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Qatar Evacuates Residents Close To U.S. Embassy In Doha; White House Won't Rule Out Blame For Strike On Iran Girl's School; The U.S. Is Using Repurposed Iranian Drone Technology To Attack Iran; Investors Brace For Bigger Backlash From Middle East War; House Oversight Panel Votes To Subpoena AG Pam Bondi In Epstein Probe. Aired 4:30-5a ET

Aired March 05, 2026 - 04:30   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[04:30:00]

ERICA HILL, CNN ANCHOR: After the break, we continue with our breaking news coverage of the war with Iran. We're going to take you live to Doha for a closer look at the evacuations near the U.S. embassy. Stay with us. You're watching CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BECKY ANDERSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: All right. We are coming to you, of course, from our Middle East programming headquarters here in the Gulf in Abu Dhabi in the UAE. I'm Becky Anderson and I want to stay in the Gulf.

I've just got a statement just released from Qatar confirming their air defense systems. They're intercepting a missile attack. This is day six, of course, March the fifth. It is half past 12 in the afternoon there in Qatar. Let's bring in CNN senior producer Bijan Hosseini joining us live. Bish, what can you tell us at this point?

BIJAN HOSSEINI, CNN SENIOR PRODUCER: Hey, Becky. Yes, we've just changed locations. We're actually underneath in a safe place now. But we've been experiencing just maybe two minutes ago, another wave, the fourth wave that we've experienced in quick succession, these sounding very loud. We've seen some of the smoke trails of these interceptions taking place right above us. We're in central West Bay right now.

At least from our perspective the team we've been live in this location every day for six days. These are by far the loudest and longest series of interceptions we've experienced that has been happening on and off every two minutes, as you said. The Ministry of Defense just came out with that statement five minutes ago saying that they are under a missile attack. We believe most of these have been intercepted. We can see the smoke trails from the interceptions that take place above us.

[04:35:00]

But I wanted to, you know, it's worth mentioning that last night we got an alert from the Ministry of Interior. They were asking and, you know, telling residents to evacuate near the U.S. embassy. We had a CNN staff member that got a knock on their door at three o'clock in the morning from police asking them to evacuate their home. They are only 4 kilometers away from the U.S. embassy. They were able to return to their home after about two hours.

The police saying that they obviously were outside that perimeter that police have set up. And that was just as a safety precaution.

As of last night, we didn't hear or see any interceptions taking place near that embassy, neither the people near the embassy. But clearly now an onslaught of attacks coming from Iran.

ANDERSON: It's important to point out that you are seeing an uptick there. I mean that's really significant. And if these are missiles, that is really significant because of course we heard from the Pentagon yesterday that the throttling up in these U.S.-Israel strikes are on Iranian missile systems, launchers, stockpiles. Those are being very much directed at this region of the Gulf.

We have seen less ballistic missile or cruise missiles in coming here to Abu Dhabi, Bijan, but overnight helicopters and fighter jets taking out drone attacks. So we continue to see these swarming drones. The sense was that were seeing less ballistic missiles certainly on this region.

But if we are right to suggest, and it's certainly what this statement that I've just received from Doha suggests, that these are missile attacks and that is, you know, clearly worrying that the Iranians still have the capability to do that. Bijan is in Doha. Bijan, thank you for that.

And just before we leave the topic of Qatar, I do want to point you to some excellent exclusive reporting from my colleague here in Abu Dhabi, Mustafa Selim (ph). You can find that on CNN's digital platform. CNN has learned Iranian bombers came within minutes of striking the largest military base housing U.S. troops before Qatari planes shot them down.

And you can read what we know about that incident and analysis on just how important the Gulf allies actions have been in the last six days online.

Well, the White House not ruling out the possibility that the U.S. military could have been behind the deadly strike on a girls school rule in southern Iran. New before and after satellite images show the extent of the damage from Saturday's strike. Iran's state media said more than 160 students were killed, some as young as 7. The White House says the U.S. does not intentionally target civilians. Here's Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PETE HEGSETH, U.S. DEFENSE SECRETARY: All I can say is that we're investigating that. We of course, never target civilian targets, but we're taking a look at investigating that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ANDERSON: Well, a former CNN correspondent based in Tehran says that people there are suffering. Reza Sayah spoke to CNN earlier explaining how he rushed to get his daughter to safety when these explosions began.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REZA SAYAH, FORMER CNN CORRESPONDENT: I live here. I have a 7 year old daughter and the day where the initial strike happened that hit the supreme leader, she was with me and I heard this earth shaking boom. And I knew what it was and I put her in my car and I raced to the northern part of the town. She's away from Tehran now. She's along the Caspian Sea with her mother where she's safe.

