Global News Podcast - Israel conducts air strikes on military targets in Iran

Episode Date: October 26, 2024

Israel has hit Iran with what it called "precise and targeted" air strikes and warned Tehran not to retaliate. Iranian state media have played down the damage from the attacks. We consider what the impact will be.

Hello, this is the Global News podcast from the BBC World Service with reports and analysis from across the world. The latest news seven days a week. BBC World Service podcasts are supported by advertising. If you're hearing this, you're probably already listening to BBC's award-winning news podcasts. But did you know that you can listen to them without ads? Get current affairs podcasts This Amazon Music with a Prime membership. Spend less time on ads and more time with BBC podcasts. This is the Global News podcast from the BBC World Service. I'm Charlotte Gallagher and at 4.30 GMT on Saturday the 26th of October, this is a special edition to cover the latest news in the Middle East.

The Israeli army says it's conducted airstrikes on military targets in Iran. Explosions have been heard in the capital. Israel says it had to defend itself. Like every other sovereign country in the world, the state of Israel has the right and the duty to respond. So far, Iran has played down the effect of the strikes, while the US has said it had no involvement. We'll consider what the impact will be and whether Iran will retaliate.

Explosions have been heard across the Iranian capital, Tehran, as three waves of airstrikes were launched by Israel overnight. The Israeli army says the attacks targeted military air bases and Iran's missile manufacturing facilities. The airstrikes have been expected since Iran launched a ballistic missile attack on Israel on October 1. Daniel Higary is from the Israeli Defence Forces. The Israel Defence Forces has fulfilled its mission.

If the regime in Iran were to make the mistake of beginning a new round of escalation, we will be obligated to respond. Our message is clear. All those who threaten the State of Israel and seek to drag the region into wider escalation will pay a heavy price. will pay a heavy price. We demonstrated today that we have both the capability and the resolve to act decisively. And we are prepared on offense and defense to defend the state of Israel and the people of Israel. Our Middle East regional editor, Sebastian Usher,

is in Jerusalem. I asked him what the Israelis have said about what was hit in these three rounds of strikes. We had a statement by the Israeli military spokesman, Daniel Higary. I mean, he made a statement as the strikes had started and then he made an announcement that they were over. And the statement we've had from the IDF has said that the targets were military and that they were connected to the missiles that Iran has fired on Israel over the past year. So if that's the limit of what Israel has set as its goal in this and it says, you know, that the mission has been fulfilled, then I think certainly the Biden administration will be indulging in

a sigh of relief. President Biden, the US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, had very publicly essentially said to the Israeli government, to the Israeli leadership, don't go after the oil fields in Iran, the economic infrastructure, and potentially its nuclear facilities, its sites linked to its nuclear program. But that would push this escalatory ladder that Iran and Israel are on even further up the scale, even more dangerously. And would raise the prospect of drawing the US, drawing other countries more deeply into the conflict.

You know, the US is still trying to mediate some kind of resolution between Israel and Hamas and Gaza to get hostages released, to get a ceasefire there, and between Israel and Hezbollah and the Lebanese government to try and get the huge offensive that Israel has launched there also reigned in. So the US was very keen and obviously many many many other countries that Israel would not take an action as it had sort of promised at times that would push things even further over the edge. Because as well Israel as you said is fighting on multiple fronts it's got Gaza, Lebanon and then these strikes in Iran as well. It's true but in some ways the Israeli government, the

