US and Iran exchange fire after helicopter downed

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0:52Hello and welcome to this edition of News, our twice daily update from the BBC World Service, coming to you live from the BBC studios in London with me, Sean Lay. We begin with events between the United States and Iran. Strains in the ceasefire after the downing of a US Apache helicopter. The crew were rescued by a drone. More on that shortly. Even the Americans say they're not sure that the Iranians downed the aircraft deliberately. Nonetheless, CENTCOM, the acronym by which US Central Command is known, says it responded proportionately in striking, quote, air defence ground control stations and surveillance radar sites near the Strait of Hormuz.

1:30Iranian state media say thousands of people in the southern town of Sirik are now without drinking water after two reservoirs were damaged in the strikes. The Iranian Revolutionary Guard, in turn, says it fired long-range missiles at American bases in three countries, Bahrain, Jordan and Kuwait. They released footage this morning of what they say are the missiles launching.

1:56Well, here's how Hamil Reza Golemzada, head of the Tehran-based Iran diplomatic group, explained Iran's thinking. We are in the middle of war with the United States and any threats and any operations need to be responded by the Iranian side in order to defend itself. And that is the Iranian policy right now. Even if this leads to an all-out war, still Iran goes to the battleground and would defend itself to the maximum necessary level. The correct question is actually why Americans are still attacking Iran or why Israelis are still attacking Lebanon. Well, on Wednesday, the Iranian foreign ministry said it would need to reassess talks with Washington in the light of the overnight attacks.

2:41After the helicopter was brought down, President Trump said there should be a very strong, very powerful response. Hours earlier, though, he'd been talking up the chances of Iran and the US agreeing a deal. In truth, a memo of understanding, a preliminary to talks within two or three days. The president's latest and early morning posting on his true social platform on Wednesday includes this phrase. The bully of the Middle East is dead. They've taken too long to negotiate a deal that would have been great for them. Now they will have to pay the price, followed by three exclamation marks. In Bahrain, it's still not clear what targets were hit by the Iranians, as Dr.

3:18Hassan al-Hassan at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in the capital Manama explains. Preliminary reports suggest that the overwhelming majority of Iranian projectiles, whether missiles or drones, were intercepted. But there are early reports that some targets that have yet to be formally identified have been struck. Now, the Iranians claim that they've been after the U.S. 5th Fleet headquarters in Bahrain, but it's not entirely clear yet whether they've been able to strike it or not. Bahrain has been hit before by Iranian projectiles earlier this year. Did they always manage to strike US targets or did they end up hitting other facilities, whether civilian or local Bahraini facilities?

4:07As a matter of fact, the majority of targets, facilities, infrastructure that has been hit by the Iranians has been primarily civilian in nature, including hotels, ports, airports, industrial facilities, water desalination units and the like. Right. So Bahrainians themselves have felt these attacks very real in their lives. What about the most recent attacks overnight, early on Wednesday morning? Have the authorities in Bahrain given any response to them? So the authorities have stated that those attacks were entirely intercepted. The authorities suggested that the intended target behind those attacks was a petrochemicals facility in Bahrain.

4:57And that would be consistent with the attacks that we saw in parallel target the civilian terminal of Kuwait International Airport, as well as previous Iranian attacks that had targeted Bahrain's industrial infrastructure. Now, in terms of a response, Bahrain is a very small state. It's just over a million people. So it does not have the independent sort of national military capability to launch retaliatory strikes. What Bahrain has been doing is working closely with its allies and partners, including its fellow members of the Gulf Cooperation Council, so other Arab Gulf countries. But there isn't a unified Arab Gulf position on how to respond to the attacks by Iran.

5:43There have been individual retaliatory strikes by Saudi Arabia, by the United Arab Emirates, but those have been carried out individually, not as a group. And so without a unified Arab Gulf umbrella, it's unlikely that Bahrain will resort to military retaliation against those Iranian attacks. Is that lack of a coherent position agreed by all GCC members, do you think weakening their influence on Washington, on getting Washington to do what they would like to do, what is in the interest of the Gulf in terms of either ending or prosecuting a war with Iran? Obviously, the Gulf states, they run up against Israel's influence over Washington.