But I miss her very much. I want to hold her and she's safe. But many other people are not innocent people. And I can't tell you about the gruesome images that I've seen. Men, women and children, innocent civilians in their homes, in their cars, in their motorcycles and these airstrikes come and they're ripped to shreds. I mean, so many instances where people are being pulled out of the rubble.

Children saw that school that was hit and that these people have nothing to do with this conflict. And my heart breaks for them.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ANDERSON: Well, that's Reza Sayah, a former correspondent for CNN. I think it's really important just to pause for a moment to consider these civilians caught up in this. You know, we feel it here in the Gulf and it is frightening. But you know, to imagine and to hear from Reza on what is going on there on the ground is really important.

[04:40:04]

It is very difficult to get communications with Iran at this point. So very difficult for any media to be able to report on exactly what is going on and the impact that these U.S.-Israel coordinated strikes are having on people.

Let's move on. The U.S. is putting a new drone into combat for the first time in the war with Iran. The Lucas drone was actually built based off of Iran's drone expertise. U.S. Central Command calls it American made retribution. CNN's Tom Foreman explains how it works.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Let's take a look at what the U.S. is doing right now. They are fielding a previously unused military asset. I'm going to show you a life size model that we bring into our virtual studio here. This is the Lucas drone, low cost unmanned combat attack system. It is, as you can see, about 10 feet long, about an 8 foot wingspan. It weighs about 180 pounds.

It's powered by a propeller back there, which means very low heat signature, hard to track, and up front it can carry about 40 pounds of high explosives.

It is also interestingly based upon a clone of an Iranian drone, the Shahed-136 Kamikaze. The Iranians have been working on this for years. The U.S. got a hold of one, they had engineers take it apart and say, let's build a better version of it. That's what they have done.

And yet the Iranians continue to rely on this and many other types of drones. But this one in particular they rely on for several reasons. One, compared to a missile, which requires a great big launch platform that can be targeted and taken out and then the missiles are no longer useful. But this can be launched from the back of a truck, from the middle of a field, from a boat. Compared to a missile which requires a big production facility which also can be targeted and destroyed.

These can be made in many covert locations all over that are hard to track down. And compared to a missile which will cost at least a million dollars, sometimes several million, this is cheap. Only about $20,000 per unit.

So when we look at these maps out here where you see places where drones have hit or missiles have hit, every time a drone is hit, it doesn't necessarily mean just one drone was launched there. Instead, squadrons of things are launched. They send many of them in because if you have a system out there that can't stop all of them, you only need 10 percent to get through to do a tremendous amount of damage as we have been seeing in these videos in various places.

One of the concerns here is also that the cost of the systems to stop these is higher than the cost of the drones. In many ways military analysts say the Iranians have been preparing for many years for just this type of conflict.

So though they didn't want to have a war necessarily, now that the war has come to it, their use of drones is forcing the U.S. to fight a type of battle that the Iranians would prefer, even as the U.S. tries to turn that weapon back against them.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ANDERSON: Tom Foreman reporting for you. Well, global markets adjusting to the ongoing war in the Middle East and of course, to disruptions to oil and shipping. Analysts looking now at how the conflict could impact economies around the world. And we'll do a live report from the region on that. Up next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[04:46:37]

ANDERSON: Right. I'm Becky Anderson from our Middle East programming headquarters here in Abu Dhabi in the UAE, following the very latest on this war on Iran and its ramifications around not just this region, but the world.

As global markets digest the turmoil caused by the U.S. and Israeli action on Iran, here's a look at key markets in Asia right now. That's the story there. We are seeing a move higher on those markets, investors keeping a close eye on the Middle East and disruptions to energy markets and global shipping.

We talk about why the markets in Asia Pacific might be doing what they're doing today because obviously the U.S. markets will take a lead from those Asian and European markets as they get into their trading day. But let's concentrate on what is going on the water, as it were.

Maritime traffic through this region has already been brought to a virtual halt, and U.S. Futures right now are showing declines. A relative calm in energy markets helped ease some pain in the U.S. stock market on Wednesday after days of volatility.

Let's do a little bit more on this and discuss what we understand to be going on as we bring in Eleni Giokos, who's following these markets for us. And you've been speaking to people around this region and globally about what they what their analysis is of where we stand at present. What are you being told at this point?

