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Air Raid Sirens Heard in Tel Aviv; Iranians Speaking After Night of Intense Bombardment; Interview with Representative Pat Ryan (D-NY); U.S. Deploys New Weapon Modeled After Iran's "Kamikaze" Drones; Senior Iranian Leader Vows to "Stab America in the Heart"; U.S.-Israeli War of Words with Iran. Aired 3-4p ET

Aired March 07, 2026 - 15:00   ET

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

[15:00:44]

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN Breaking News.

WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: And I want to welcome our viewers here in the United States and around the world. I'm Wolf Blitzer in Washington. You are in the CNN NEWSROOM.

And we're following the breaking news on the U.S.-Israeli war against Iran. Within the past few minutes alone, another round of air raid sirens heard throughout Tel Aviv.

And this new video just in to CNN showing what appears to be an explosion and massive fire tonight in Tehran, the Iranian capital. We're working to get more details, and we'll bring them to you as soon as we do.

Meantime, President Trump is now signaling he's escalating the war, today vowing to hit Iran very hard, his words, very hard, after that country's president said his nation won't surrender. Elsewhere, a senior Iranian cleric also said today that a new supreme leader in Iran could be chosen within the next 24 hours. And you will recall, earlier this week, President Trump said he must be involved in picking Iran's next leader.

And Iran's president delivered a remarkable address earlier this morning where he apologized to the Arab Gulf neighbors, saying Tehran would stop attacking those countries as long as strikes on Iran do not originate from those nations.

Right now President Trump is taking part in the dignified transfer of six U.S. service members killed in this war. That somber event is taking place at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware. And we will have full coverage in the hour ahead. Stand by for that.

CNN anchor Erin Burnett is live in Tel Aviv right now.

Erin, I take it that the sirens have gone off, but they're now over with and you're back at your location. Is that right?

ERIN BURNETT, CNN ANCHOR: Yes, Wolf. That's exactly right. We're now back at our location. Those sirens went off. I was here with Nick Paton Walsh when that happened.

And, Nic, look, we've had obviously several this evening already. It had been after -- there was some this morning and sort of a relatively quiet afternoon. So the pace has picked up. But what we heard after those sirens, and I myself sometimes you can see and you often see obviously well before you hear. But we heard in the distance quite a staccato, right? Sort of like a, like a resounding, I would describe it, Wolf, as the end of a giant fireworks display is what it sounded like, which we do not always hear.

NICK PATON WALSH, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: No, that was rare, and that was different. It's hard to know exactly what that is. All these buildings around here, all the geography, how close this indeed may have been. Sometimes the Israeli military allow projectiles to land in open area where they're not going to hurt anybody. This may be one of those cases.

We didn't see any glow at all. And it's hard, though, over the last few nights, we've seen a persistent theme here commented by many people here, a singular dot appears. And then from that multiple different smaller projectiles, it seems, emerge now.

BURNETT: Yes. Which really do look like a firework.

WALSH: Yes, absolutely. Yes.

BURNETT: Again, for anyone watching, and we will at some point will have the video, but it's almost like a dandelion on the edge of the center, and then it kind of bursts out.

WALSH: It's a pattern, so it's not clear. I think you would normally expect, if every one of those dots was a separate munition, you'd see quite a lot of damage probably below. So are these some kind of decoy device for air defenses? Is there something else at play here? Really unclear, but we've seen that again and again over the skies here.

BURNETT: All right. And I'm just looking here to see as we're getting more information. And I know our teams are watching as well. But we -- I understand right now that Ali Larijani is speaking who has been sort of -- was national security, obviously leader in Iran. And even prior to this, I understand from sources, had sort of been the face, the external face to many governments in this region.

So still there, but speaking. And that's very important. We hadn't heard that coming on the heels of the president, Pezeshkian, speaking earlier as well. And I -- you know, I'm watching, I don't yet know what Larijani is saying, but his speaking at this time, on this day, after Pezeshkian could be quite significant.