6:29As a matter of fact, the Arab Gulf states were unified in not wanting the United States to begin this war in the first place. But it's quite clear that Benjamin Netanyahu had the upper hand there in pushing the Trump administration to do so under the pretext that this would be a short and sweet war that would end up toppling the Iranian regime quite quickly. Now, we know that this is not how things turned out. As it so happens right now, I think there is a unified Arab Gulf desire in seeing the United States bring an end to this war through a negotiated settlement with Iran. So perhaps the Arab Gulf states might not be working in close coordination with one another to influence the Trump administration in that direction.

7:17But at the very least, I do think they are united in this broad desire to see a quick end to the swore through negotiated means. What about public opinion in Park Gein? Because it has a sheer majority in that, you know, as you say, relatively small population, about a million people. Does that mean there is much sympathy for Iran? We don't really have a census in Bahrain on sectarian terms. So it's impossible to know what the sectarian demographic balance is. I see. So whether or not it is sheer majority isn't clear. Understood. Indeed. But in any case, I would say that this is largely irrelevant because there is a large degree of national unity around the fact that these strikes have been indiscriminate in terms of their effects on the local population.

8:05It's clear that when Iran launches a ballistic missile or a drone, it's not really discriminating whether this is a Sunni or a Shia or otherwise target. Dr. Hassan al-Hassan in Bahrain. The Hughes-McDonald Douglas Boeing AH-64 Apache, to give it its full title, has been part of the US Air Force's offensive arsenal for decades. The prototype first flew half a century ago. That an Apache was brought down by a drone may be a touch humiliating, but it speaks to the reality of modern warfare. Drones are flexible and having no crew, infinitely disposable. According to one recent academic report, some of Iran's contain polystyrene and motorcycle engines.

8:48The US military used a drone of its own to carry out the rescue of the helicopter crew, a C-drone. Let's talk about that with Shashank Joshi, Defence Editor at The Economist, who's about to become its Washington Bureau Chief. Shashank, thanks for being with us on NewsHour. Good afternoon. Good afternoon to you. Do we know how the helicopter came down? Well, we know that Donald Trump has suggested it was shot down by Iran, and it shouldn't surprise us that a drone took it down. We've been seeing drones attack helicopters in great numbers and with great enthusiasm in Ukraine. And in fact, drones have been some of the biggest enemies of helicopters.

9:24In the past, that would have been shoulder-fired, heat-seeking surface-to-air missiles, You know, the famous Stinger that was famous for its use in Afghanistan by the anti-Soviet Mujahideen. But nowadays, you're more likely to see these sort of first-person view small drones attack helicopters. And helicopters are very, very vulnerable indeed as a result. Brought down by a drone and apparently the crew rescued by an American drone. Do we know more about that? We do. It's really remarkable. You know, in Ukraine, I've seen Ukraine pioneer the use of drones for casualty evacuation. both by literally carrying casualties underneath big quadcopters and carrying them away on what we call uncrewed ground vehicles, UGVs, which are effectively ground drones.

10:09But this is the first time we have ever seen in action a sea drone, which is effectively a sort of modified speedboat. It would look like a speedboat if you looked at it. Make its way to the casualties or the downed pilots in this case, the crew members. They got themselves onto this drone, which was a Corsair drone made by a company called Saronic, which I think is headquartered in Texas. And they took it to another place on the water where these guys were then winched up by helicopters. So this is, I think, a milestone. And when people talk about the evolution of drones in warfare in 50 years, 100 years, they'll be looking at this in the same way we look at things like the first ever use of planes for bombing or the first ever, you know, use of drones on the battlefield.

