US and Israel carry out joint attacks on Iran

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0:59and how to make those markets work for you. Follow Merrin Talks Money on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you listen. This is a special edition of the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service. I'm Alex Ritson and at 14 hours GMT on Saturday the 28th of February, these are our main stories. The US and Israel have launched what Donald Trump calls major combat operations against Iran, bombing Tehran and, Iran says, five other cities. We are going to destroy their missiles and raise their missile industry to the ground. It will be totally obliterated. We are going to annihilate their navy.

1:44We are going to ensure that the region's terrorist proxies can no longer destabilize the region or the world. The president urged Iranians to use the moment to overthrow the Ayatollah. When we are finished, take over your government. It will be yours to take. This will be probably your only chance for generations. Also in this podcast, the Israeli military says Iran is trying to retaliate. There have been explosions in Bahrain where the US has a Navy base. We'll bring you international reaction to the strikes, plus reporting from our correspondents in the region and analysis from our team, including experts from BBC Persian.

2:30It was a little before 10 o 'clock on a bright Tehran morning when the first missile struck, arriving out of a clear blue sky. Blasts were heard in cities across Iran as the United States and Israel carried out multiple strikes. In a video message on social media, President Trump accused the Iranian regime of waging an unending campaign of bloodshed and mass murder targeting the United States. The United States military has undertaken a massive and ongoing operation to prevent this very wicked, radical dictatorship from threatening America and our core national security interests. We are going to destroy their missiles and raise their missile industry to the ground.

3:14It will be totally, again, obliterated. We are going to annihilate their navy. We are going to ensure that the region's terrorist proxies can no longer destabilize the region or the world. He had this warning for members of the Iranian security forces. To the members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard, the armed forces and all of the police, I say tonight that you must lay down your weapons and have complete immunity or, in the alternative, face certain death. And he urged the people of Iran to use the opportunity to overthrow the Ayatollah and his regime. To the great proud people of Iran, I say tonight that the hour of your freedom is at hand.

4:02Stay sheltered. Don't leave your home. It's very dangerous outside. Bombs will be dropping everywhere. When we are finished, take over your government. It will be yours to take. This will be probably your only chance for generations. The Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also had a message for the people of Iran. Together with the United States, we will strike the terror regime harshly. We will create the conditions that will allow the brave Iranian people to rid themselves of the burden of this murderous regime. This is your chance to establish a new and free Iran. Take your fate into your own hands.

4:43Raise your head, lift your eyes to the sky. Our forces are there, pilots of the free world. Everyone is coming to your aid. Help has arrived. Reaction from inside Iran itself has been limited as there are restrictions on communications in place. But earlier, the BBC spoke to Fawood Izzadi, who's at Tehran's university. I'm in Tehran and we are hearing Israeli bombs falling in the city. Everybody is covering it, all news channels, all television stations. You don't have to watch television. You can just hear the bombs falling off the sky. And Hamid Reza Gholamzadeh, who works for a think tank on Iranian foreign policy in northern Tehran, told us what he has heard.

5:32I heard in the morning the sounds of the fighter jets. And after a while, we had reports of some explosions in the downtown. Right now, I'm in my office in the northern part of Tehran, in which about one hour ago, I heard two more explosions. When the news came out yesterday about President Trump saying that he wants a deal with Iran, many people were saying that it seems to be dangerous and it seems to be a cover for possible attacks against Iran. And we see that seems to be true about the distrust that they have in the United States. What is Iran's opposition saying? Reza Pahlavi is the son of Iran's last Shah and is a leading critic of the Iranian regime.

6:22He's currently in exile in the US and addressed the Iranian people directly. Now that the Islamic Republic is collapsing, my message to the country's military, police and security forces is clear. You've sworn an oath to protect Iran and the Iranian people, not the Islamic Republic and its leaders. Your duty is to defend the people, not a regime that's taken our homeland hostage through repression and crime. Join the people and help bring about a stable and secure transition. Otherwise, you will go down with Khamenei's sinking ship and his regime. To find out more about the reaction inside Iran, I spoke to Jiar Ghol from BBC Persian.

7:07The footage we are receiving from inside the country And the voices we hear from the people in this street all indicates there has been a massive attack on many different locations in Tehran and several cities across the country. And in one video, a lady was shouting, the office of the supreme leader hit. Another woman joyfully said, finally, he was hit. and it all indicates the mood in Iran for so many people who just more than a month ago, thousands of people, thousands of protesters were killed and gunned down. And so many people are not happy with the situation in the country. But of course, there are also many people who are afraid of the war.