WALSH: Yes. You know, after being a little bit MIA, you know, in this particular time, lots of questions. We don't see somebody for a few days. What does that actually mean? Pezeshkian today sort of trying to sound like he was de-escalating and apologizing, but at the same time, as drones were landing in Dubai, the very country he was apologizing to as well. So clearly a sign from him that whoever is in charge, the signals are not necessarily getting through. [15:05:03]

Someone like Larijani, though, potentially able to bridge the gap between hardliner and moderate, or be a more recognizable face. You know, he's been around being the public face of the Iranian regime for 15, 20 years or so, so very possible indeed that we see him convey some kind of message of at least unity to some degree. And we're still, remember, waiting to find out who the new supreme leader is. Suggestions it could be in the next 24 hours, but the gap and the void there, it's beginning to make me wonder precisely who's calling the shots and who indeed, if anybody wants to negotiate, there is to reach out to.

BURNETT: That's right. And a crucial point that you make. And you know, Wolf had mentioned that there was a cleric who had spoken out via Fars, which is one of the state affiliated news agencies in Iran, saying, we need to get this done, and we hope to do so in the next 24 hours. Something that obviously was done with the backing of many, right, to put that out on Iranian state media. So it signals, at the very least, that there is a pressure and an anxiety internally to fill that void.

WALSH: And take on top of that, too, two external factors that are going to be weighing enormously on this, which are bizarre, frankly, I'm sure for the 88 senior clerics whose job it is in the assembly of experts to work out who this person is.

Donald Trump wants to approve of it, and Israel says they'll kill that person. And so those two factors weighing massively outside whatever decision. Is it delaying it? Is it causing more infighting? I'm sure there are lots of people who still want that particular job, but at wartime, in a society like that, to not have one singular figure calling the shots, that has to be behind so much of what we're not seeing.

BURNETT: Well, yes, when we're seeing the political Pezeshkian and then the IRGC and the weapons still being fired, right? There are two hands.

WALSH: Yes. Absolutely.

BURNETT: And there is no known bridge at this time. So the words of Ali Larijani could be extremely important. So we're watching to see exactly what is being said.

Right now Nick Paton Walsh here with me in Tel Aviv and, you know, we talked about how the Iranian president had apologized particularly to Gulf countries for attacks on them, essentially saying we won't do it anymore as long as you don't allow attacks on us from U.S. bases. But then the attacks continued specifically by drone, and those were really across the Gulf region today, including in Saudi Arabia, in Riyadh, where a ballistic missile actually got through any sort of missile defense.

And I believe from our senior diplomatic editor, Nic Robertson, that was the first time that that's happened there even though of course the embassy itself, the U.S. embassy, was successfully struck earlier this week.

Nic, what is the latest?

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: Yes, of course it was drones that hit the embassy. Ballistic missile, much bigger much, much more damage. Had that hit the U.S. embassy, we might be having an entirely different discussion, but it falling in an open area as described. Look, I think right now the Saudis have heard what the Iranian President Pezeshkian has said. They haven't responded to it publicly, but it seems very clear standing here in the Gulf right now that Iran is speaking with its guns while its politicians are moving their lips.

That's what's happening here. And I think that's reflected in the statement, a diplomatic statement from Bahraini officials that I was given a little earlier. And that is that they have heard what President Pezeshkian has said that they -- you know that they hear his apology and they like the apology, but they are not seeing that manifest on the ground. They're saying we're continuing to get these missiles incoming.

They say, look, Bahrain has always been for diplomacy, for discussion. That's what they would like to see. But the reality that's being meted out, they say, to them and others in the Gulf is -- doesn't match the words of the Iranian president. It would be very interesting to see what Ali Larijani says, who's had a very long and storied career within the leadership circles and structures of Iran, not least within the IRGC.

And I think, you know, again, another takeaway, standing in the region, standing in the Gulf here right now, the interpretation that will be put on the words of the Iranian leaders, the various ones who no doubt will hear speak over the coming days is that Iran has always used tactical ambiguity to shroud what its real intentions are, or to say one thing, perhaps do another. Come back to that track, play for time, if they're playing for time to select a new leader or are they even going to select a supreme leader, or is the IRGC really going to move ahead and take the real leadership path itself, which has been a fear of many people in this region?