10:53So they got them out safely. There has been a kind of a tit for tat retaliation, but still a sense perhaps that neither side wants to accelerate the conflict. What do you make of the state of play of the negotiations towards what is after all only a memo of understanding, only a very preliminary document that they seem to both want to sign but can't quite get to the stage of signing? Well, I think if you were Iran, you would notice and really recognize Donald Trump's reluctance to escalate this conflict. You know, he plagued down the downing of the helicopter. I think he said a day ago it wasn't a very big deal.

11:35Iran also promised seven days of strikes, but they've held back. But I think if you're Iran, you would be saying, why give away too much in nuclear talks over our nuclear program? For instance, why give up the right to enrich uranium for 30 or 40 years? Or why hand over the 400 kilograms of highly enriched uranium we have sitting underneath our nuclear sites if we don't need to? If Donald Trump isn't going to force us to do this by resuming the war or by continuing the blockade? We know he's got midterm elections coming up in November. We know that gas prices in America are rising. And despite the fact that we're under blockade, we think we can sit this out for longer than you can.

12:13And I think that reluctance to make concessions and Trump's fear of cutting a bad deal on which he would be attacked by Republicans at home like Lindsey Graham in the Senate. I think that is effectively causing this impasse that you describe, though I think it is Donald Trump who probably feels a bit more pressure than the Iranians at this stage. So when he posts on Truth Social in the early hours of the Washington morning, now they will have to pay the price. Do you approach that with a degree of skepticism? I approach it with enormous skepticism because I'm afraid, you know, it doesn't take an expert to look at the pattern of the president's statements to see repeated threats, but repeated promises that we're a day away from a deal, the war is nearly over.

12:56And in fact, I think just a few days ago, he said that it doesn't matter what I do because there are no US forces at risk. You know, our forces aren't at risk. And of course, that was days before this helicopter was shot down. And therefore, I'm extremely skeptical that Donald Trump has the stomach to really change the equation by escalating the war, because, you know, we see also how he's trying to rein in the Israelis. He doesn't want them to escalate in Lebanon. Iran can see all of that. They can see he's reluctant, and therefore they will continue to say, we can hold out longer than he can, and let's not give away the house here.

13:28Shashank Joshi, currently Defence Editor at The Economist, about to become Washington Bureau of Truth. Thank you very much for joining us here on News Out from the BBC World Service.

13:49Coming up on NewsHour. I just feel like the World Cup really unites everyone together in a way that no other sport does. So I would say I'm just really excited to see that happen and to feel the excitement that the World Cup brings every time it happens. Well, with the Soccer World Cup beginning on Thursday, we hear from young people from the host nations about the excitement building up for this event. Our headlines this hour. Iranian media say thousands of people in a town overlooking the Strait of Hormuz are without water after US airstrikes damaged reservoirs there. Ukraine says it's hit port facilities in the Russian-occupied city of Mariupol and other targets in Russia itself.

14:26Russia has again struck Ukrainian energy infrastructure. And authorities in Hong Kong have brought charges against seven people and two companies over the deadly inferno at a public housing complex there last year.

14:49This is Sean Lay with NewsHour, live from the BBC studios in London. To Northern Ireland now, where there's been a night of street violence in the principal city Belfast. It follows a knife attack on Monday. A Sudanese-born man appeared in court Wednesday morning accused of attempted murder. He's being held in custody as the legal process proceeds. On Tuesday night in Belfast, people were rescued from their homes as fires burned around them. Local pastor Jack McKee went to help. This is some of our members who've been with us for 20 years, who are getting put out of their home, had their house attacked, window smashed, house beside them burned.

15:28They are good Christian people and I've known them for many years. Men, women, children that are living in fear because of what some idiot did last night. I'm angry. I'm angry and I'm disappointed that this is the response of people in our community. Northern Ireland experienced three decades of sectarian violence between what was a unionist majority and a nationalist minority, often expressed through a Protestant-Catholic religious divide. The street violence this week had a different origin. Let's talk now to Alison Morris, crime correspondent and a columnist for the Belfast Telegraph. Alison, thanks for being with us.