7:49They don't know what is the outcome. Just a few minutes ago, Iranian officials said 18 students have been killed in the city of Minab. And what we are seeing also, we see the anti-riot police and security forces also being deployed to different locations in the city in Tehran. But it is not just Tehran which witnessed so many explosions and airstrikes. Also in several cities, in the border city of Karmanshra, we know from last year there are numbers of missile launching sites there. There have been also attacked. It seems what we are hearing from them and what we are hearing from underground, also they are targeting revolutionary guards bases in different cities, in small towns, in hopes of some of those people come out to the street.

8:40So rise up against the government. This is a joint operation between the US and Israel. The US will have access presumably to the intelligence of Mossad, the Israeli intelligence agency. See, the US has indicated this is about regime change. What are the chances that the Ayatollah will have been hit by any of these strikes? I think we know they were expecting some sort of attack. And we know from the last year also when he was the target of Israeli airstrike, he was moved to the safe and underground bunker. That was what we are hearing. That's what we're expecting. Yes, his office may have been hit, But most likely, he has been moved to a safe place.

9:25But what we are hearing from President Trump, if you would have asked me before President Trump's speech today, what is the purpose of this attack? I might say, you know what, maybe this is a limited attack against Iran to get more concession on a negotiation table. But what he said to this, it was clearly a declaration of war. And for the first time, very clearly, President Trump said they want regime change in Iran. That's why he said after the bombing is finished, people should come out and finish the government. And so many people inside the country are not happy with the situation. The economy is crippling.

10:02Iran is isolated. And also the regime has lost legitimacy within even their own supporters because the killing of thousands of people just less than two months ago. And the Mossad, of course, do have extraordinarily good contacts inside Iran, don't they? If we judge based on last year, 12 days war with Israel and the assassination of Iranian officials, Iranian scientists, Iranian missile scientists, I think Israel has infiltrated Iranian security forces in the highest level. Even one of the former intelligence ministers, he has said to the Iranian official that Mossad is closer to our ears than anything else.

10:46GR Gol from BBC Persian. Our Middle East analyst Sebastian Usher gave us his assessment of the unfolding situation. We've just had the Israeli military saying that it launched hundreds of attacks on targets in Iran. What we don't know from Iran at the moment, there's lots of rumours obviously flying around, lots of videos of smoke rising from various areas, particularly in the capital. whether members of a leadership, the political, the military leadership, have been targeted successfully. There does seem to be a sense that that was what the Israeli mission may have been to some extent. We know that the U.S.

11:27is also very much trying to target the offensive capability of Iran in terms of its ballistic missiles. But we're seeing, in comparison to the 12-day war back last June between essentially Israel and Iran with U.S. involvement at the end, which is about its nuclear weapons, its nuclear program potentially leading to a nuclear weapon, that Iran has responded more quickly, more widely. I mean, it has fired several volleys towards Israel so far. A number of missiles have been intercepted, but Israel very much on alert across the whole of the country. We're waiting to see if any of Iran's proxies in the region take action.

12:10They've all been markedly weakened over the past year and a half. Hezbollah, the Houthis, Iranian-affiliated militias in Iraq, one of those groups in Iraq has said that it will target US military bases soon. They didn't do that in the 12-day war. Hezbollah, there is going to be a statement, a speech made by the leader of Hezbollah in a few hours. We'll see what he says, but I think it's pretty clear that the capabilities of Hezbollah, much less than they were two years or so ago. Also, again, Hezbollah didn't fire or carry out any military attack or intervention during that 12-day war last summer.

12:55So, you know, those are big questions. And then how these Gulf Arab countries, which have come under attack, I mean, it is almost certainly the U.S. military bases in the region that are the target, but how they will respond. We've heard from Jordan. I think we've heard from a couple of other Gulf countries that they are ready to take whatever military action they deem necessary. I mean, clearly, they do not want to get involved in any direct military confrontation with Iran if they can avoid it. their voices were very strong in trying to dissuade the U.S. from taking this action. And where we are as far as the U.S.