Or is it going to completely break down, which is another concern for those in the Gulf? But as far as the apology coming from the Iranian president has had, it's not being felt here as an apology so much as words that aren't backed by real actions.

[15:10:12]

BURNETT: Yes. Nic Robertson in Riyadh, thank you very much.

And as we said, we're awaiting to hear what the words are coming out of Ali Larijani, a crucial, crucial leader in Iran right now. Meantime, Iran did fire back at Israel drones as well as missiles today after getting hit by a new and massive round of strikes.

CNN is the first American network allowed into Iran since the beginning of the war. Our senior international correspondent Fred Pleitgen and his team are in Tehran, and we should note that CNN can only operate in Iran with government approval.

Here is Fred's report from the streets of Tehran from a few hours ago, just before some of the most recent attacks were launched against the country.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: There have been a lot of airstrikes here on Tehran today. A lot of the shops here are closed and have been closed since the military confrontation started exactly a week ago. I'd say about 20 percent of the shops might be open. So what we've done today is we've gone to a couple of shops, spoken to the shopkeepers, and also some customers just to see how they're faring.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): We are definitely worried about our lives, but we have no other choice. This is my occupation and it's about providing daily foodstuff. We cannot close the shop. We have to go to work. But with fear, while not knowing what may.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): Well, everyone is scared. Those are bombs. It's no joke. When there's a bombing, everyone thinks of how they love their life. I'm not saying we're not afraid. Of course we are. Anyone who says they're not afraid is lying because every human being values their life.

PLEITGEN (voice-over): A drastic decline in customers at this fruit shop as well.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): Our sales now are about a quarter or a fifth of what they used to be, 70 percent or 80 percent of our customers are businesses. When the war broke out, all of the companies, foreign and Iranian, closed down.

PLEITGEN: Now the people here of course have already also heard that President Trump has vowed to continue to hit Iran hard, as he put it, as he demands what he calls unconditional surrender, while at the same time the leadership of this country has said unconditional surrender is out of the question.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BURNETT: And that's our Fred Pleitgen on the streets of Tehran. And we are very grateful for his reporting.

And more of our continuing coverage is just ahead, including the reaction on Capitol Hill to the Trump administration's approval to sell more weapons here to Israel. We will speak with a member of the Armed Services Committee, as well as a combat veteran of the Iraq war.

We'll be right back. Congressman Pat Ryan will be in the NEWSROOM with Wolf straight ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:17:40] BLITZER: All right. We're following the breaking news on the war with Iran. Right now we're just getting in some fresh video from Tehran, where a massive explosion followed by huge fireballs could be seen over the night sky in the Iranian capital. All this hours after President Trump said he was preparing to escalate the war in Iran, his words, escalate.

Lawmakers in Washington for the most part have punted on the issue of whether to rein in the conflict. The House followed in the Senate's footsteps on Thursday blocking a war powers resolution that would have required President Trump to get congressional approval for any further U.S. military action against Iran.

Let's discuss this and more with one of the key members who voted for this resolution, Democratic Congressman Pat Ryan of New York. He's a key member of the Armed Services Committee. He's also a combat veteran of the war in Iraq.

Congressman, thanks so much for being here. Thanks so much for your service. Nearly all the Republicans, as you well know, in the House oppose this resolution. But even four of your fellow Democrats voted against it. What do you say to them?

REP. PAT RYAN (D-NY): To everybody who voted against this, regardless of party, I think they were just straight up wrong. I mean, look, I was on the receiving end of similar bad foreign policy. We had a bunch of people who had never served in uniform, sitting in fancy rooms in Washington, D.C. saying, this sounds easy, this looks clean. This will be a few days. This will be a few weeks. Then it was a few months, then it was a few years.

And it's patriotic young American kids who have already paid the price here now just a week in and Iran, and of course a lot of my friends in Iraq. And if we can't all agree, as a Congress, regardless of party, that at a minimum it requires like just a fulsome debate with the American people and through the American people, I think it's a fundamental failure. And I think it was pathetic that everybody -- on everybody who voted against this.

BLITZER: Some Democrats, as you well know, are now demanding that the House Speaker Johnson keep the House in session next week in light of what they call the rapidly evolving situation in Iran. Do you support that?