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have painted it as yes there are these different zones where the fight is but they're essentially saying the fight is almost one front, it's against Iran. I mean seeing the hand of Iran behind Hamas, behind Hezbollah, behind the Houthis in Yemen, behind Iraqi militias that have attacked US targets there. And that raised the expectation that, you know, the Israeli leaders might feel emboldened by the momentum they've built up militarily over the past weeks in Lebanon decimating the leadership of Hezbollah there, for example, that they might try to make good on a plan that they've had for a very long time, which is to do something that would really destabilize the Iranian

authorities, the Iranian leadership, potentially leading to regime change. I mean, there was talk of reshaping the Middle East, the kind of talk we heard before the Iraq war. That for the moment doesn't seem to have happened. Sebastien Usher, to find out what the Iranian government and media have been saying about this, I spoke to Bahman Kalbassi from BBC Persian, who's been monitoring events from New York. Initial reports we got was in the form of videos of people waking up to large explosions and then filming the very active skies, air defence system, targeting incoming. So there

was a lot of those videos coming throughout the night, around 2am.m. local to around 4.35 a.m. local. And then we got initial reaction from regime media, state or semi-state news agencies that downplayed it and said that some targets were military bases, but it was an unsuccessful attack. And that gave a sense that maybe at least for the first hour, they're going to follow the same playbook they have had in previous attacks, claimed and unclaimed, to say that it's nothing major,

does not need a response immediately at least. But as the second and perhaps the third wave of attacks happened and it continued into early hours in the morning, we saw new statements from the Revolutionary Guards through the semi-official news agency saying, we reserve the right to respond. So it is somewhat a fluid situation where we don't know what posture the regime wants to have in the hours that people are waking up, depending on the damage and depending on how much of this do they choose to acknowledge and how

much of it are they going to be able to hide and dismiss. So that will then give us a sense of whether or not they want to walk away with saving face and saying this tit for tat at least for now is over or do they want to escalate and promise another retaliation? And I suppose because these strikes have been targeted at military bases, I mean, they could really impact on how Iran may be able to respond? Especially if ballistic missile facilities that were hit had, in fact, storage of ballistic missiles that they used. But one would think that the ones that are produced are somewhere underground, not easily accessible for targeting. But definitely if a factory of ballistic missiles is hit, that could in long term, you know,

affect their capability. But it doesn't seem that at least in the short term, Iran is out of options militarily, but it is probably out of options if it does not want to be dragged into a full scale war that could target its infrastructure, nuclear facilities, oil installations. That's not something the regime in Iran is interested in. So how do they walk this fine line is a question for the coming hours. Can they sustain this posture of downplaying and moving on? Bakhman Kalbassi from BBC Persian. The United States has said it was briefed about the Israeli operation beforehand, but

it didn't have any involvement. Our North America correspondent Peter Bowes has been telling me more. The White House has called the strikes an exercise of self-defence and of course, and as we've just been hearing, the full extent of these strikes is still being assessed and that's going to take some time. But the response think in general terms in terms of public statements from the U.S. has been quite limited at this stage. We told that President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris were both briefed and were following developments over the last few hours. A briefing from the Pentagon didn't go into too much detail other than to say that the US, as you say, was made aware of Israel's plans beforehand

and that there was no US involvement in the operation. We know that the US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has spoken to his counterpart in Israel, Defense Minister Yav Galant. This was a call that took place after the strikes. The Pentagon's provided us with a summary of that call which says that the Secretary reaffirmed the ironclad commitment, that's the phrase we've heard many times over the last few weeks, the ironclad commitment of the United States to Israel's security and right to self-defense. He emphasized and continuing to quote here the enhanced forced posture of the United States

to defend US personnel, Israel and partners across the region in the face of threats from Iran and Iran-backed terrorist organizations. And just one final sentence from that briefing, the US's determination to prevent any actor from exploiting tensions or expanding the conflict in the region. And of course the US has huge influence over Israel because of the weapons that they supply

to Israel. It has huge influence. What is in question I think at the moment with this sort of lame duck presidency of President Biden with really just a few weeks to go, is the political impact that the United States is having on Israel at the moment. So there's the issue of supplying weapons but there's also politics and diplomacy and it's been suggested over the last few weeks that perhaps the influence of the United States isn't what it could have been had the presidency been at a different stage or

indeed if there'd been a different president in the White House. President Biden has made it clear all along that Israel had the right to respond but he's always said that that should be in proportion. We know that he met with other G7 leaders. He said that they were coordinating sanctions in response to Iran's action, the action on October the 1st, but President Biden didn't support striking nuclear sites or oil production sites. And he warned that any response should be of low risk to civilians. And as the assessment will go on over the next few hours, it is looking like the Israeli response may well have been within the limits that seem to be acceptable to the US.

