Global News Podcast - Iran fires missiles at US Qatar base

Episode Date: June 23, 2025

Iran has launched missiles at a key US airbase in Qatar in response to American attacks on its main nuclear sites. Meanwhile, Israel has attacked government targets in Iran, and Trump announces Iran-Israel ceasefire.

This is the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service. I'm Julia McFarlane and in the early hours of Tuesday the 24th of June, these are our main stories. Iran has launched missiles at the US airbase in Qatar. Tehran says it was in response to the US's airstrikes on its main nuclear sites over the weekend. Meanwhile, Israel has attacked government targets in Iran, including the notorious Evin prison. And as we record this podcast, President Trump has just announced a

ceasefire between Israel and Iran, which will come into force in the coming hours. Also in this podcast, the gangs of Cape Town and their child recruits. And Belarus' opposition leader in exile Svetlana Tikhanovskaya speaks to the BBC about the moment she first heard her husband was released from prison. Somebody called me from Belarusian mobile and I picked up the receiver and heard my husband's voice. He told Sveta, my dear wife, I am free. I can't believe this. Ever since the Americans attacked three nuclear sites in Iran in the early hours of Sunday morning, the world, but especially the region, braced for the Iranian response. It came on

Monday evening in the form of missiles launched in the direction of the biggest US airbase in the Middle East, Al Udaid, in Qatar. The size of a small town and home to thousands of American service members. The US embassy sent out an alert to US citizens in Qatar, ordering them to take shelter until further notice. Qatari authorities announced they were closing their airspace and diverting all traffic away from the capital. Just half an hour later, explosions were heard in the skies above the streets of Doha. This was recorded on a mobile phone. Colonel Iman Tajik is a spokesman for the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps. He confirmed that the attack was in response to the targeting of its nuclear facilities by US stealth bombers over the weekend.

After the military invasion by the murderous regime of the United States of America towards the peaceful nuclear facilities of the Islamic Republic of Iran and clear violation of international law, by the order of the Supreme National Security Council, the al-Yudhdeid base in Qatar was targeted in a destructive and powerful missile attack. Under no circumstances Iran will leave violation of its sovereignty and national security unanswered. Mehran Kamrava is professor of government at Georgetown University in Qatar. He lives close to the airbase.

I'm at home approximately 30 kilometers away from Al Udeid base and what we witnessed earlier were a series of flares in the air. The night sky was lit up with what looked like flying objects and then a series of very loud boom noises. The house shook very strongly. There was a scary shake and a number of shakes. And then sirens went off. and I have lived in Qatar for 18 years. I've never heard sirens like this before or have never seen anything in the night sky like that before. We did get a notice earlier today from the US embassy asking us to shelter in place and so there's been a sense of apprehension among at least the American and also the British communities here. US officials say there have been no injuries and that the combination of medium range and

ballistic missiles were intercepted by air defences. And President Trump gave his reaction on social media dismissing the strikes as very weak and suggesting the Iranians had gotten it all out of their system. He also thanked the Iranians for gotten it all out of their system. He also thanked the Iranians for giving early notice of the strikes. James Kamarasami got analysis from the BBC security correspondent, Frank Gardner. The pragmatists in Tehran won out because it could have been a whole lot harsher. They could have gone for a mass launch of ballistic missiles at a whole range of 20 bases up and down the Gulf that the US has got. They could have targeted the US naval facility in Bahrain.

They could have gone for an al-Assad base in Iraq, in Kuwait. They could have had a go at some US warships, possibly with swarms of drones. They didn't. They chose a very specific target. Now I'm not in any way downplaying the gravity of this. I'm saying that it was a measured response because clearly Iran is looking for an off ramp here. They telegraphed the Qataris in advance. So I was able to speak to sources, Gulf sources who told me what was going on, that there was an imminent credible threat, but that the air defences were locked and loaded and ready to shoot down. And indeed, that

is exactly what happened. Iran launched six short and medium range ballistic missiles, all of which were intercepted by Qatari air defence. So the explosions that people heard were those missiles being blown up above the skies above Doha. And in fact, the air base, Al Ude, which is a very important air base to the Americans and their allies, including the UK, it's where they run all their air operations for the entire broader Middle East. Out of it's the forward headquarters of CENTCOM, the U.S. the Pentagon Central Command, that had been largely evacuated.

