Trump warns of more US deaths in Iran war

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And this edition is published in the early hours of Monday the second of March.

The U.S. announces its first military casualties since it began attacking Iran on Saturday, President Trump warns they could be others. Iran has fired hundreds of missiles and drones in response, targeting countries across the Middle East, and a key oil route, the price of crude is surging as a result. The conflict has widened as Israeli military strikes has bothered targets in Lebanon. Also in this podcast, the UK agrees the U.S. can use British bases to attack Iranian missile sites.

“The only way to stop the threat is to destroy the missiles at source in their storage depots or the launches which are used to fire the missiles.”

President Trump has warned that there will likely be more American military deaths as the U.S. and Israel continue their attacks on Iran. Three U.S. military service members were killed as Iran carried out retaliatory strikes on American military sites in neighboring Arab states. Deaths were reported across the region as airports, luxury hotels, and shopping malls were also hit by Iran. Mr. Trump said the U.S. is ready military operation would continue until all objectives had been achieved and that it could take up to four weeks.

His political opponents have labeled the actions against Iran as illegal, but on Sunday evening the President released this video to justify them.

“These actions are right and they are necessary to ensure that Americans will never have to face a radical bloodthirsty terrorist regime armed with nuclear weapons and lots of threats.”

For almost 50 years these wicked extremists have been attacking the United States while chanting the slogan Death to America or Death to Israel or both. They are the world's number one state sponsor of terror.

We are the world's greatest and most powerful nation so we can do something about what they do.

These intolerable threats will not continue any longer. I once again urge the Revolutionary Guard, the Iranian military police to lay down your arms and receive full immunity or face certain death. It will be certain death won't be pretty. I call upon all Iranian patriots who yearn for freedom to seize this moment, to be brave, be bold, be heroic, and take back your country. America is with you. I made a promise to you and I fulfilled that promise. The rest will be up to you, but will be there to help.

Mr. Trump has not addressed the nation directly since the start of the war against Iran on Saturday. It has released this video message as well as another one and had several telephone interviews with journalists. Senior officials from his administration including the US Secretary of State Marco Rubio are due to make their case for the attack on Iran before Congress on Tuesday. Democratic Senator Chris Murphy spoke to CBS about Mr. Trump. Mr. Biden's wanted to focus on the crises here at home. Instead, he is busy getting us involved in quagmires overseas that already are becoming deadly to American soldiers.

This is a disaster. It is illegal. And the President has obligated another constitution to come to Congress and ask for an authorization of military force.

North America correspondent David Willis gave me his take on President Trump's latest comments.

“With each American casualty, the pressure grows on Donald Trump to bring about a quick solution to this conflict.”

And with so many elements of it out of his control, that leaps him in a very uncertain and might say precarious position. So, just only one in four Americans approved of this military operation. And so much depends on how quickly he can pull this off.

And today, as you mentioned, he conceded it could take a month or longer to resolve the situation in the Middle East.

And whilst worrying his critics even more is the fact that he seems to be sending out mixed messages while murmuring telling Iranians to rise up, then saying he's open to talks with the regime, and it's still not really clear what his ultimate endgame is in Iran. It is not clear. You're right. What his objectives are here is this about regime change, or the elimination of Iran's nuclear missile program, or destroying Iran's navy. We really don't know for certain. And neither does Congress, which is why we've heard growing calls in recent days for the Trump administration to explain its actions to lawmakers and to give some idea of a likely timetable.

“And to find, of course, what constitutes an endgame as far as this operation in Iran is concerned. Mr. Trump has issued two video statements.”

But aside from a couple of brief calls with White House reporters, he has been uncharacteristically silent. He didn't speak with reporters on his journey back to the White House on Air Force one this evening. Nor on his return to Washington, D.C. And it has since emerged that administration officials, including the Secretary of State Marco Rubio, have now agreed to brief members of Congress tomorrow. And the U.S. Defense Secretary, Pete Hickseth, who's also maintained radio silence up to now, is due to give a press conference tomorrow morning. And another figure who's been pretty silent is J.D. Vance, the U.S. Vice President. What should we read into that?

Well, that's interesting because Mr. Vance is one who is known to have pushed for a diplomatic solution to the crisis of where Iran, a one that was in Iran, who were playing mediator to these talks between Iran and the United States.

“And it was just it was within grasping distance before Mr. Trump unleashed along with the Israelis this assault on Iran on Saturday.”