ELENI GIOKOS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, what we know is that the Strait of Hormuz is seeing massive disruptions. And we spoke about this yesterday where President Trump said they're going to intervene in terms of insurance. They're going to be intervening in terms of, you know, naval escorts.

And this isn't creating, you know, an environment where there's belief that we're going to return back to the 20 million barrels of oil per day through the Strait of Hormuz. And it's a big reality, and this is why you're seeing oil prices increasing today.

I want to show you this map, and it's really indicative of where we are right now. You've got a congregation of vessels that are waiting to move in and out of the Strait of Hormuz. The green that you see, and we can zoom into this showing the cargo vessels, remember there's a lot of goods moving in and out of the region. And then the red are the tankers, the ones that are carrying the oil.

We also heard confirmation from the South Koreans that are seven oil tankers waiting and trapped and stuck, waiting to get through. And we've been consistently hearing about tankers being struck over the last few days. So it is a very dangerous situation.

It's not that shippers can't get insurance and wartime insurance policies on this is that they've suspended operations. And that is certainly going to have an impact on the amount of oil that flows specifically to Asia, China and the likes of India being significantly impacted.

ANDERSON: It's interesting, isn't it? Because that's the story as things stand. And that's pretty -- that's a pretty worrying situation there.

GIOKOS: Yes.

ANDERSON: I mean, we've got a kind of virtual standstill, haven't we? And yet we saw quite significant bounces across these Asian markets overnight, not being reflected actually in the U.S. Futures market. But that may change as we move towards the U.S. trading day.

So what are people suggesting about why it is that we've seen that bounce this Thursday, March the fifth?

GIOKOS: So yesterday we had Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent coming in and saying everything is going to be OK in terms of energy, you know, supply.

[04:50:01]

The U.S. has got this. What we saw happening yesterday in European markets and U.S. markets, it was just a little bit of like, you know, risk back onto the table. Now there's a recalibration. But in Asia, interestingly, there was just such a huge sell off over the last few days. And I think investors, from what I've been hearing, are taking the opportunity to buy back.

Specifically in South Korea, we saw the cost be up 10 percent after losing about 15 percent over the last few days. So again, there's a lot of confusion. There's jitteriness and uncertainty. The question comes down to how long this is going to last.

ANDERSON: Do me a favor, because you and I are going to talk again. Go look at the volumes on these markets because I'll be really interested to see just how much is actually going on or how many are actually stepping away from these markets completely. And if that is the case, then you see a lot more volatility --

GIOKOS: Yes.

ANDERSON: -- when you see lower volumes to it.

GIOKOS: Exactly.

ANDERSON: So let's have a look and see.

GIOKOS: The VIX index is an interesting metric we'll chat about.

ANDERSON: Good. Thank you, Eleni. All right, Eleni Giokos there. We've got a check of some of the other day's headlines when we return, including a bipartisan moving Congress to subpoena U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi. More on that is after this.

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[04:55:00]

HILL: The U.S. House Oversight Committee has voted to subpoena Attorney General Pam Bondi to testify about her handling of the Jeffrey Epstein files. Republican lawmaker Nancy Mace introduced the motion on Wednesday, which passed with bipartisan support, the vote of 24 to 19.

Now the committee has called a number of high profile figures to testify as part of its ongoing investigation into the late convicted sex offender. Among those, U.S. commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, who we're learning has agreed now to appear before the panel.

Meantime in battle, Republican Congressman Tony Gonzales of Texas is vowing to stay in the race to hold on to his seat. This comes after he admitted having an affair with a former staffer who later died by suicide. Gonzales has refused to say whether sexually explicit texts that he allegedly sent to the staffer are real.

Gonzales says that he looks forward to a House Ethics Committee, which is now investigating allegations of sexual misconduct against him. Here's what Gonzales told a conservative talk show host in an interview which was released on Wednesday.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. TONY GONZALES (R-TX): I made a mistake and I had a lapse in judgment and there was a lack of faith. And I take full responsibility for those actions. Since then, I've reconciled with my wife, Angel. I've asked God to forgive me, which he has, and my faith is as strong as ever.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HILL: Gonzales's congressional race is now heading to a runoff that will be held in May. He's running against conservative activist Brandon Herrera, who took the largest share of the vote actually in Tuesday's primary election.

Thanks so much for joining us this hour here on CNN. I'm Erica Hill in New York. Our coverage of the situation in the Middle East continues after this quick break. Stay with us.

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