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Early Start with Rahel Solomon

Iran: Military "Awaiting" U.S. Forces In Strait of Hormuz; Analysis Suggests U.S. Responsible For Iran School Strike; New Details On U.S. Citizen Shot To Death By Federal Agent. Aired 5:30-6a ET

Aired March 10, 2026 - 05:30   ET

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

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FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Some massive strikes going on there as well. So at this point in time it certainly seems as though those combat operations, those strikes still very much in full swing.

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BECKY ANDERSON, CNN ANCHOR: Well, CNN's Bianna Golodryga spoke with the Israel foreign minister Gideon Sa'ar in an exclusive interview. Here is his justification for the military action and for the cost of war.

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GIDEON SA'AR, ISRAELI FOREIGN MINISTER: I believe it was the right thing to do. When you go to a war you always have prices. There are no free lunches. And it's tough to be in a war but sometimes it's more dangerous not to act than to act. And I'm sure that in this case we both had the right decisions to act. And I praise both leaders, President Trump and Prime Minister Netanyahu for leading and bringing these tough decisions and also taking both nations to do what they have to do now in Iran.

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ANDERSON: So I want to bring in Malcolm Nance now. He is a former U.S. Navy intelligence and national security expert. He joins us today live from Montreal. Malcolm, thank you for joining us.

The Trump administration faces what some are calling a grim choice at this point -- risk economic collapse -- certainly there's a massive impact on the global economy at the moment -- or put the U.S. Navy in harm's way to reopen the Strait of Hormuz.

So how real do you believe that dilemma is and how close are we to seeing naval escort operations, for example, actually starting?

MALCOLM NANCE, FORMER U.S. NAVY INTELLIGENCE: Well, this is a very real dilemma, and it is, you know, almost an unenviable position for anyone.

I've actually done these escorts back in -- between 1985 and 1988. The United States escorted ships in an operation called "Operation Earnest Will." We were escorting Kuwaiti tankers through the Strait of Hormuz during the Iran-Iraq War. However, there are many, many more ships to be escorted here. There's over 200 in the -- you know, in the northern Indian Ocean and in the Persian Gulf -- both sides.

So the Iranians haven't even used their trump card, which is suicide drone boats, cruise missiles, and drone aircraft. They could set the entire SOH (Strait of Hormuz) aflame without very much effort, even with the presence of U.S. warships.

ANDERSON: And you bring up those seabound drones, which I think is a really important point --

NANCE: Um-hum.

ANDERSON: -- because we do talk a lot, and rightly so, about these aerial drones. But these UAVs don't just work in the air, they work in the water, and they are a real threat.

Take a look at the new footage which suggests a U.S. Tomahawk hit the IRGC base near the girls' school in Iran killing at least 168 kids and 14 teachers.

I wonder what you believe this means for the conflicting claims from the Trump administration and for accountability at this point.

NANCE: Well, there is no question that is a U.S. Navy sea-launched Tomahawk cruise missile. When you do the stop-frame video it's clear. It does not look like any of the Iranian weapon systems out there. Also the United States was attacking at that time.

You know, my heart breaks for the loss for the parents there, you know. War is inherently, inherently dangerous. And in a modern war like this where you have lots of targeting going on you miss a keystroke in the digits that you're doing there by -- be one digit off, you're missing by 300 meters-400 meters you're hitting civilians.

So I think that it's a regrettable incident. Donald Trump should apologize to the people of Iran for that and then go on and try to bring some clarity to whatever is going on with this war. We're not quite sure whether the war is continuing or ending.

ANDERSON: Nor do we fully understand what the sort of long list of strike targets exists. Certainly, Israel said it is working its way through its list.

Axios reporting that Israel's strikes on 30 Iranian fuel depots -- and I quote them here -- "went far beyond what the U.S. expected."

From your perspective I wonder what this says about allied coordination -- U.S. and Israel coordination at this point? And does this surprise you, frankly? NANCE: Well, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth himself said the United States and Israel spent thousands of manhours coordinating this operation. There are liaison officers on both sides. The Israeli Air Force is acting as a senior partner, in some instances, to the United States.

[05:35:10]

But let's be honest. The Israelis have their own agenda. They are destroying things to punish not just the regime but the Iranian people to a certain extent when you're talking about all these oilfields.

The United States has tried to do a decapitation of leadership and a decapitation of the armed forces -- the Artesh -- the Army, Navy, and Air Force.

The Revolutionary Guard is going to exist so long as there is always a streetcorner, a cafe, and tea and dates. This is unrealistic to expect that if you blow up every IRGC, you know, police post or headquarters in that country that the situation will change.

ANDERSON: There is a fear that the strikes against Iran could or are backfiring, not only raising oil prices --

NANCE: Um-hum.

ANDERSON: -- and strengthening Iranian society behind its leaders, but we've heard -- and we've heard sufficient statements from Iranian officials to suggest that the Gulf where I am will remain a target because perhaps Iran feels that they are being very successful in impacting the economies here, the supply of oil and LNG from this region. I mean, this helps to support the argument that they can collapse a global economy.