So I suspect we might not be hearing great deal more from Mr. Vance for the time being. We're just up to wait and see.

David Willis, for the first time since the U.S. Israeli strikes began on Saturday, one of Iran's proxies in the region, Hezbollah, has entered the war.

And by rockets and drones at Israel, the first time it's done so since the ceasefire came into effect with Israel nearly a year and a half ago. In return, the Israeli military carried out strikes on Hezbollah's strongholds in the Lebanese capital, Beirut, and ordered residents of dozens of villages in southern Lebanon to evacuate. Linus and Javyn Beirut told us more about the situation there. The explosions that happened in Beirut were very loud, countered almost like around 20, that I've heard from where I'm standing here.

The explosions, the attacks like struck the city, everyone woke up, big lines of civilians fleeing both south of Lebanon and southern Beirut. People are too scared, living the memories of the attacks that were launched by Israel last year to cripple his blood. A war that destroyed many of the south of Beirut and southern Lebanon. The prime minister of the statement blaming whoever was behind this is dragging the whole country into a catastrophe situation. Linus and Javyn, with more on this, here's our Middle East bureau chief Joe Floto who's in Tel Aviv.

Israel has certainly been bracing itself and redding itself for this moment. It's called up around 100,000 reserveists and some of that focus has been on the north, but if you take back a bit of context, Israel and Hezbollah and Lebanon signed a ceasefire deal about 14 months ago in that intervening period. There has barely been a day in which Israel hasn't struck his blood targets inside Lebanon, much the annoyance of the Lebanese government and the Lebanese people, hundreds of people have been killed in those campaigns.

And when it came to this new front against Iran, what the expectation was that a group like Hezbollah that has been backed to the tune of billions of dollars by Iran,

And the death of the Iatana appears to have been the prompt here in their statement, they say that he was unjustly martyred, unjustly killed, interestingly in the statement, it appears that they're trying to limit their response to this one target near Heifer. Now, the Israeli defense forces are not going to limit their response to it appears, they have for a while been asking for the opportunity to attack a wider range of targets, and indeed in the preceding week, they have struck Lebanon several times attacking the Bechar Valley, which is the headquarters of Hezbollah and seeking to degrade their capacity to strike Israel.

“Joe Floto, in Tel Aviv, President Trump has repeatedly urged people in Iran to rise up against their government despite the huge security forces it still has at its disposal.”

Security forces at last month did not hesitate to gun down thousands of peaceful protestors.

So, how likely is it that the people of Iran will once again take to the streets. BBC Persians, Batman Carbassi, is monitoring the situation there. Clearly, the bombardment, especially in the city of Tehran, is having a major impact both on the military and intelligence targets of the government, but also in daily life of Iranians.

“We've seen images of famous hospital in northern Tehran being impacted by bombs that were dropped right next to the building and a residential area as well as the major broadcasting corporation of the state.”

And so, the reality of the extension of these bombings into the second day and longer obviously will make the life of a lot of millions of Iranians more complicated as it goes on.

So, the question of how much of it will impact the forces of the government that were used just under two months ago to suppress the protesters or will they be targeted in the coming days. Iran was famously one that was a place of attacking protesters was burned down, so by one of these bombs, so that that sort of juxtaposition of what the targets are and how impacts the life of Iranians.

“He also told us there is still very limited internet access in Iran, many Iranians outside the country are struggling to contact their relatives, including one woman who's spoken to the BBC, we're not naming her for her and safety.”

She started by giving us her reaction to this weekend's attacks on Iran.

What happens in Iran right now? It's a little complicated. Well, I'm happy that how many died someone that killed many people, tortured a lot of people, I know some people, some of them my friends that they're tortured and I've imprisoned because of his orders. I know people that lost their family members because of this person, to see him going down and dying finally, I'm happy, I'm extremely happy, especially as on minority, I'm even happier because he didn't have the nicest view, the most practical view when it came to minorities in Iran.

And now he's dead. Just like me, my family members and everyone is happy because of this regime, we still don't have any internet, this isn't weird because the last time in 12th their war, they didn't turn off the internet. And now they do, so they can have more control over their people, so they're thinking about that more than protecting their own people, they think about killing their people. And it is making me stressful, I cannot talk to my family members, so that my friends in Turkey helped me, and this is a chaos because in some way I'm happy, in the other way, I'm extremely stressed out, my friends here that have family members are stressed out, we don't know what's going to happen to our family members, we don't know the future of Iran.