So there's a big difference between, I counted 37 planes there on a satellite image on the 5th of June and it's empty today. So clearly people knew something might be coming. So if it was a measured response from Iran, what do you make of the response on social media to that from President Trump? I think it's quite sort of mature. And I say that with a bit of a smile on my face because it would have been very tempting, I think, for him to say, you know, they've threatened the lives of US servicemen, women, that this was an insult to, you know, one of our most important bases and an attack

on it. And you know, it is an attack on a US base and Qatar is furious, calling it a flagrant breach of their sovereignty. But I think if he's going to leave it at that, and if Iran leaves it at that, then this is the high watermark in terms of the confrontation between the US and Iran. The confrontation between Israel and Iran is not yet over, but President Trump has hinted that he wants that to end pretty soon. So I think we might be on the downward slope in terms of the peak of this confrontation may

well have been passed. The US has demonstrated extraordinary long reach with these bombers. I don't think they've destroyed all the highly enriched uranium by the way. They may have destroyed the centrifuges beneath Fordow but not all that material. But that's really the IAEA's job and part of that job is trying to keep Iran in the non-proliferation treaty now. So I think we are in a kind of de-escalation mode. So I have to say just before 6 o'clock this evening things were looking very hairy indeed, that this was looking like a great big escalation.

It's now looking a lot better. It doesn't help that Donald Trump kind of mocks Iran saying this was a very weak response. You know what, be careful what you wish for. Don't goad them into attacking something else because then he will have to respond. So for now, I think we're not quite out of the woods, but we can see light. Frank Gardner. Earlier on Monday, Israel carried out further widespread strikes across Iran, targeting the Fordo nuclear site again, as well as places associated with the government in Iran. These included the command centers of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards and the notorious

Evin Prison in Tehran, where hundreds of political prisoners are held in brutal conditions. The British-Iranian businessman Anousheh Oshouri spent more than four years in Evin Prison after being arrested while visiting family in Tehran. How did he feel when he heard that it had been hit? I'm extremely worried, mostly about the people I left behind. You see, every prison consists of a number of wards. In each ward, which is a building block, there are holes where prisoners are kept. And what they do is that they shut the heavy metal doors of each hole with a padlock so

they have no way of going out even in the time of emergency. And the news that I heard was that because of that explosion at the entrance of Evin prison, some of my friends there were actually hit by flying glass and they were injured. And I was told that soldiers are ordered to shoot at anyone who tries to leave those halls. So the situation is really volatile and I'm extremely worried about the inmates who are there. There is a lot of talk of regime change, of this is the end of the Islamic regime there. What are your feelings as you see where this war is going and lose conversation about regime change?

Well, I condemn killing under any ideology or flag. My only side is with civilians, not governments. And civilians are the ones who suffer most in Iran, in Israel, in Gaza, everywhere. And when it comes to Iran, it makes me deeply worried about all those left behind in prison, but more broadly, 92 million people who live in a much larger prison called Iran. But at the same time, I think that military intervention has proved not successful because we see it in Iraq, we see it in Libya, we see it in the Arab Spring. We have never seen that it has

brought democracy to these countries. That has to come from the inside. Of course, there are now grounds for the people to rise because now the situation has changed and the regime has weakened. But be aware that should they remain, they will become emboldened and there will be more massacres and more executions if this regime is not toppled. Anousheh Ashoori speaking to Evan Davis. So after more than 10 days of bombing Iran, what are Israel's objectives now? Tim Franks asked Anshul Feffer, Israel correspondent for The Economist.

From what I've been hearing from Israeli officials over the last 24 hours, they feel that the list of targets that they began the war with, they've crossed off most of the items on it. Certainly most of the military and strategic plants and bases and launchers in Iran that they were planning to attack. And they were saying this already at the beginning, we're now day 11 of this war, and they were saying at the beginning, they're planning a two week campaign, so we're nearing the end of that.

