Chapter 1: What triggered the recent strikes on Iran by Israel and the US?
This is the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service. I'm Alex Ritson, and at 14 hours GMT on Sunday 1st March, we're looking at the continuing fallout from US and Israeli strikes on Iran. The country has come under attack for a second day following the death of the Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Many Iranians have been celebrating the demise of the man they blame for thousands of deaths despite an official declaration of mourning. In this edition, we'll hear the latest from the strikes in Iran and Tehran's strikes on Israel and across the Middle East. We'll ask what legal basis President Trump had to launch these attacks and how it's being seen by his supporters and rivals.
And we'll find out what happens next in Tehran now that the regime is without its supreme leader. In the last edition of the Global News podcast, we reported that Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, had been killed in his office in the first wave of US-Israeli strikes on Saturday.
In the hours since then, loud explosions have again been heard across Tehran as Israel maintains its operations against the Iranian capital. Many Iranians inside and outside the country celebrated the news that the man who held absolute power for 40 years was dead. but others mourned his death, including these people on the streets of the Iranian capital.
Several high-ranking officials were also killed in Saturday's attacks. The Israeli military named seven senior Iranian defence officials among the dead. The Iranian president, Massoud Peseshgian, said the killing of the Ayatollah was a declaration of war against Muslims and said it was Iran's legitimate duty to avenge him.
Our Middle East analyst, Sebastian Usher, told me just how significant a moment this is.
From the perspective of the U.S. and Israel, I mean, there couldn't have been a better start to this campaign to have taken out the supreme leader in the opening hours. I mean, it seems clear now that that was the reason why the attack took place when it did, because the opportunity presented itself. I mean, last summer during the 12 day war, President Trump had spoken about it. The U.S.
and Israel's ability to kill Khamenei if they wanted to, but there seemed a sense then that Trump was holding back from that.
The fact that they have targeted him and done so successfully shows the huge gulf between what happened then and what's happening now, that this is aimed at a complete root and branch change in the way that the Iranian regime is functioning, if it continues to function at all.
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Chapter 2: How are the Iranian people reacting to the strikes and the death of Khamenei?
As far as the regime itself is concerned, I mean, obviously, it's a huge blow practically and symbolically. But I mean, it has to be taken into account that Khamenei wasn't a dictator as such. He was the main authority. He was the final decision maker in Iran. He held the true reins of power. But the kind of system that had involved under the decades of
of his supreme leadership was one in which a number of regime institutions have become extremely powerful beneath him and around him. And as far as the regime is concerned, they will be hoping that those can withstand this blow and that they will be able to Sebastian Usher.
Gauging the mood in Iran is difficult during these extraordinary times in the history of the Islamic Republic. The country is under an almost total internet blackout and few Western journalists are allowed into Iran. But we are seeing reports of casualties in the country. The Iranian Red Crescent says more than 200 people have been killed and more than 700 injured in airstrikes.
State media has reported that strikes killed at least 148 people at a school in southern Iran, including children. parents and teachers. The U.S. military says it's looking into these reports, while the IDF of Israel says it was not aware of any operations in the area.
It is clear in Iran, though, that the assassination of the supreme leader has convulsed the country in a way millions of Iranians have never felt before. BBC Persian is monitoring developments, and Kazra Nagy told me more about the public reaction.
Iran is now officially in mourning. They've announced some 40 days of mourning and a week of closures of government offices and schools and universities and so on. But unofficially, people are celebrating at home, if not outside the home, but also with a lot of trepidation. Many people are very concerned as to what might happen next.
Will this bring Iranians closer together or divide them further?
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Chapter 3: What potential consequences could arise from the attack on Iran?
The fact is that the regime has its supporters still. And today a lot of them are out on the streets showing they are mourning. And the Iranian television is covering their gatherings. The gatherings are not that big. I've seen the pictures on the Iranian TV. Only the place that I've seen big numbers coming out is Isfahan in central Iran, traditionally religious sort of area.