So I only wish the best, and of course any kind of invasion is not encouraged, I don't like war, of course. But I think this was a necessary intervention to stop the killings, I thought we still have some executions. I think this was necessary, but if it goes on too long, I don't think that Iran will come out in one piece.

- Still to come in this podcast? - Specific intelligence came from a combination of massage and CI, and perhaps some of the signals intelligence elements that support them, and really the overall campaign is a result of decades of work.

An insight into the complex operation that resulted in Israel and the U.S. assassinating Iran's supreme leader.

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- The comes in Syria holding families of the Islamic State group are back in the spotlight. - The US and is ready strikes and the Iranian retaliation have sent shock waves worldwide through sectors from shipping to air travel to oil amid warnings of rising energy costs and disruption to business particularly in the Gulf region. - When the Asian markets opened on Monday morning oil prices jumped more than 10%. - Not just because of the war but because Iran has told tankers to keep away from a vital shipping route, the straight of whole mues with several ships in the area coming under attack.

- Around a fifth of the world's oil and gas passes through the straight of hormones in normal times. - Our business reporter Nick Marsh and Singapore gave me this update on oil prices and stock markets. - The reason for the big jump is clear.

- You've got the most crucial choke point for oil tankers in the world effectively becoming in those goes overnight.

- The reason for this easing after that initial spike not quite as clear could be traders just taking a breath looking at the fact that the oil market was generally actually quite oversupplied anyway before these latest developments. - Other major producers are stepping up their output and that you know for now we've only got three confirmed attacks on ships. - The Iranian seem to be focusing much more in the US base is not quite as much on the oil tankers in the straight of hormones. - In terms of stock markets they're down generally here in Asia 90% of this oil passing through the straight of hormones goes to Asia by the way.

- Gold is also up not traditionally a safe haven in terms of uncertainty but generally we're not seeing dramatic swings because frankly speaking the market did know that something like this was possible.

“- And it's sort of freezing of the shipping going through the straight of hormones continues what would that mean for the global economy?”

- The longer it goes on the more significant it is the straight of hormones is very very important it's this narrow stretch of sea just south of Iran north of Oman and the UAE as you say one in every five barrels of oil consumed globally passes through the straight of hormones. - Now for now there's no formal blockade preventing tankers from passing through this choke point but around repeatedly warned vessels not to pass through shipping companies understandably just don't want to take the risk we've seen attacks in the past.

- This situation continues and this crucial route remains impossible for several days weeks maybe that oil can't go anywhere anyway and that really would have an impact on prices and the whole world economy it just really depends how long this goes on for. - Maybe a travel disruption in the Middle East. - Yeah absolutely so Abu Dhabi though hard and do buy those three massive connecting travel hubs all closing their airspace that means you've got thousands of thousands of people stranded governments around the world are going to look at how to get them out again depends on how long this goes on for.

- In a joint statement the UK France and Germany have accused Iran of carrying out indiscriminate and disproportionate strikes on their allies in the Middle East the leaders of the three European nations say they'll work with the US to stop Iran's revenge attacks which also threaten their citizens and military personnel in the region. - As part of that effort the British Prime Minister Kirsdama who had refused to let the US use British military bases for its attacks on Iran has said he will now allow America to use them but only for defensive strikes against Iranian missiles.

- A move he says is in line with international law. - Our decision that the UK would not be involved with the strikes on Iran was deliberate not least because we believe that the best way forward for the region and for the world is an negotiated settlement one in which Iran agrees to give up any aspirations to develop a nuclear weapon.

“- But the only way to stop the threat is to destroy the missiles at source. Do United States have requested permission to use British bases for that specific and limited defensive purpose?”

- I asked our political correspondent Rob Watson whether this mark does significant shift given Britain's earlier refusal to allow the US to use its bases for strikes.

- Yes it is a significant shift I mean up until now the British position has been to really try and distance itself from the operation but of course without criticizing it I guess the British government would say that this was an evolution in policy rather than a screeching uter and a somewhat describe it. - I'm going to argue as Sikir Stama has done in a video that essentially it's responding to events on the ground in particular what he called a scorched earth policy by the Iranian regime in other words that missile attacks in the region threatened British civilians he said but also threatens UK allies UK interests and therefore in what he called an an act of collective self defense.