And these strikes happened just hours after the US Secretary of State, Anthony Blinken, was meeting Arab leaders and he was calling for a diplomatic solution to the conflict. Well this sort of shuttle diplomacy of course has been going on involving Anthony Blinken for many weeks now. He's made umpteen visits to the region. This was just the latest and of course what he wants is a diplomatic solution to tensions on many fronts and it may just be the case that if this kind of pressure cooker that have been building up in terms of tensions is just easing off a little bit now after the events of the last few hours that it might open the door for more diplomacy. Peter Bowes, well the world has been waiting for Israel's response ever since Iran's

ballistic attack at the start of this month. I asked the defence analyst Jonathan Marcus for his assessment on these Israeli airstrikes and how effective they're likely to have been. Well that's the six million dollar question. In terms of the attacks themselves, I think there's two interesting features. One is that they are relatively limited. Israel, bowing not least to US pressure, has not attacked Iranian oil installations. It hasn't attacked Iranian nuclear installations, and it hasn't attacked the Iranian leadership as far as we know. It has attacked air defenses and it's attacked

missile production facilities. Now that sends a very clear signal to Tehran. I think it also illustrates to Tehran Iran's own vulnerability. It doesn't have the sort of air defenses and technology really to be able to insulate itself from Israeli attack. So that gives the Iranian leadership something serious to think about. They were of course prior to this attack insisting that they would respond kind of come what may, but I think they are going to have to think now given their vulnerability to make an assessment as to whether they draw a line under this whole sorry episode and some relative calm returns. I mean we've been expecting this for weeks given that the ballistic attack on Israel was the beginning of October.

Why has it taken Israel so long essentially to strike back? I think a number of reasons. There may be practical military reasons, strategic reasons that we don't know. Clearly there was a lot of toing and froing between Israel and Washington with the Americans trying to put the brakes or at least constrain what the Israelis might do. I think also clearly there was the apparent leak of the sum of Israel's intentions, a document leaked we believe in Washington. That may have scuppered things temporarily. Again, we just don't know. But I think there was no doubt that some kind of reposts would come, and that has obviously come overnight. The key question, the ball is now in Iran's court.

What are they going to decide to do? And is that obviously what everyone's thinking about now? People worry about escalation. What would be your guess as to what Iran are likely to do now? Well, of course, Iran has a number of means of responding. I mean, we've talked about missile attacks and a further round of tit-for-tat exchanges of long range fire. Obviously Iran still can employ its many proxies in the region, groups like the Houthis, Hezbollah, although of course Hezbollah's leadership has been decimated by the Israelis already.

Of course, also Iran is well known in the past to have supported terrorist actions overseas against Jewish or Israeli targets. That's another possibility. But as I say, I think the vulnerability of Iran that has been demonstrated overnight in these attacks will give them some pause for thought. And that may mean that we don't see any immediate response, though all kinds of responses in the longer term are possible. That was Jonathan Marcus. And that's all from us for now in this special edition, but there will be a new edition of

the Global News Podcast later. If you want to comment on this podcast or the topics covered in it, send us an email. The address is globalpodcast at bbc.co.uk. You can also find us on X at Global News Pod. This edition was mixed by Pat Sissons, the producer was Isabel Jewell, the editor is Karen Martin. I'm Charlotte Gallagher. Until next time, goodbye. If you're hearing this, you're probably already listening to BBC's award-winning news podcasts. But did you know that you can listen to them without ads? Get current affairs podcasts like Global News, AmeriCast and The Global Story plus other great BBC podcasts from History to Comedy to True Crime all ad free. Simply

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