But nevertheless, also, we have videos of people celebrating in various parts of the country. at homes, at night shouting slogans against the government. So there's quite a bit of divide. But the Iranians are aware that the Americans and the Israelis are planning for this to go on for a few days, for about five days or four days, according to reports that we're getting.
Chapter 4: What legal justifications did President Trump use for the attacks on Iran?
from the American side. So I suppose people are waiting to see what happens, whether there will be space for them to come out and show what they want and whether they can actually grab those levers of power that Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu are calling on them to do.
We heard Seb there talking about this three-person council who will run the country until a new leader is chosen. But can you choose a new supreme leader when the country is under attack like this?
I think Iran has gone through a lot of traumas of this type. So they are quite good at sort of trying to keep some semblance of normality. and continuity. There are systems in place, like, for example, this three-member council that they've just chosen is for a very short period of transition. Then we have this council of experts assembly made of very senior clergymen.
They have to decide whether they want a collective leadership or a single leader. They will decide in the next few days.
Qasra Najee from BBC Persian.
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Chapter 5: How is the situation in Iran expected to evolve without its Supreme Leader?
So how long will the US and Israeli strikes go on in Iran? And do both nations have a long-term plan for the future of Iran? Jonathan Conricus is the former international spokesman for the Israeli Defence Forces, or IDF, and now a senior fellow at the Washington think tank, the Foundation for Defence of Democracies.
The US and Israel have plans in plural, not entirely sure that the plan is identical here. I think Israel would aspire for a more binary solution, as in a real regime change and for the regime really to be completely dismantled and for all of the threats that
The Iranian regime has posed towards Israel that they will actually be taken off the table, whereas I believe that the U.S., from its perspective, perhaps has slightly more conservative goals and would suffice with no nuclear program and perhaps no ballistic missiles. The X factor here, the most important component with regards to the future, is the Iranian people.
they are the ones who will eventually decide the outcome. Their actions will decide the fate of the regime. And I think they've been absolutely, tremendously brave so far standing up to the regime. And what we're seeing now is that the US and Israel responded to that bravery, saw the opportunity and has given the Iranian people that help that they needed. And from here on,
As the Iranian regime will be degraded more and more in terms of military capabilities, the opportunity for the Iranian people will be very significant.
former IDF spokesman Jonathan Conricus. Iran initially responded to the Israel-US attack with a flurry of missile and drone strikes across the Middle East, killing at least two people in Abu Dhabi and another in Tel Aviv, before following up with a new wave after state media confirmed Khamenei's death.
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Chapter 6: What are the implications of Iran's retaliatory strikes across the region?
Speaking at the scene of an Iranian retaliatory strike in Tel Aviv, Israel's President Isaac Herzog had this to say.
We're here... with a message to the people of Israel and the entire region. Stay strong. This is a historic, historic effort to change the trajectory in the Middle East to a different future, a future of peace. We've been for generations confronted by an empire of evil.
Ali Khamenei spent a whole generation of taking his people's resources and directing them towards terror, bloodshed, pain and horror.
I spoke to the BBC's John Donison, who's at the scene of that strike.
I'm in front of an apartment block that has been completely flattened. It's reduced to rubble, really, and that is where one of the Iranian ballistic missiles got through. Most of them are being shot down by Israel's air defence system, but it's here that we had the first casualty in Israel of this war, a woman who we think was a Filipino care worker looking after someone in that building.
was killed and a number of other people have been injured and all morning the sirens have been going off here. I've heard loud explosions overhead. Just as we were driving to Tel Aviv, we saw a couple of Iranian missiles being shot down directly above our car.
So, you know, the Iranians have said this is going to be the most devastating operation in their history in retaliation and they do seem to be being true to their word.
The Israelis must have had very good intelligence, incredible intelligence, to target the Iranian leadership so precisely. What have you heard?
Well, they do. I mean, that's pretty obvious. They have completely penetrated Iranian security. They have agents on the ground there. They have high-tech surveillance. But what struck me about this assassination was that You know, the Iranians had led us to believe that the Supreme Leader had been taken out of Tehran, he was in hiding.
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