US launches 'heavy' strikes on Iran

**Valerie Sanderson** (0:00)
This is the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service. I'm Valerie Sanderson, and at 15HR's GMT on Thursday 30 July, these are our main stories. Jordan and Kuwait have both come under Iranian attack after the United States carried out another wave of strikes on Iran. More than 30 people are known to have died in Japan's earthquake. An object that violated Polish airspace overnight was most likely a Russian missile, according to the Polish Prime Minister. So how significant is the escalation?
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After a short period of relative calm, the US-Israel war with Iran has reignited. The US military says it's completed a heavy wave of strikes in retaliation for Tehran targeting American bases in Jordan on Tuesday. In the last few hours, Jordan and Kuwait have both come under Iranian attack. For days, both Iran and the US had halted strikes as talks apparently restarted in hopes of some type of diplomatic solution. James Menendez has been speaking to our Middle East correspondent, Yolande Nel.

**Yolande Nel** (1:36)
So US forces are said to have bombed dozens of sites in Iran, which they say are linked to the Revolutionary Guards, military command centers, missile and drone sites, coastal surveillance sites, they say. Iranian state media say three Revolutionary Guards members were killed, but also a couple and their child when a residential building on Qeshm Island in the Strait of Hormuz was hit. Now, retaliation came fairly quickly. Kuwait said that one worker was killed in an Iranian attack on a Chinese firm in the north of the country. And then in Jordan, again, five missiles shot down. The armed forces there say no reports of casualties. But this US attack earlier on Iran was said to be a powerful response to Iranian attacks one day ago on US forces in Jordan, which are also said to have been unsuccessful.

**James Menendez** (2:26)
Does it feel like this war, certainly in the moment, is spreading geographically?

**Yolande Nel** (2:33)
Certainly, first of all, you know, the lull that we saw at the end of last week now seems to be over. It remains to be seen, though, if the pattern of, you know, nightly US strikes, Iranian retaliation against US forces and US allies in the region is going to resume. You've still got talks going on in the background via mediators, but, you know, in recent days, the war has widened and it has become more complicated. You know, Saudi Arabia launched those attacks with the US on Iran-backed groups in Iraq. Although we are told from reports that when the Saudi Defense Minister was meeting President Trump last night, he was passing on a message that says that Saudi Arabia is calling for a de-escalation. I don't think we have heard at the last of Iraq, some 20 members of this pro-Iranian militia said to have been killed, as well as several Iranian advisers. And then, of course, you have had in the past week a lot of attention switched as well to the Houthis in Yemen, their threats to Red Sea shipping.

**James Menendez** (3:33)
And the Egyptian authorities saying that a fire which broke out in a port yesterday, they are saying that was a drone attack. I mean, do we know where that drone came from?

**Yolande Nel** (3:45)
That has not been confirmed yet. No party said to have claimed responsibility. There was a big fire that started off the port of Damieta on Egypt's northern Mediterranean coast.
And now we're looking at it as another possible new front in the US-Iran war, and that's causing jitters on the energy markets because of course of its proximity to the Suez Canal, which is really the last safe route out of the Middle East now for Saudi oil. You know, important to mention here that Egypt is a close ally of the US, of course, in the region, but we've had no reports of it coming under attack in the past five months since the Iran War started, unlike other US allies across the Middle East. And that is really because Egypt does have this long time national security policy of not allowing foreign troops to be based on its soil. But of course, Egypt does have significant US commercial interests based there.

**Valerie Sanderson** (4:42)