Qatar confirms Iran attack on US airbase | BBC News

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Iran has launched missiles at a key US airbase in Qatar.

Retaliation, it says, for the recent American bombing of its nuclear sites, ordered by President Trump.

Iran's Revolutionary Guards have released these images and issued a statement saying Iran will not leave any attack on its territorial integrity, sovereignty and national security unanswered under any circumstances.

Qatar confirmed the attack on the U.S. base al-Udeid.

Qatar called it a flagrant violation and said it reserves the right to respond directly.

There are reports Iran may have telegraphed the attack in advance to Qatar and even to the United States with indications this was a largely symbolic choreographed missile strike.

Iran says six missiles were used.

Well, Al Udeid is the largest U.S. military base in the Middle East, the forward operating base of U.S. Central Command in the Middle East and home to nearly 8,000 American troops.

President Trump visited it only a few weeks ago.

The Pentagon says the base was attacked by short and medium-range ballistic missiles launched from Iran, but there are no reports, it says, of U.S. casualties.

Meanwhile, in Washington, Donald Trump is due to attend a National Security Council meeting shortly after the bombing of Iran that he ordered.

And he had said that any retaliation by Iran would be, quote, met by force far greater.

So now the question is, how will he respond to these Iranian attacks that we've just been telling you about?

Well, let's get the very latest now.

Joining us is John Donison, who's in Washington.

Ione Wells, who's in Jerusalem.

And Nafiseh Konevard, who's in Baghdad.

John, let's go to you first of all.

All eyes really on Donald Trump now to see how he responds to this response from Iran.

Yes, and as you say, everyone wants to know the answer to that, and I don't think I can give that.

We're going to have to wait and see.

But certainly, since these attacks were launched, it does seem that they were somewhat telegraphed.

There was some sort of warning.

And we've actually just had the Republican speaker of the House of Representatives here saying that this sort of response from Iran was anticipated.

And given that there are no...

casualties reported on the ground, no U.S. servicemen injured or killed.

We don't even know whether any of these missiles from Iran met their target.

I do think that certainly the Iranians are giving a signal that, you know, this might be some sort of off-ramp.

Everyone, as the previous guest here on BBC World was saying, is playing to their domestic audience.

That's what Donald Trump has got to do.

That's what the Qataris are doing, the Israelis and the Iranians.

So the Iranians, they needed to send a signal that what America did on Saturday evening, the early hours of Sunday morning, couldn't be met without some sort of response.

But it does seem that this was relatively moderate in terms of the damage it's done.

John, for the moment, thank you very much indeed.

Let's go to Ioni Wells, who's covering events in Israel for us.

Ioni, what is the reaction in Israel to what we've been hearing about these Iranian attacks on this U.S. base in Qatar?

continued carrying out further strikes on Iran.

They see this sort of wider target as something they need to continue doing.

They've said just this evening as well that they have been striking further military targets, including the headquarters of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard.

but also other targets that they say are associated with the regime, including a prison, which it's understood was where various political prisoners were detained in Iran, people who had, for example, opposed the Iranian leadership.

essentially said that its military is continuing to strike these different targets in Iran this evening, will continue to do so.

There is no sign that events that have taken place this evening have changed that.

And certainly the big question now really, though, has been will Iran carry out further retaliation, both

towards Israel here, but also to potential other U.S. bases in the region?

And, of course, as John was referencing there, how does the U.S. respond?

Do they take this message of the fact that no U.S. personnel were injured or hurt in this, do they take that as an indication to not necessarily respond at this point?

Or is there going to be further escalation?

This is something people in the region are waiting for.

Mayoni, thank you very much indeed.

And let's go to Nafisa Khonavad, who's in Baghdad, in Iraq.

What has been the response to all this there?

Well, here in Iraq, first everyone told that there were news about activation of air defence system in Al-Assad Air Base, housing US forces in part of Iraq in Al-Anbar.

province.

But it is now clear that there was no other attack on any other basis, U.S. bases in the region, including Iraq, that everyone was very worried here that there might be attack on U.S. bases here in this country, which had previously experienced that.

And the evacuation of the U.S. embassy, you may see a part of it behind me on the other side of

Tigris River, it was evacuated.

And that really caused a kind of interpretation that this might be a target, Iraq might be a target.

But now it is clear that the air defense system in Al-Assad Air Base and also in other countries like Kuwait have been activated.

to intercept these missiles that were firing towards Qatar but there was no other attack to different countries.

But all Persian Gulf countries, one after another, like Emirates, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia,

Jordan, and even somehow Oman, that was supposed to host Iran-U.S. talk, they condemned the escalation.

For the earlier fall, they clearly condemned the attack, but Oman used a bit more moderate language, saying that the escalation happened triggered by

Israeli attack first and asking for de-escalation.

So the question is, was it all the response that Iran was going to give?

For now, I know that the whole region is in high alert.