And as we've seen today, they've been focusing more on what you would call regime targets, rather than military and strategic ones. And from what I'm hearing from Israelis here, that that is mainly aimed at pressuring the leadership of Iran to accept some kind of agreement which will significantly limit their capability of developing both nuclear and ballistic missile projects in the future. And given that Iran still does seem to retain some ability to launch ballistic missiles at Israel. And given that Israel's

sort of secondary declared aim was to degrade Iran's ballistic missile capability, do you think in a sense that Israel is just hoping that it can declare an end to this without necessarily that having been completely destroyed? Well, there are two aims. There's the interim aim as it's been explained to me of seriously as you said degrading these capabilities. They still retain some of these capabilities we've seen just this morning when around 20 missiles were fired over a space of about 45 minutes towards Israel. Only one of those missiles got through Israel's defenses but it still it shut down the country and that missile that got through did hit

some kind of electricity infrastructure causing disruption here in Israel. But that, the Israelis see that as something that they can accept that Iran will still hold if Iran signs some kind of deal that they won't continue developing and manufacturing these missiles. This is trying to find every single missile launcher hidden away in Iran was something that they didn't expect to achieve. One reading of the impact of these events, Anshul, and I don't know if you think this is just too sort of heroic a leap of imagination by some people, is that Benjamin Netanyahu potentially, as a result of his position being bolstered by these attacks on Iran, might feel that he's no longer in such hawk to the far-right members

of his coalition and might be willing to wind down the war in Gaza as well. Do you think that that sort of chain of possibility is plausible? Well, I'm certainly hearing some similar things both here in Jerusalem as well. There was also just before the war talk that Israel and Hamas are close to some kind of a ceasefire agreement. Now, that kind of agreement, as you said, would have caused tension and perhaps a coalition crisis between Netanyahu and his far-right coalition partners. He's certainly now in a much stronger position. He has the political capital, I think, to face them down if he chooses to do so. All the focus now is on Iran. The main Israeli official in charge of negotiations with Hamas is also deeply involved in the Iranian campaign.

So we don't know yet when Israel will focus back on Gaza. That will happen the moment this war with Iran does end. And Charles Feffer from The Economist speaking to NewsHour's Tim Franks. And just before we started recording this podcast, President Trump announced on his Truth Social website that a complete and total ceasefire has been agreed between Israel and Iran. He congratulated both countries on having the stamina, courage and intelligence to end the war. Here's our correspondent John Donison. Certainly Prime Minister Netanyahu I think is in a position to be able to sell this to his public as a victory to say look we have substantially diminished Iran's military capability its nuclear ambitions however you know the regime is

still there it wasn't what 36 hours ago that both President Trump and Prime Minister Netanyahu who were talking about regime change in Iran well that's not going to happen so you, let's just wait and see whether this truce holds. But it does seem now that all three sides are willing to step back. John Donathan. And still to come. Scientists have observed killer whales massaging each other using seaweed. But why? The Belarusian opposition leader in exile, Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, has given her first

interview since her husband was unexpectedly freed from prison in Minsk on Saturday, together with 13 other political prisoners. Sergey Tikhanovsky's release, after five years in solitary confinement, followed a meeting between President Trump's special envoy, Kif Keloge, and the authoritarian leader of Belarus, Alexander Lukashenko. James Komarasami asked Svetlana how she found out her husband was being freed. Somebody called me from Belarusian mobile and I picked up the receiver and heard my husband's voice. He told Svetlana, my dear wife, I am free. I can't believe this. That was the first time you knew anything is when you picked up the phone and heard his voice? Yes, that's true. What did you think? Did you believe it? We have

been expecting some people to be released, but maybe we thought that will be different people like Nobel Peace Prize winner Oles Belyatsky, maybe Masha Kolesnikova, but I couldn't believe that it will be my husband because he's one of the biggest enemy of Lukashenko. And how is he? I think he said during that news conference today, I think it's your daughter didn't recognise him. Oh look, he has changed so tremendously. You know, in prison he lost half of his weight. And today at the press conference he explained a lot

how people are treated in prisons, that they're so cold, they don't have enough food, no medical care at all and just it's real torture of Belarusian political prisoners. I mean he, like you, is now having to live in exile. What are your plans? Our plans is to continue the fight for release of all political prisoners and our bigger goal is to preserve Belarus independence and serenity. So we have continued, we need solidarity from the democratic world, we need pressure from our allies. Your husband during that news conference said,

