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Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
You're listening to the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service. Hello, I'm Oliver Conway. We're recording this at 16 hours GMT on Tuesday 17th March. Israel says it's killed one of the most powerful figures in Iran, Ali Larijani. A top US counter-terrorism official resigns over the war, saying Iran posed no imminent threat.
And medical sources in Afghanistan say more than 100 bodies have been recovered after a Pakistani airstrike on a drug rehabilitation centre. Also in the podcast... what we've learned from the earliest known recording of Whale Song.
After the Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei was killed at the start of the US-Israeli offensive 17 days ago, Iran's powerful security chief, Ali Larijani, reportedly took over behind the scenes. Now, according to Israel, he has suffered the same fate as his former boss.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and I have instructed the IDF to continue to haunt the leadership of the terror and oppressive regime in Iran, to cut off the head of the octopus and not let it grow. I was updated by the chief of staff that the secretary of the National Security Council, Larry Jani, and the head of the Basij, the main oppression body of Iran, were eliminated overnight.
Chapter 2: What recent events led to Israel claiming the deaths of Iranian leaders?
The Israeli defence minister, Israel Katz, announcing the deaths of Ali Larry Jani. and Hulamreza Suleimani, head of the IRGC's volunteer paramilitary force, the Besiege. Iran hasn't commented. Ali Larijani was one of the most powerful leaders left alive in Iran after more than two weeks of attacks. He was a former parliamentary speaker, IRGC commander and the country's nuclear negotiator.
He reportedly tried and failed to get his brother chosen as the next supreme leader, but was said to be close to the man who did get the job – Mujtaba Khamenei. Ironically, Ali Larijani recently told President Trump to be careful, quote, not to be eliminated. As recently as Friday, he was seen walking defiantly through the streets of Tehran for the annual Al-Quds Day march.
The problem with Trump is that he's not intelligent enough to understand that Iranians are a mature and strong and determined nation. The more pressure he exerts, the stronger our nation's willpower will become. Well, Paham Gobadi from the BBC Persian service told me that if his death is confirmed by Iran, it would be extremely significant.
Chapter 3: What details emerged from the Pakistani airstrike on a drug rehabilitation center in Afghanistan?
He is one of the people who was left behind the scene that was seen as a person who was running the country because the supreme leader of the country, Ali Khamenei, has been killed on the first minute of the war when it broke out. His son, who has become the third supreme leader of Iran, his whereabouts is unknown. His health condition is unknown.
Nobody knows if he's in a shape and form to be able to run the country or not. We know that a few days ago, one Iran's member of parliament said that there was an assassination attempt on his life, not once, but twice. Once in a hospital, once on the first day of the war. However, Ali Larijani comes from a family that the entire family is extremely powerful.
He was, as you mentioned, the Speaker of Iranian Parliament for 12 years. Before that, he was the head of Iran's national TV. And before that, he also comes from Revolutionary Guard because Iran has two armies, one conventional regular army. The other one is the Revolutionary Guards that is very loyal to the Supreme Leader, extremely ideological. So he has come from that kind of background.
Now, in today's politics, he was seen as a bridge between the military, between the Revolutionary Guards and different faction of the powers. He was a conservative, but he was seen as a pragmatic conservative. However, his rhetoric changed tremendously after the war. broke out as you played one of his audios, he became more belligerent to the United States, to also Donald Trump.
Once, even during the 12-day war, he threatened to kill the head of International Energy Agency, implying that he would be killed because he said, let the dust settle and we'll come after you. Because IAEA's report, Iranians believe, that paved the way for the first round of the war with Israel. Regardless, he was a very important figure.
And in today's Iran scene, there are not a lot of people who can run the country. So after he is killed, one of the very few people who is left is Mohammad Boger Ghalibov, the current Speaker of the Parliament.
He, after the 12-day war, he said that because so many commanders, Iranian commanders, Revolutionary Guards commanders were killed, he was the person in charge of the military operations against Israel. So he was running the fight against the country.
He is, I wouldn't be surprised if he's now leading the fight and also running the country because he also is a pilot and he also comes from Revolutionary Guards and he has a Revolutionary Guard background. Yeah, talking of the Revolutionary Guards, they are basically in control of the streets in Iran, along with the Besiege militia, that volunteer group which works under them.
