We look back at the life of the spy thriller author Len Dayton, who's died aged 97.

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19:04This is the Global News Podcast. Pakistan has long accused Afghanistan of harboring Pakistani militant groups, something the Taliban government denies. The ongoing conflict between the two former allies intensified in February when Pakistan launched new airstrikes on what it said were militant targets in Afghanistan. But now the Pakistani military is accused of hitting a drug rehabilitation centre in Kabul.

19:34Video footage from the scene showed flashes of light, explosions and a giant plume of smoke. Sharifat Zaman from the Afghan Health Ministry says hundreds of people died. Unfortunately, we have more than 400 civilian casualties. They were targeted from the Pakistani military regime. It was a totally civilian area and it was a health facility that they targeted. Unfortunately, the Pakistani military regime there doing propaganda that we targeted the TTA or TTP. But the reality, in fact, we have lots of media partners. They are witness that here we have totally civilian casualties in lots of them.

20:12They were health professionals and also medical staff and 400 plus were the killed people. They were under the treatment in the hospital. The BBC's Yama Baris in Kabul visited the scene about an hour after the fire broke out. We got to the hospital. It was a scene of total carnage. There were fire everywhere. There were bodies lying all over the place. There were debris. There were twisted iron rods from the building structure. And there were paramedics, ambulances. I personally saw over 30 bodies being carried to the ambulances. Tens of ambulances were standing in a line there. We saw members of the families of these drug addicts outside the hospital.

21:02There were women crying. They wanted desperately to get some information about their loved ones. When we spoke to authorities there, at that time, the authorities did not have any exact number about deaths and injuries, but they estimated that it could be hundreds because 3 ,000 drug addicts were being treated in that facility. It's a huge rehabilitation facility. There are several blocks, but this bomb, which has landed on this building, had hit one block, and that block was completely reduced to rubble. And because according to the officials, a lot of wood was used in the structure because it was sort of a makeshift rehabilitation structure.

21:48So that's why they said that the fire was burning and a complete distraction, a complete scene of total courage. Yeah, Mark Baris in Kabul and sources at the Kabul Forensic Medicine Department have now told the BBC that more than 100 bodies have been recovered after the strike so far. Pakistan, meanwhile, has denied targeting the rehabilitation centre, saying it only hits military sites. I spoke to the BBC's Caroline Davis in Islamabad. Very quickly on social media, we saw a response from the Ministry of Information in Pakistan saying that this was not the case, that they had been targeting military sites, as they refer to it, sites that can facilitate militant activity as well.

22:33And since then, we have heard them really continue with that line. Mostly, we have still continued to hear from the Pakistan authorities labelling the Taliban's points, saying that they're talking about propaganda. that has been their kind of consistent line of dissents. And I think that is something we've seen repeatedly in this conflict. Of course, Pakistan used to support the Taliban in Afghanistan. And why are they fighting now? There has been a rapid deterioration in the relationship between Afghanistan and the Afghan Taliban and Pakistan. As you say, in 2021, when the Afghan Taliban came to power and seized control in Kabul.

23:12There were people who were inside the Pakistan government who were saying that this would be a good thing for Pakistan. However, relatively quickly, Pakistan started to criticise and to say that the Afghan Taliban were allowing militants to be able to operate inside Afghanistan's borders that would then plan attacks, come across the border into Pakistan, carry those attacks out. They wanted to see the Afghan Taliban government doing more to stop those groups. And we saw a flurry of attempts at diplomacy, lots of different meetings between the two sides. But ultimately, the relationship really deteriorated.

23:47And in October last year, we saw major clashes on the border and attacks and missiles being fired as well. Again, there was a fragile ceasefire that was broken in February. And now there does not currently seem to be any suggestion of a ceasefire being anywhere on the table. We know that China has attempted to try to do some form of back and forth, speaking to both sides. But at the moment, we've also heard from the Pakistan's prime minister's spokesperson, who said there is nothing to talk about, which doesn't suggest that there's a huge amount of scope for finding a middle ground at the moment.

24:19Caroline Davis in Islamabad. Now, why would an artificial intelligence firm want to hire a chemical weapons expert? The US company Anthropik says it needs one to prevent what it calls catastrophic misuse of its software. In particular, it wants to make sure its AI tools can't be used to generate recipes for chemical weapons. Here's our technology editor, Zoe Kleinman. What Anthropic says it's trying to do is to make sure that its product is as safe as possible. So it's looking for, you know, a world-leading expert in chemical weapons and dirty bombs. And what it wants that person to do is to be able to spot anything that its system might generate that could result in the creation of a lethal weapon, you know, if prompted or sort of fooled into being prompted to do it.