President Trump now has the power and the opportunity to free all political prisoners in Belarus with a single word and I ask him to do so, to say that word. What did he mean exactly? What can President Trump do? It happened because of pressure, solidarity and diplomacy and we keep working closely with the US and I appreciate that they put political prisoners so high on their agenda. And I believe and Sergey believes that President Trump can free more people. Why do you think President Lukashenko decided that this was the time? What is it that he has got out of this? He badly needs, you know, to be important, to look like a political player. And actually, I don't know exactly what

special envoy Kellogg discussed with Lukashenko about military issues, but what I know that his visit had a clear result. People were afraid. So maybe Lukashenko wants to show that, you know, humanity maybe, but, you know, I wouldn't suspect Lukashenko and humanity. It's only like he's calculating. He wants to soften sanctions, you know, I suppose, or achieve better relationship with the USA. And your husband has made it clear that you are still the leader of the opposition. He's not going to challenge that, he said. Are you going to work together now? What are you thinking about how the pair of you take things forward?

He'll give a strengthened position of democratic forces of Belarus. He's very active and energetic. And he will contribute with his strong voice to our movement and our fight. And we are not in competition with him. We are just complementing each other. We will fight you know, together shoulder to shoulder. Svetlana Tikhanovsskaia speaking to James Kamarasamy. Cape Town has been described as South Africa's gang capital and according to new research more children than ever before are being recruited into gangs in the western Cape province, some

as young as 12. But some grassroots activists are trying to break the cycle, as Saoui Met Maouz of BBC Africa Eye has been finding out. This is Hanover Park, a township of Cape Town in South Africa's Western Cape. Children play on streets lined with concrete houses topped by corrugated iron roofs. Around 50,000 people live in this neighborhood built during apartheid. Gang violence is rife. Shootings and stabbings happen almost daily.

NANDO JOHNSON, Former Police Officer, Mongrel Gang All these years I have been in the gang. I have been in and out of jail. 31-year-old Nando Johnson is a member of the Mongrels, one of the hundreds of gangs operating in the region. The police recorded 263 gang-related deaths in the last three months of 2024. In this game there are only two options. You either go to jail or you die. I do want to change direction and I believe there is always a way.

Nando chose to take part in a rehabilitation program run by local pastor Craven Engel from the First Community Church. We negotiate gang conflicts among different gangs and look at which members would like to make an exit or change their behavior, change their life. Cape Town is South Africa's second wealthiest city and capital of the Western Cape. But beneath its prosperous surface lies a darker reality. It's where around 80%

of all gang-related murders nationwide happen. Groups fight for control of the drug trade, recruiting ever younger members. I think what makes it very, very terrible now is because there is more children involved in the gangs, because gangs are recruiting between the age of 8 years old and 15 years old. And when a child gangster runs into a group of children acting like he's a child, the gang shoots the whole group of children.

So you get six, seven children get shot and killed. into a group of children acting like he's a child. The gang shoot the whole group of children. So you get six, seven children get shot and killed. In West Bank, a township in Eastern Cape Town, a mother is grieving the loss of a four-year-old child, Davin. I screamed for help and went crazy. I ran out and I didn't care who was standing outside. I shouted. Our neighbour came out, the one across the road. He's a medic. Davin was lying in his bed when two stray bullets broke through the wooden walls

of the house and killed him. He's the second child this family has lost to gang violence. A special police unit has been set up to patrol the worst affected areas 24-7, but families continue to live in fear. The little job opportunities available here make the cycle of violence difficult to break. Samyat Moos In most parts of the world, electric cars are generally a little more pricey than budget petrol options. But not in China. Thanks to its huge manufacturing capacity, the expansion