And now the head of the Besiege has also been killed. That's correct. So Basij, for your non-Iranian audience, it's a paramilitia group that is a kind of sub-branch of revolutionary guards. This is where they recruit the youth in the mosques. So in the mosques, they have this Basij headquarters. Then the young people, they try to recruit the young people as young as 14 and 15.
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Chapter 4: What was the reaction from Iran following the announcement of these deaths?
A 25-year-old teacher from Maracaibo, hoping to move to Spain. I don't know what it is like to be able to go on the street and don't feel like you could get killed at any point in time just because you posted the wrong thing in social media. I want to earn money and feel like I can live somewhere that actually has electricity.
Chapter 5: Why is an AI firm seeking a chemical weapons expert?
She grew up watching her mother cry when the family did not have enough money for the week, and people looting shops in her hometown, Maracaibo, when power cuts lasted a week. She's lived through too many cycles of things getting better, then worse again, to believe things will be different just because Maduro is gone. It can be very lonely.
Most of my friends had to flee the country to pursue something better. Not all young people are convinced by the US's intervention. But one thing I clearly heard that unites many young Venezuelans who have never lived through a change of political party is they want less polarisation and corruption, with, crucially, the freedom to speak without fear. Ione Wells reporting from Venezuela.
And still to come in this podcast... What's wrong with that? Edmund Dorf. All the best Englishmen have funny names. Much more convincing. I'm sorry, I just don't feel like an Edmund Dorf. Charming. We look back at the life of the spy thriller author Len Dayton, who's died aged 97. This is the Global News Podcast.
Pakistan has long accused Afghanistan of harbouring Pakistani militant groups, something the Taliban government denies.
Chapter 6: What is the significance of Len Deighton's contributions to literature?
The ongoing conflict between the two former allies intensified in February when Pakistan launched new airstrikes on what it said were militant targets in Afghanistan. But now the Pakistani military is accused of hitting a drug rehabilitation centre in Kabul. Video footage from the scene showed flashes of light, explosions and a giant plume of smoke.
Sharafat Zaman from the Afghan Health Ministry says hundreds of people died. Unfortunately, we have more than 400 civilian casualties that they were targeted from the Pakistani military regime. It was a totally civilian area and it was a health facility that they targeted. Unfortunately, the Pakistani military regime there doing propaganda that we targeted the TTA or TTP
But the reality, in fact, we have lots of media partners. They have witnessed that here we have totally civilian casualties. Lots of them, they were health professionals and also medical staff. And 400-plus were the killed people. They were under the treatment in the hospital. The BBC's Yama Bariz in Kabul visited the scene about an hour after the fire broke out. We got to the hospital.
It was a scene of total carnage. There were fire everywhere. There were bodies lying all over the place. There were debris. There were twisted iron rods from the building's structure. And there were paramedics, ambulances. I personally saw over 30 bodies being carried to the ambulances. Tens of ambulances were standing in a line there.
We saw members of the families of these drug addicts outside the hospital. There were women crying. They wanted desperately to get some information about their loved ones.
When we spoke to authorities there, at that time, the authorities did not have any exact number about deaths and injuries, but they estimated that it could be hundreds because 3,000 drug addicts were being treated in that facility. It's a huge rehabilitation facility.
There are several blocks, but this bomb, which has landed on this building, had hit one block, and that block was completely reduced to rubble. And because according to the officials, a lot of wood was used in this structure because it was sort of a makeshift rehabilitation structure. So that's why they say that the fire was burning and a complete distraction, a complete scene of total carnage.
Yamar Baris in Kabul. And sources at the Kabul Forensic Medicine Department have now told the BBC that more than 100 bodies have been recovered after the strike so far. Pakistan, meanwhile, has denied targeting the rehabilitation centre, saying it only hits military sites. I spoke to the BBC's Caroline Davis in Islamabad.
Very quickly on social media, we saw a response from the Ministry of Information in Pakistan saying that this was not the case, that they had been targeting military sites, as they refer to it, sites that can facilitate militant activity as well. And since then, we have heard them really continue with that line.
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