RYAN: Absolutely. I mean, we should have been right back in session, you know, in the day after this was initially started.

[15:20:02]

And to be clear there are major process concerns about this. I believe the president illegally bypassed the American people and the Congress as their representatives in doing this. And there are also real substantive points here and concerns and a lack of really any clear articulation of strategy, constantly shifting aims from the president, from the secretary of defense, Secretary Rubio, and that puts really the American troops in the region at risk. And we're already seeing now, as you've reported, skyrocketing gas

prices that are going to hurt every American.

BLITZER: I don't know if you saw the article, but Republican Senator Lindsey Graham told the "Wall Street Journal" in a new article that he traveled to Israel in recent weeks where he met with members of the country's intelligence agency. He then spoke directly with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and coached him on how to lobby President Trump to take action in Iran.

What's your reaction to a key member of Congress working with the Israelis to get the United States involved in this conflict?

RYAN: Well, when I saw it was about a month ago now, there was a photo of Senator Graham and President Trump both holding up "make Iran great again" hats. It was a black baseball cap. And I immediately said, I know where this is going. I've seen this movie before. A warmonger and a chickenhawk, really, in Senator Graham and a draft dodger in President Trump thinking this is going to be easy and clean and right.

And we've already seen six American lives and six Americans make that ultimate sacrifice, and then for the president to say a few days ago when asked, how's the war going, he said, on a one out of 10, I'd give it a 15? And we know right now, of course, there are at least several flag draped coffins with American heroes, and we're grateful for their sacrifice, coming back to our country right now.

BLITZER: CNN reported today, Congressman, that the Trump administration has declared an emergency and bypass Congress to immediately sell 12,000 bombs to Israel amid the ongoing military operations against Iran. According to a notice from the U.S. State Department, Israel requested to buy 12,000 general purpose 1,000-pound bomb bodies, valued at more than $151 million. What's your reaction to that?

RYAN: As a lot of us have been saying, the people that win in these wars are these big defense companies taking all of our hard earned taxpayer dollars and driving up costs for all of us, while instead of taking those funds and putting it towards health care and lowering those costs, toward housing and groceries and utilities.

That's a choice that every person who voted on Thursday, every member of Congress, regardless of party, said rather than helping the American people and lowering their costs, a number one concern of my constituents, instead, we chose to buy more bombs. And I just think that's fundamentally un-American.

BLITZER: So do you oppose the supplying the Israelis with those additional bombs?

RYAN: We shouldn't -- we should not be providing or purchasing any additional bombs for anybody involved in this war. It is not a lawful war and to be clear I don't think we should, as a Congress, certainly not fund any supplemental request from the administration either.

BLITZER: Congressman Pat Ryan of New York, thanks very much for joining us.

RYAN: Thanks for having me.

BLITZER: And stay with CNN for more continuing special coverage of the war with Iran. In the next hour the House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries will be joining us here on CNN. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:28:12]

BURNETT: I'm Erin Burnett in Tel Aviv where sirens have been going off tonight a few times coming hours after Israel said it launched a broad scale wave of strikes against Iranian infrastructure.

Joining me now is the president of the Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs, Dan Diker, also former secretary general of the World Jewish Congress.

So, Dan, I appreciate your time and I want to just ask you a couple of things here. But first, let's just start with we have had a couple of rounds of sirens and incoming missiles tonight after what had been a quieter day today, at least in the afternoon than yesterday, but the last ones that we heard, where we heard that staccato ongoing, sort of like the nonstop rumbling, as I said, to describe to viewers the incredible onslaught at the end of a fireworks show.

That's what it sounded like. What -- did you hear that? And what does that mean to you? It's different than what we had heard, Nick and I were saying, the other day. Yes.

DAN DIKER, PRESIDENT, JERUSALEM CENTER FOR SECURITY AND FOREIGN AFFAIRS: Yes, it was a violent staccato, if you will, of interceptors and missiles. Israel has had a phenomenal record this time around of intercepting, you know, more than 99 percent of all of the IRGC ballistic missiles and killer drones fired in our direction, as well as the Iranian regime Hezbollah. And I emphasize that. It is the Iranian regime's Hezbollah in Lebanon firing rockets.