All the flights are being canceled to the various airports in the region, including UAE,

and even Jordan and in some part in Lebanon.

And here in Baghdad, the airspace is still closed.

So there are expectations that there might be other attacks, but also,

There is other understanding that there was a very delicate calculation in this response and it is one of response to kind of at least de-escalate for the moment with the US, not probably with Israel.

OK, Nafis, thank you very much in Baghdad.

And also thanks to Ione Wells in Jerusalem and John Donison, who's in Washington with the very latest from there.

And we'll be, of course, crossing back to Washington as soon as we get any more news on how President Trump plans to respond to this.

And we can speak now to somebody who was on the ground when the missiles, those Iranian missiles, were intercepted in Qatar.

Well, Helen Markey is a school teacher who was on her way home when she took that video of the skies above.

And Helen's safely now at home.

We can speak to her.

Thank you very much indeed for joining us.

Just tell us a bit more about what you saw, what you heard and what you felt.

Yeah, I mean, for us, it was really unexpected.

It all happened incredibly quickly.

We were aware of rising political tensions in the region between the US and Iran, and that we had heard that the US had advised its citizens to take shelter in place.

But we really had no idea what was about to happen.

And about two hours later, I left my apartment and I was just getting into my car.

And all of a sudden I saw the sky was illuminated with what seemed like hundreds of missiles.

And I can only describe it as it was mesmerizing and terrifying all in one.

And what we saw were these really bright lights that were suspended in the sky.

And then all of a sudden they would shoot towards something and there'd be an explosion.

And it was a loud explosion.

We were hearing this and we were feeling the rumbles in our apartment block.

Yeah, pretty terrifying situation for us.

And a lot of those probably, one assumes, were interceptor missiles trying to bring down the Iranian missiles.

But was this an attack in some ways you were expecting?

There is a huge American base there.

The Iranians had promised retaliation for the US bombing over the weekend.

Yeah, we weren't expecting it at all.

We were checking our emails.

We'd heard that schools were closing in Doha.

We were checking our emails to see if we were closing ourselves, but we had no idea that there was about to be an attack on the American military base in Doha.

As I said, it did happen incredibly quickly.

This is the last week of school for us in Doha.

So what we were concerned about was whether we were able to get home in the next couple of days.

And we had no idea that this was going to happen.

And have you had any word from the authorities about what you should be doing now or what you should have been doing earlier?

We've had communications from the school and the government has been good at keeping us, keeping everybody calm.

As far as I'm aware, there's been no casualties.

There have been videos arising of debris that have fallen in the city.

But as far as I'm aware, nobody's been injured.

We're all safe here.

We're back in our apartments.

So it was just a very unexpected and surreal situation to be in.

And unexpected and surreal, was it scary?

Were you frightened?

Yeah, it was very scary, yeah.

Yeah, people were sort of in the streets.

I mean, we were at the...

sort of the ground level of our apartment block, watching it happen.

We weren't sure where to go.

We weren't sure what to do.

We'd never been in this situation before.

But it was when the building started shaking that people started coming down and we congregated down there on the street.

And obviously people were filming and people were visibly very nervous and concerned as to what was happening.

But it ended in about, I don't know, 20 minutes, 30 minutes, I don't know.

And were you pretty sure...

It was over incredibly quickly.

And were you pretty sure, as soon as it happened, what it was, that this was some sort of Iranian response?

I mean, when...

So when I left the apartment...

building and I saw all those lights, it was obvious that they were going in the direction of Iran.

My initial thought was it was bombs.

And I was terrified.

And then, yeah, all of these lights were going in the direction of Iran.

We checked on Google Maps.

And then it was just a very odd thing to see.

These bright lights were sort of falling down towards Iran.

Doha, falling downwards.

And we thought, is there going to be an explosion?

Are these bombs?

And then we realized that actually they were intercepting the Iranian missiles.

And when we knew that, we actually felt a deep sort of sense of relief.

And we felt a lot safer because they were very accurate.

They seemed to be doing a very good job at deterring these missiles.

And just lastly, what about the future now?

Are you worried there'll be more of this or do you think that's it for the time being?

I can't say.

I mean, we weren't really expecting this.

So I don't know what the night has in store for us.

We've closed the schools probably for the rest of the week, but I'm not sure we've closed the schools for tomorrow and we're all taking shelter in our apartment.

Hopefully we'll be able to get back to Europe in the summer, but I don't know what's going to happen.

But yeah, I'm concerned for our students, concerned for all these families that we've got here.

Some are stuck abroad and some are in danger and it's terrifying, to be honest.

All right.

Well, we'll take care.

Stay safe.

Thank you so much for being with us and telling us about your experiences.

That's Helen Markey, who's a schoolteacher who was, as we were saying, on her way home when she took that video of the skies above showing the Iranian missile attack and the interceptor missiles from Qatar designed to bring them down.