“- The US would be allowed to use UK bases for this very specific and limited purpose of targeting missile launchers in Iran.”

- Do we know which bases are likely to be used?

- We do we think there's going to be a base in England called FAFORD and within there's also going to be the base and San and Diego Garcia which of course has been in the news because Britain has been trying to arrange a deal with Mauritius to have a long term lease on that base which has seen as absolutely

“vital it's in the middle of the Indian Ocean and is currently used by the US and the UK.”

- And Kirstama very keen to stress that these bases are going to be used for defensive operations not any attacks on Iranian interests because he says the UK has learnt the lessons from the Iraq War more than 20 years ago. - Yes and this is Sikir Stama being well aware of the skepticism amongst many voters about number one the UK's military partnership with the US and particularly anything involving regime change in attempts to introduce democracy whether in the Middle East or anywhere else so this is very much a nod to that and certainly there is quite clearly a divide in the UK and we're seeing that playing out over the last 24 hours.

With those on the left broadly very critical of the US and Israeli action against Iran and those more on the centre and right saying that the Britain's position of sort of trying to sit on the fence is pretty reprehensible and that they should get behind what the UK should get behind what Israel and the United States are attempting to do so absolutely a very very divisive issue in this country.

Rob Watson and just hours after this announcement the British Defence Ministry said an air force base in Cyprus was targeted by suspected drone strike. No casualties were reported.

Former CIA director General David Petrayer told the BBC that it was a culmination of many years of painstaking intelligence operations.

“The specific intelligence this time I suspect came from a combination of Mossad and CIA and perhaps some of the signals intelligence elements that support them as well and really the overall campaign is a result of decades of work.”

In fact when I was the central commander back in 2009 we developed the plan to destroy the Iran nuclear program many features of which are part of this campaign although obviously the 12 day air campaign used some as well. Our security analyst Gordon Carrera said timing was crucial. It does look like this was a moment a window of opportunity that the US and Israel store because they got this intelligence on the whereabouts of the supreme leader and you were some of the other senior leadership figures were.

And that explains really that unusual fact of a strike effectively mid morning about 9.45 Iranian time on Saturday morning rather than the night time strike for surprise that you'd normally get because they had this advanced notice of where the supreme leader would be which appears by some reports have come from the CIA and built off this long period of trying to track and understand movements effectively then they decided to act on and move a plan into place that they already had to launch the whole campaign based on that initial leadership.

We know it would have to be there early because it's going to take a couple of hours for the jets to get from Israel to Tehran or to be in striking distance of Tehran roughly 90 minutes to two hours and you need advance warning to make the decision and to put all the other pieces in place to launch the campaign so it's no good knowing where the supreme leader is now you need to know where he's going to be in a few hours time and that's clearly something they had and knowledge of other leadership figures at the same time.

“What does it say about the intelligence penetration?”

It's massive. We know that even from last summer's 12-day war in operation midnight hammer when they took out the Iranian nuclear program that they'd be able to identify specific scientists know where they were and target them and the that level of penetration of the Iranian system has been enormous and the some of the reports are there inside the telecom system they're inside the mobile phone networks they know who the body guards of people are and then are able to watch them understand their movement to work out where they might be.

I mean what is striking is that of course Iran saw that last summer and has not been able to close up the vulnerability and they saw it with this mill earlier and they've seen a very much it was killed in an ARGC company. Exactly and they saw it a few years ago with motion for a cruiser day who was the head of the Iranian nuclear program who was taken out on a drive so they've known for a long time that their top figures are being trapped and they've not been able to deal with that. Now, whether they've failed to close the gaps or whether the U.S. and Israel have been able to find new ways in new methods but a lot of this and you can see some hints from Donald Trump's social media post involves tracking.

It's likely to be a combination of maybe some human sources networks in there but also the ability to do things like track phones associated with people and get inside the system.

Gordon Carrera talking to Christian Fraser.

“And that's all from us for now. If you want to get in touch, you can email us at [email protected].”

This edition of the Global News Podcast was mixed by Daniel Fox. The producers were shunt our heartl and she warned Leahy, the editor's Karen Martin.

I'm Jenna Jaleel and until next time, goodbye. People don't know about the 'dark web'. Under cover, in the furthest corners of the dark web, U.S. special agents are on a mission to locate and rescue children from abuse. From the BBC World Service, World of Secrets, the darkest web follows their shocking investigations. Listen on BBC.com or wherever you get to a BBC podcast.