They still have thousands of rockets in their inventory towards Israel. And it's created hell for people in the north. But, again, more than 99 percent have been intercepted. And what it really shows, Erin, is that the Iranian regime is in deep trouble because they would fire whatever they had. And we're only getting dribs and drabs as fatal as individual missiles can be, it's been seriously degraded their ballistic missile capability.

BURNETT: And that certainly appears to be the case. Obviously, there are questions about their hypersonic missiles and whether any of that was strategic, you know, as opposed to they're not able to that they may have saved some.

[15:30:05]

And I know there's some questions about that even in the context of the incredible degrading that's happened. In that context, I want to ask you about what we're understanding Ali Larijani who is the -- runs the National Security Council and had in many ways been the public and diplomatic face of this regime for quite some time prior to this. OK. So he is a voice of consistency.

He has not been killed. He is there. He has spoken out. The Tasnim News Agency has part of what he said, and I'm not sure if this is all of it so let's just talk about part of what we know. He has just said, which is that he is going after the United States, saying that, you know, the U.S. said that there was going to be defections and there haven't been. They said the Kurds were going to rise up and they haven't. They're striking our civilians.

And then he says this sentence, "Trump's recent threats to target ordinary people represent the peak of military malice that has been defeated on the battlefield and now seeks to avenge its military defeats by shedding the blood of children and women." There's a lot in there, but there's also a lot not in there.

DIKER: Absolutely.

BURNETT: There isn't a death to America, we're going to blow you to smithereens. We will never surrender. At least in what we're looking at here. Now I don't know everything that we don't know right now, but in this, I don't hear that.

DIKER: You made a very important distinction here, Erin, that has to be unpacked. And that is on the one hand Ali Larijani is in a desperate situation. He knows he's being targeted by U.S. and Israel. He knows also that he disagrees and this is just reported this evening. He actually disagreed and opposed the messages from the Iranian President Pezeshkian and others at Qom who have called for a cessation of shooting at neighbors for a little bit of trying to convey the message that the Iranian regime is stepping back, and he's saying, no, it's not the case, that the Iranian regime will continue.

BURNETT: So you see this as pushing for more, not for restraint.

DIKER: And to try to -- he's targeting two audiences. To the American people, he's talking about human rights, trying to accuse the United States of targeting children in this terribly tragic and mistaken hit on a school, even though, you know, we know that the United States and Israel only as a function of their moral and strategic mandate only target regime assets and infrastructures, which is --

BURNETT: Right.

DIKER: When we -- when the smoke clears, the American people will see exactly what has been destroyed.

BURNETT: Although I will just interject and say, if -- that may be true, that they target that. But when it's next to a police station and they're using those powerful bombs, our Katie Polglase has shown, that can kill within 1,000 feet near a hospital 100 feet away.

DIKER: That's right. BURNETT: That that's a more problem.

DIKER: Well, the question is, why does the regime stick themselves right next to hospitals? It's exactly what the Hamas, what the Iranian regime Hamas does in Gaza. Why do they stick themselves in the middle of civilian population? That's a war crime. And they do that. They know --

BURNETT: But aren't there FBI buildings near hospitals and --

DIKER: Yes, but --

BURNETT: I mean, I'm just saying, isn't this part of this just the way a normal society would build itself?

DIKER: Look, it's very clear the Iranian regime is knowingly attacking neighbors, whether it's with Arab neighbors, the United States, Israel, which they've been doing for years. They put themselves in the middle of civilian populations on purpose because, according to anyone who knows the basics of international law of proportionality, you can, in distinction, you can target those compounds.

BURNETT: Do you think, Dan, that Ali Larijani is positioned to be a figure that would be both acceptable to the IRGC and to an ongoing regime, if that is where this is going, and to the United States? Maybe not to Israel, maybe not to Israel, I understand, but to the United States. Is that what he's positioning himself to be? Is that conceivable to you?