of its domestic automaker giant BYD and of course its massive population. Electric cars have been able to be sold cheaply and at scale. Now after domestic success Chinese EV makers like BYD are turning their attention to Western markets. Our transport correspondent Nick Marsh sent this report from China. This is a battery swapping station in Shanghai. There are thousands of them for the city's legions of electric vehicles. You simply drive in and the machines do the rest. In a matter of minutes your flat battery is taken out and replaced with a fully charged new one. It's state-of-the-art technology for less than the price of a full tank. Even the southern city of Guangzhou, known for its polluting factories,

is today a sea of green numberplates. When I was there, the roar of rush hour had been reduced to a gentle hum. So green means it's an EV and blue means that it's not an EV. Now we have green here, another green behind, an electric moped, here's another green one here. The point is that for most countries EV is seen as the future of driving but for, the future has arrived. It's here now. None of this is an accident. For the past two decades, China's been on a mission to dominate the technologies of tomorrow, and it's thrown the full weight of its economy into it. You've got to think completely differently when we step into China because

there's subsidies in every possible form. Michael Dunn is an auto industry analyst who spent two decades in Asia. What we're facing is this thing called state capitalism where the government is actively working hand in hand with companies to say auto industry, electrics, goal is to dominate it, here's how we're going to get it done. What other resources do you need? He calls it state capitalism. Western countries call it unfair. The truth is that they're worried. Today, seven of the world's top 10 EV producers are Chinese, and many of them are recent start-ups like XPeng. I met with their president Brian

Gu in Guangzhou. We are selling well in Europe. We just launched in UK in March. We see tremendous interest in our products. It is traditionally a stigma attached to some Chinese products. But I would say probably it's more related to older generation of Chinese products. We actually see a lot of encouraging signs, European and UK customers seeing China can produce high quality and very good technology products. This one here is the best seller, is that right? Correct, the best selling models. As I was given a tour of the showroom, it felt more like being in Silicon Valley rather

than China's old industrial heartland. Their newest car has voice activation, an inbuilt entertainment system. This is video streaming? Correct. It's also got genuinely impressive self-driving capability. The car's just slowed down by itself. The total price for this car? Twenty thousand dollars. The total price for this car? $20,000. It seems that China has made luxury mainstream.

Nick Marsh. The healing power of seaweed treatments can be traced back to ancient cultures such as the Greeks, Romans and the Celts. But now, scientists believe that orcas in the North Pacific are also embracing the benefits. Our science correspondent Victoria Gill has more details. It looks like some kind of underwater ballet. Two killer whales rubbing their bodies together as they move through the water. What's trickier to see in this new research footage that was captured by scientists using drones is a piece of kelp between the bodies of the two animals.

Let's call it a kelp massage. They're using the kelp to rub between themselves. That's Professor Darren Croft from Exeter University and the Center for Whale Research in the US. So they're selecting a piece of kelp and biting off a piece of the stipe, which is a bit like a piece of hosepipe, a piece of tube. They're then carrying it over to another whale

and placing it on the back of another whale. You'll see them swim around a kelp mat, choose the piece that they want, break it off, and then take that and use that bit, the tool that they fashioned for the kelp rubbing. The scientists don't know if this seaweed tool use is unique to the population of orcas they've studied, a group known as the Southern Resident Killer Whales.

But they think it could have multiple benefits for the animals. Here's Professor Croft again. Brown algae, seaweeds, have antimicrobial properties, so that might be something around helping to maintain healthy skin. But we also know that physical touching animals is really important for building and maintaining social relationships. In 12 days of following these killer whales, the researchers saw kelp rubbing 30 times. They hope that this new intimate insight into the lives of these magnificent but threatened animals will help highlight the importance

of protecting the coastal waters where they live, hunt, and often massage one another. That report by Victoria Gill. And that's all from us for now, but there will be a new edition of the Global News podcast later. If you want to comment on this podcast or any of the topics covered in it, you can send us an email. The address is globalpodcast.bbc.co.uk.

You can also find us on X at BBC World Service, use the hashtag globalnewspod. This edition was mixed by Caroline Driscoll and produced by Judy Frankel and Ariane Coetje. The editor is Karen Martin. I'm Julia McFarlane. Until next time, goodbye.