16:02How do you understand what's been going on over the last couple of days in Belfast? Yes, so this really kicked off on Monday evening. There was a horrific video that showed a man being attacked in the street and the attacker, the knife attacker was disarmed by local people who came to the man's rescue and he appeared in court this morning charged with attempted murder. but because it was clearly obvious from that video that the man was a foreign national. It turns out he was Sudanese. His name is Haley Al-Odide and he is currently remanded in custody, charged with attempted murder and possession of a knife in a public place.

16:42This sparked a lot of misinformation and disinformation which was posted online very quickly and on Tuesday morning when I woke up and noticed that this had been retweeted, this video by high profile accounts, accounts with millions of followers worldwide, you realised that this was going to turn into something quite nasty. So we had protests organised and can I say some of those protests were entirely peaceful and a peaceful protest is a democratic right in any democratic society but it was obvious in some of those more interface and sort of touch areas that once you brought hundreds if not thousands of young men out onto the streets it was going to be impossible to control.

17:25So we had a night of violence last night. Is it fair to suggest that it's easier to get crowds onto the street in Northern Ireland even today? It is. I mean, and there's a network of social media sites that have been ongoing since, if people cast their mind back to those loyalist flag protests way back in 2011, they were organised through social media. And those sites have remained alive and sometimes they go dormant for a while And then when something, say like Brexit happens and there's negotiations around that, they spring into life and start advertising protests and calling people out, you know, and defend our nation and all of that very inflammatory language.

18:05And those same sites were advertising these protests from early yesterday. And I was there as one of them was gathering. They were advertised for seven o 'clock at five to seven. I watched as hundreds of young men with hoods up and masks arrived on the scene. Just one last brief thought, the last 30 seconds or so, Alison. and you attended briefings involving the government, that's the Westminster government, the Northern Ireland office, and the chief of police, the chief constable. Have they got plans to prevent a reoccurrence? They do. As of tomorrow, 200 mutual assistance officers, as they're called, are arriving from a police force in England to give the PSNI a hand because there is expected to be more violence.

18:44There is more of these protests being organised and the PSNI is already quite depleted in numbers and fairly stretched. Right. Alison Morris, crime correspondent and columnist with the Belfast Telegraph. Thanks for having me. When you hear the phrase made in China, what do you think? I'm Tristan Redman. And I'm Asma Khalid. And together we host the Global Story podcast from the BBC. And today on our show, we look at the origins and evolution of made in China, because it actually wasn't inevitable. What we're talking about is the world's largest communist nation is at the beating heart of the capitalist system.

19:21For more, listen to The Global Story on bbc.com or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm Simon Jack. I'm Zing Zing. And together we host Good Bad Billionaire. The podcast exploring how some of the wealthiest people on the planet made their money. And we are back with a new season. From sporting superstars to music moguls and celebrity CEOs. We'll be taking a closer look at the lives and fortunes of some of the world's richest people. and asking you to decide if they're good, bad, or just another billionaire. Good, bad, billionaire from the BBC World Service. Listen now or search for Good, Bad, Billionaire wherever you get your BBC podcasts.

20:00How has America shaped the world? I'm Asma Khalid, host of the Global Story podcast from the BBC. As the United States marks its 250-year anniversary, we've been exploring the surprising and often hidden ways the US has shaped the modern world. And today on the show, we answer your questions about this moment and what to expect in the years to come. From the BBC, it's the United States at 2.50. Listen to the global story on bbc.com or wherever you get your podcasts.

20:34Welcome back to NewsHour. In the United States, a long-delayed funding boost for ICE, the federal agency principally enforcing immigration controls, passed in the US House of Representatives Tuesday night by the thinnest of margins, 214 votes to 212. It passed largely on party lines. The Democrat minority had opposed increased funding for operations against undocumented migrants after two American citizens were shot in separate incidents in Minneapolis in January. Let's speak now to Sadiq Shah Kauqi. She's the Congress reporter for The Hill and has been covering the whole process. Sudik Shah, forgive me, was it expected that this would ultimately pass?