DIKER: It's conceivable. What Ali Larijani has done in the text that you've read now, Erin, is to say to the Iranian people, look, the United States and Israel are trying to decentralize, to fractionalize, to divide up Iran. Now, that's an important message. Why? Because even the Iranian opposition from the left to the right, those who support Pahlavi and those who are far more on the left and non-Marxist say one thing.

We want a united Iran, and therefore they understand that that message that they're trying to convey to the American people and to the Iranian people are saying, the regime is your best -- is your best option. Now, the only -- the other important point here is President Trump has said total surrender. Now, he's not the first president to say total surrender.

BURNETT: Right.

DIKER: If you remember, Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Churchill said together at Casablanca in the Second World War, they called for the total surrender of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan. So there is a history here. And the only way the Iranian regime will be defeated is if there is total surrender. And I think we should listen to Steve -- what Steve Witkoff said just about 48 hours ago is very, very telling publicly.

He said we were deceived time and time again. They had no intention of coming to a deal with us, to him and Kushner, and in fact there was no other choice but -- because there was an imminent threat and in fact it was the Iranian foreign minister, Araghchi, who told Steve Witkoff, we have enough enriched uranium in a matter of weeks to construct, to put together 11 nuclear devices.

[15:35:18]

Now, can you imagine what would happen to the world, not only the United States, with an Iranian regime that is nuclearized, that has already mass murdered tens of thousands of its own people?

BURNETT: I'm also thinking total surrender, of course, in World War Two with Japan was, you know, instigated by Hiroshima and Nagasaki, so it's a --

DIKER: It was.

BURNETT: You know, very, very tenuous moment that we're in.

DIKER: Ver tenuous.

BURNETT: Dan, thank you very much. I appreciate your time. And please stay with us here on CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[16:40:09]

BLITZER: The U.S. military is deploying a new weapon on the battlefield right now, modeled after one of Iran's deadly Kamikaze drones.

Our Tom Foreman breaks down why it is turning into a major force in this war.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: In this battle, we are seeing a weapon system that the U.S. military has never fielded before. And let me bring in a life-sized model so we can take a better look.

This is the LUCAS drone. It's low cost, unmanned combat attack system. As you can see, it's about 10 feet end-to-end, it has a wingspan of about eight feet. It has a propeller drive in the back, so it doesn't give off a lot of heat that can be easily tracked. It weighs about 180 pounds, and it can carry 40 pounds of explosives upfront.

It is also, interestingly, a clone of an Iranian drone, the Shahed- 136. The Iranians have been working on these for years. The U.S. got a hold of one, and they had engineers replicate it so they could turn it back on the Iranians.

Why do Iranians like this so much? Well, unlike big missiles which have to be -- come from some sort of a launch system, a truck or something like that which can be easily tracked and attacked, this can be fired from the back of a truck, from a boat, from the middle of a field.

Unlike a missile which requires a great big production facility which can also be targeted, these can be built much easier in covert locations all over the place. Again, hard to find, and these are cheap. Missiles cost at least a million dollars each, if not more, and these only costs about $20,000.

So when you look at an attack map out there where strikes have happened by missiles or drones, every time a drone is hit someplace, that doesn't necessarily represent one drone. No, these are often launched in swarms. The reason for that is simple enough, to overwhelm defense systems so that if 90 percent of them are stopped, 10 percent can still get through with devastating results.

When you look at the video coming out from drone attacks there, you can see why the Iranians are relying on them so much, and why U.S. forces are trying to turn this weapon back against the Iranians.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BLITZER: Thanks to Tom Foreman for that excellent report.

I want to discuss this and more with CNN national security analyst Alex Plitsas. He's the director of the Counterterrorism Program at the Atlantic Council. He's also a U.S. Army combat veteran who served during the Iraq War.

How much of a game, Alex, how much of a game changer, I should say, is this new weapon for U.S. military operations against Iran?

ALEX PLITSAS, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: It's absolutely a game changer, which Admiral Brad Cooper, the CENTCOM commander, mentioned earlier this week.