13:31is concerned, I mean, you know, most people who've been following this will now have heard most of what President Trump had to say in his eight-minute address. And that had several messages. Part of it very similar to what we heard last year about the nuclear program, about Iran's nuclear ambitions, obliterating that, but also talking about obliterating ballistic missiles in the Navy. But I think more so than anything else, calling on the Iranian people to rise up. Yes, I mean, Iran's response now. We have had reports of retaliatory strikes. Just take a listen to this. Of course, multiple explosions in Bahrain, where the U.S.

14:04Navy Fifth Fleet is based. We had this voice note from a mother sheltering with her children. Hi, I'm here in Bahrain in the Saar area. It is a painfully beautiful day, but everybody, of course, is sheltering inside after several air raid sirens have gone off. Lately after, we had the reports of the bombings on the U.S. bases. About 30 minutes afterwards, we had another set of what sounded like bombs going off. We had a couple that were near enough to shake our house. Do keep in mind, Bahrain is a very small country, and so everyone is pretty packed together here. And so one area being targeted puts civilians at risk.

14:45There's a lot of fear. I've got my kids sitting under the dining room table watching cartoons, and that's what I'm hearing from most of the mums across the country, that they're just doing everything they can to keep everyone calm. And we'll wait. Sebastian, you can hear the terror in her voice, and what she's worried about is what many people are worried about, that this is going to turn into a much bigger regional conflict. I mean, that's what Iran had been threatening during the resumption of the talks as the military buildup, this massive military buildup by the US was taking place. I mean, its capability of setting off a regional conflagration, which actually involve, you know, direct military conflict with those Gulf countries, with other Arab countries in the region, I think is still relatively slim.

15:38I mean, it depends, obviously, to some extent on where Iran chooses to attack next, if it has that capability, oil installations, of course, the economic lifeblood of those countries. That would then represent a major risk. Whether those countries such as Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain, as you were hearing there, then feel that their direct military involvement would be necessitated or they would leave it to the US and essentially Israel to continue, I think is a question that at the moment I'd say that they would do the latter if they can, rather than getting directly militarily involved, where, you know, they don't have the strength to be brutally honest, as the US and Israel clearly have.

16:22Yeah, that actually was reflected in an interview we had a little earlier. Lord Peter Ricketts, he's the former UK national security advisor. Just take a listen to this. He was quite sceptical that Iran was planning an imminent attack. My interpretation of this word preemptive is that the Israelis preempted any risk that the US Iranian negotiations were going to reach some sort of deal on the nuclear programme. And it reminds me very much of June last year, when the same again, the Americans were negotiating intensively with the Iranians. The Israelis interrupted that by striking and they drew the Americans into action.

16:59That has happened again. Trump, of course, has built up this enormous military presence. He'd created a momentum. Once Israel started attacking Iran, I think it was impossible for the Americans to stand aside. but there's absolutely no clarity what the real political objective here is. And it's very dangerous to launch military action because you've got the military forces, you don't really have the option of standing aside, but with objectives which can't be achieved by military strikes, obliterating the missiles, preventing Iran from using its regional proxies. These are not achievable objectives.

17:35We're in a dangerous phase where the Iranians are bound to retaliate and try and strike some quite hard blows, I think. Lord Ricketts and before him, our Middle East analyst, Sebastian Usher. Iran launched retaliatory strikes targeting both Israel and US military bases in the Middle East. Our correspondent Barbara Platt-Usher told us more from the Qatari capital, Doha. We just heard another round of explosions here echoing across Doha. The Qataris are saying that they have intercepted several waves of missiles now. Up until just a little while ago, they were saying there had been no damage so far.

18:14They have sent out push alerts to our phones, to the phones of everyone in Qatar, telling them to lay low, to seek shelter and to stay indoors. The traffic on the roads have not entirely stopped, but it has reduced quite significantly. We are hearing similar reports from around the region, from the United Emirates, Kuwait, Bahrain, saying that they are getting incoming Iranian missiles and that they are intercepting them, except in the case of Bahrain, there was an announcement that the missile had hit the U.S. Navy base there. That's the U.S. Fifth Fleet base in Bahrain. Again, the extent of the damage there, not entirely clear.

18:50In the United Arab Emirates, the government said that one civilian, one citizen, had been killed, apparently from falling debris, although that is not entirely clear either. Some of the governments have said they reserve the right to respond. I think that they would calculate very carefully about what impact that might have and whether it would suit their interests to do so. This is exactly the outcome that they have been trying so very hard to prevent over the past weeks, trying to mediate between the Iranians and the United States, warning about the dangers of a conflict in Iran, warning that it could spread to the region and destabilize it.