21:17Yes, it was expected. This is one of President Trump's biggest legislative priorities. And so it's something that, you know, a majority of Republicans had rallied around. There were a few hiccups when the bill first landed on the House floor, specifically conservative hardliners. Some of them had opposed advancing the bill. And then there were others who had withheld their votes who hadn't yet voted to advance the bill. But all of that was cleared up pretty quickly and they ultimately got the bill through at exactly, at around 5.30pm. That was when the bill had finally passed and was headed to President Trump's desk.

21:51Perhaps it's not surprising with midterm elections looming in November that both sides are becoming increasingly partisan. But the advantage, I suppose, for Republicans is that they managed to get something through that will guarantee funding for the remainder of President Trump's turn. Is that an important achievement from the Republican point of view? Yes, absolutely. This is something, as I mentioned, one of Trump's biggest priorities. And it's not something that Democrats can easily repeal. Even if Democrats do end up winning the majority next year in the midterms and they try to pass any bill that could repeal this type of funding, President Trump could easily veto it.

22:28And so this is a big deal for Republicans because it's something that will stay in place until 2029. So they used this so-called reconciliation process to pass Mr. Trump's big, beautiful bill last year. It means you can remove some of the potential obstacles to getting an agreement in Congress. They've done it for this bill. They're now talking about doing it for another bill. Are all Republicans happy about that? No, there's definitely opposition within the Republican conference about doing a third bill. A lot of Republicans are skeptical that a third bill will even happen. And members are more sensitive heading into the general midterm elections to take any sort of partisan votes that could alienate swing voters back home.

23:10And so some Republicans have already said that they would oppose it. Others are skeptical that a third bill will even happen. Sudeek Shah, Cochi of The Hill, Congress reporter for that publication. Thanks very much for that update. We should point out that President Donald Trump will be holding an on-camera signing ceremony for that new immigration legislation, which, of course, funds not just ICE, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency. It also helps fund the Border Police and the Border Agency, and it also helps fund potentially FBI operations involved in immigration enforcement. This is NewsHour from the BBC World Service.

24:07You're listening to NewsHour, coming to you live from the BBC studios in London with me, Sean Lay. It's more than five years now since Myanmar erupted into civil war following the military coup which deposed its civilian government. Almost 100 ,000 people have died. Until recently, the military had been losing ground to rebels, including some of the country's ethnic groups. However, the forced recruitment of tens of thousands of conscripts has led to a change in the Hunta's fortunes, though it still controls under half of Myanmar's territory. New drone technology is also helping take back some of the land previously lost to the anti-military factions.

24:44The United Nations human rights spokesman has described the regime's tactics as brutal, saying civilians are paying a terrible price. Our correspondent Quentin Somerville has spent time with rebels in Myanmar's Bago and Karim states. Hidden deep under forest cover in Myanmar's Karim state is a field hospital, a jumble of bamboo and wooden buildings that treats resistance fighters injured in their battles to set Myanmar free from military rule. so we're in the operating theatre it's running off solar power and generator it is quite hot in here Jazou is on the table still awake Jazou has a long gash at the top of his leg they're trying to save his leg which was injured as a result of him stepping on a landmine He was on his way back from a military assault.

25:44As they turn him over, you can see that the back of his heel is all gone. It's just raw flesh. People sustain injuries from landmines every single day here. Dr Song is the surgeon here. They say they carry out operations every day in this operating theatre. It never stops in terms of casualties. There were days during the five years that I had been here when I couldn't describe the sorrow with words anymore. This is not just Bomi. Later kamikaze drones and artillery as well. What do you say to young people in Yangon and Mandalay today who say, ah, the coup was five years ago, Minol 9, the hunter leader, is about to become president, this is all over?