I was actually in Kyiv in October of 2022 for the first Shaheed drone attacks when they came in. So I experienced it firsthand. And, you know, in speaking to U.S. Central Command, the Rapid Deployment Joint Task Force that's led by the Chief Technology Officer Joy Schoenberger, she used to be, you know, at the Pentagon, and she helped to stand up some of the acquisition for drones for PACOM, has kind of helped to lead this initiative and this was a rapid fielding event.

CENTCOM is extremely proud of this because of the innovation, the rapid cycle that they've been able to motivate and use to get these things out.

BLITZER: And I just want to point out, and good that you remind us, the Iranians provided a lot of drones to the Russians in their war against Ukraine. Right?

PLITSAS: Absolutely. And that's part of the problem. They're actually replicating the tactics now if you see as well so it's a combination of ballistic missile attacks and Shahed drones that are coming in which also then speaks to the defensive mechanisms, because we've seen some news broke this week that the Ukrainians are actually helping to provide some of the counter-drone technology because they have the most experience with it. So taking one problem set to another, the Russians are said to be providing intelligence for targeting to the Iranians, and then the Ukrainians are providing support to the U.S. and Gulf partners to defend against it.

BLITZER: Interesting. I want to talk also about these low-cost drones that Iran has been deploying across the Middle East right now that have breached U.S. air defense systems. Why, in your view, does it seem the U.S. was unprepared for this part of the Iranian offensive?

PLITSAS: So I think the U.S. moved all of the air defense capabilities that were possible into the region prior to initiating the conflict here. We saw that air bridge coming out of Texas, moving in a lot of the THAAD and Patriot systems across the region to defend against U.S. bases. But there's simply a lot to cover and there's been a shortage of counter-drone technology across the board in general as drone warfare has evolved.

So for the last, you know, 25 years, we've fought against non-state actors in the region. We didn't fight against near-peer competitors and, you know, the drone warfare really hadn't matured at that point by the time the global war on terrorism ended. And so what we found is there's been this evolution over the last few years, particularly in Ukraine, you know, with the Russians and the Ukrainians fighting.

And now that's transferring to other battlefields. So the U.S. is quickly playing, you know, catch up with it. There's, you know, some significant efforts, a task force has been stood up to address this. And the defense companies are working very hard on this problem set.

[15:45:06]

BLITZER: The Turkish foreign minister today warned Iran against firing more missiles towards Turkey after one entered the country's airspace. Turkey of course being a key NATO ally. Turkey is a NATO member. And NATO's mutual defense clause, Article Five as it's called, says any armed attack against one NATO member is an attack against all NATO members.

Does it surprise you that Iran would fire toward a NATO member? Of course, the United States is a NATO ally as well. And the -- and the Iranians have been firing against U.S. targets.

PLITSAS: You know, I think, quite frankly, a lot of folks were surprised by the response. Initially, it seemed to be measured, proportionate and non-escalatory in attacking just the U.S. bases, the major air bases in Kuwait and the UAE and Qatar, and then our naval headquarters in Bahrain. But it very quickly spun out into civilian infrastructure across the region.

The Iranians dispute that. And speaking to some of them earlier today, they'll say, hey, we've got intelligence some of those places that were actually used for military purposes. That was quickly pushed back against by the Qatari leadership earlier this week, and most of the GCC states. So it's been problematic. And that's where the disagreement largely lies.

But to your point about NATO, it's not only been there, they also launched against, you know, Cyprus and what this has done between that and the attacks on shipping and the near closure of the Straits of Hormuz at this point, just due to the threat, is it provided both the political and legal protection and context for the Europeans to get involved who didn't want to be involved in this, and also the GCC states who thought they were sitting to the side. So the strategy, at least at this point, appears to be backfiring.

BLITZER: So Article Five is dead if a NATO allies attack the other NATO allies, just allies just sit on the sidelines and do nothing, whether Britain or France or Spain or Germany or, for example, other NATO allies?

PLITSAS: Well, I think it has to be invoked as well. And so I think, you know, Turkey has seen, you know, what's going on. They haven't decided to invoke that. We haven't seen those clauses activated anywhere. And that's part of it. You know, they do host Incirlik Air Force Base which is theirs, that has U.S. bases there, and so the Iranians have basically said, anybody who's hosting U.S. bases in the region that could be used are subject to a strike.