19:26It's clear now that the Trump administration has not listened to its Arab allies' public efforts anyway. on this issue, rather to, it seems, its Israeli allies. And so the Arabs are going to be watching very carefully and taking whatever measures they can to prevent the conflict from destabilizing the wider region. And it's interesting you say that, Barbara, because Oman's foreign minister has said that they are dismayed after the attacks between Israel and Iran. So as you mentioned there, a lot of effort has gone in, particularly by Oman, to try and mediate some sort of agreement between the two sides.

20:01And while that effort was taking place, clearly planning kept going for these attacks. Yes. And the Iranians had expressed skepticism all along. And even now, when the attacks took place, said, look, we expected there would be attacks. You've attacked us before during negotiations, but we went along with them anyway. And so they were making preparations as well, having very little faith in the whole negotiating process. But the Omanis who were mediating did He did pull out all the stops, the Omani foreign minister having gone to the United States on a sudden trip this week to try to urge the administration to continue with the negotiations and saying that they were making significant progress.

20:40He called it a breakthrough. He said that the Iranians had agreed that they would move all the stockpiles of enriched uranium out of the country, that this was a really important move and that it could be built on over a period of time to actually get an agreement. Again, that intervention failed. The planning for this military operation has clearly been in place for some time, and now President Trump has decided to go ahead with the aim of regime change, which is, frankly, the most drastic outcome that could have been the case. There was questions about what an Israeli-U.S. military operation might involve.

21:16Would it be limited strikes to kind of force the Iranians further along in the negotiations? Would it be strikes on just military targets like the ballistic missiles sites, the nuclear sites? But no, Mr Trump has made it clear that they're going further than that. And again, that is a source of concern for the Arab neighbours and the Arabs in the Gulf, because who knows what will come afterwards and whether they will be subject to flows of refugees and weapons coming across the borders if the worst case scenario comes true. Barbara Platt-Usher, she was talking to Mariam Meshiri. And we have more on this on our YouTube channel.

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24:24This is the Global News Podcast. The US government went ahead with its military action without seeking approval from Congress. Here's Helena Humphrey in Washington. Let me just run you through what some of the lawmakers have had to say, starting off with Lindsey Graham. He is a Republican senator. He is an ally of Donald Trump. And essentially his message, which he's posted on X, is that he believes that this is an opportunity to reshape the Middle East. He says that he expects this campaign to be a violent one, but ultimately he expects it to be successful. You can compare and contrast that with what we've heard from another Republican, a congressman, Thomas Massey, who is a critic of Donald Trump.

25:05And he has called this an act of war unauthorized by Congress. Certainly there had not been a congressional vote on any of these strikes. Just some other reaction to bring you now. Ro Karner, he is a Democratic lawmaker and he has called for a vote on Monday. He said that lawmakers must come to Washington. They must vote on this. They must put their names on the records with regards to where they stand on these strikes. And then we've also heard from the vice chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, that is Mark Warner. And essentially what his message has been in a statement is he says that we have heard claims of urgency of American intelligence before, clearly referencing previous wars, Iraq, for example, being one of them, and saying that the president must answer questions with regards to the objective here, basically saying if President Trump can come out and put a video on his social media platform, an eight minute video in which he has warned that there could be American casualties.

26:07That justification needs to be there. Now, certainly we know that Donald Trump has spoken not just about a failure of a nuclear deal, but he has also spoken about ending what he calls a campaign of bloodshed against Americans. But in terms of that objective, he also spoke to the Iranian people, didn't he? He said, you know, stay inside for the time being, but when it is safe to do so, come out, rise up. topple the Iranian regime. And I think, you know, the greater backdrop to all of this is what we had seen in recent weeks when we had seen that brutal crackdown on protesters in Iran. And Donald Trump had said to them, help is on the way, prompting many people to ask in recent weeks, where is that help?

26:51Donald Trump clearly there speaking to the Iranians as well, saying, this will be your opportunity. Helena Humphrey. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the operation would remove what he called the existential threat posed by Iran. Our correspondent John Donison is in Jerusalem. them. He clearly thinks that Iran is a problem for Israel that needs to be got rid of. And today, it does seem like America and Israel are taking steps to do that. When you listen to that message from President Trump a little earlier, what he was talking about there is when this military operation is finished, he wants the Iranian Iranian people to rise up and take over the government.