You know, I thought it was an incredibly foolish move, to your point, given the potential repercussions from NATO. And then also, there was Azerbaijan this week as well, who's known to have an interesting relationship with both Israel and the Kurds. And so I saw that as a warning shot to Azerbaijan not to get involved. And then we just saw the statement from Ali Larijani, where he pretty much said the same thing. No conspiracies there. And it's a warning.

BLITZER: Alex Plitsas, thank you very much. Excellent analysis. And we'll be right back.

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[15:52:14]

BLITZER: Welcome back to our breaking news coverage of the war in Iran.

One of Iran's senior leaders has just posted a message addressed to President Trump. Ali Larijani, Iran's top national security official, says on the social media platform X, and I'm quoting him now, "We will relentlessly avenge the blood of our leader and our people. Trump must pay and will pay." And he ended it with the hashtag #Trumpmustpay.

As much as this is a war of weaponry, it's also arguably a war of words, especially a war of propaganda.

CNN's Nada Bashir has more.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

NADA BASHIR, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): As the U.S.-Israeli war against Iran rages on, a war of narratives is also playing out. While some U.S. officials are attempting to downplay the scope of this latest deadly military offensive.

REP. MIKE JOHNSON (R-LA): We're not at war right now. BASHIR (voice-over): The Iranian regime's propaganda machine is in

full swing, portraying a resolute image of strength. Despite days of intense bombardment by the U.S. and Israeli militaries and the death toll within Iran already surpassing 1,000, according to one human rights group.

Propaganda has long been a powerful tool in the Iranian regime's arsenal, and the state media has been working around the clock to inflate the success of the regime's counteroffensive, framing attacks on U.S. and Israeli assets in the region as being on an unprecedented scale. But how accurate is this framing?

(Voice-over): Iran's counterattacks have been significant in both scope and impact, successfully targeting military, diplomatic and civilian infrastructure in the region. But misinformation has also been rife from the outset of this war. Iranian leaders have, for example, portrayed attacks on Israel as having completely decimated cities and key military assets.

One parliamentary representative claimed that all Israeli security and intelligence centers were being struck by Iranian missiles. And in this social media post from Iran's secretary of the Supreme National Security Council, Ali Larijani, he claims that more than 500 U.S. soldiers have been killed in just the last few days. In reality, six U.S. service members are confirmed to have died during this war so far.

A.I. enhanced images have also circulated across social media, including an A.I. manipulated image claiming to show a destroyed American radar installation in Qatar. The unverified claim was also shared in an article by the "Tehran Times" newspaper. It is false claims like this that have spread doubt amongst international audiences over the veracity of attacks both inside Iran and beyond.

[15:55:08]

MAHSA ALIMARDANI, ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR AT WITNESS: With A.I., we have this concept of the liar's dividend. The liar's dividend is basically the term of art for the benefit that accrues bad actors when they sow public uncertainty, and they basically question if anything can be real.

BASHIR (voice-over): Iranian state media has also, as expected, been highly selective in its coverage. Take for example the devastating attack on Iran's Minab Elementary School, which killed more than 100 young girls according to state media. The widespread coverage of the aftermath and the mass funeral held for the victims is a stark contrast from the regime's response to the thousands reportedly killed earlier this year during anti-regime protests.

ALIMARDANI: When the burials of, you know, the hundreds of girls was done, they had aerial shots of the burials. They had tons of footage and photography of the mass kind of crowds attending the funerals and the burials, and you have like compare it to the deaths of the protesters in January, where people couldn't get even the bodies of their children. And they weren't allowed to have burials or funerals. BASHIR (voice-over): Of course, both the U.S. and Israel are also

striving to shape the coverage of this latest conflict in a never ending battle to control the narrative.

Nada Bashir, CNN, in London.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BLITZER: And thanks, Nada, for that report.

And to our viewers, thanks very much for joining us this afternoon. I'm Wolf Blitzer.

Soon we expect to have video of the dignified transfer at the Dover, U.S. Air Force Base in Delaware, where the bodies of six Americans who died in Kuwait have returned home. My colleague Jessica Dean will have that and a lot more coming up after this short break.

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