How big a risk is that from a military intelligence perspective -- what we are hearing out of Iran at this point?

NANCE: Yeah. There are a lot of cards the Iranians have not played that could really destabilize the region if they chose to do it. I mean, one of the simplest is the fact that they have 33,000 small boats and 100,000 men that could storm across the Gulf. That was actually planned in 1987 by the Iranians.

However, Iran has always had this adversarial relationship with the Gulf states starting from the Iran-Iraq War because, you know, the Gulf states -- Saudia Arabia and Bahrain, and Qatar -- supported Iraq attacking Iranian ships. But they had this sense of strategic neutrality. That neutrality is gone unless someone starts cutting deals and opening up relationships with Iran, and that the Strait of Hormuz is opened through a neutral protector. Unfortunately, a country like China sending warships in between Iran and the Gulf states.

This is going to continue, and those countries are going to keep getting attacked.

ANDERSON: There is no love lost between Gulf countries and Iran whatever the sort of detente that we seen over the past couple of years is gone. Any goodwill, I'm told by sources I speak to, between Iran and Arab and Islamic countries gone at this point.

The question is what happens next? I mean, the -- revealing the threat of the ballistic missile program to the world has to all intents and purposes been a good thing as far as these Gulf countries are concerned.

What do you see happening next with regard -- the thinking here in this Gulf region and how they might get further involved? At present we see these Gulf nations working in self-defense but, of course, that can change at any point.

NANCE: Well, I don't see the GCC nations looking to shift their military posture to a more offensive one. Their defense has worked. They actually spent billions upon billions of dollars to buy the interceptors that they need.

And the United Arab Emirates, where you are, has been hit the most. Fifty-four percent of all ballistic missile and drone attacks have been sent there with very few impacts. The Saudis themselves -- you know, a nation that's so big -- has spent quite a bit of money to defend themselves.

But that being said, right now the strategic balance is sort of upset. The fundamental armed forces -- Army, Navy, Air Force -- are missing in Iran, but that was never their strength. Ballistic missiles reduced down to almost nothing. We don't know what they're hiding.

From an intelligence perspective we always have to assume that the enemy is much more adaptable and much more allocative than we would like them to allow. Political leadership make the mistake that when they're given information about 43 ships being sunk that changes the dynamic on the ground when, in fact, it doesn't when all you really need is a few hundred men and a few small boats.

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So the Gulf states themselves, right now, are going to have to re- posture to the defense of the -- you know, basically, the way Ukraine has had to under a withering series of assaults. Iran will come back. They will build those weapon systems again. And the question is will the relationship still be acrimonious?

ANDERSON: And let's just mark the Ukrainian offers of support and intelligence on these drone -- these drones and these drone programs which is, of course, much appreciated by anybody living in the UAE and across this region. And I have to say the multilayered defense years in the making for the UAE and other Gulf nations very much appreciated by those of us who are residents in this region.

Malcolm, it's always good to speak to you. Thank you very much indeed for joining us.

NANCE: Hopefully. ANDERSON: Well, still to come, why President Trump appears to be changing his tune as the investigation into a deadly strike on an Iranian elementary school continues to unfold.

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[05:45:57]

RAHEL SOLOMON, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome back.

President Trump now appears to be softening his stance that Tehran was responsible for a strike on a girls' school in Southern Iran. New video evidence suggests that the U.S. was targeting a nearby Revolutionary Guard base with a Tomahawk missile at the time of the impact. The strike happened on February 28, the first day of the war, and it's believed to be the deadliest so far, killing at least 168 children and 14 teachers.

On Monday, the president said he didn't know enough about it despite blaming Iran over the weekend.

We get the latest now from CNN's Isobel Yeung.

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ISOBEL YEUNG, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voiceover): This is the moment a missile slammed into an Iranian base in Minab, a city in southern Iran, just over a week ago. In this freezeframe you can see it clearly. Weapons experts tell CNN the wings and tail are consistent with a Tomahawk missile. This new video is the clearest evidence yet that suggests it was the United States that struck an elementary school next to that Revolutionary Guards base, killing scores of students.

The U.S. has been firing those Tomahawk missiles at Iran from ships and submarines for more than a week now. Israel doesn't use them, experts tell us.

REPORTER: Mr. President, did the United States bomb a girls' elementary school in southern Iran on the first day of the war, killing hundreds of --

DONALD TRUMP, (R) PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: No. In my opinion and based on what I've seen, that was done by Iran.

REPORTER: Is that true, Mr. Hegseth, that it was Iran who did that?

PETE HEGSETH, SECRETARY OF DEFENSE: We're certainly investigating it.

YEUNG (voiceover): Iran also doesn't use Tomahawk missiles. And using satellite images it's clear the school was struck nearly simultaneously with strikes on an adjacent Revolutionary Guards base. That suggests precision targeting.

CNN geolocated this video. We think this missile struck the military base, not the school. You can see that other buildings in the direction of the school had just been struck when this was filmed.

Isobel Yeung, CNN, London.

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SOLOMON: And still to come for us, new video shows the moments leading up to the shooting death of an American citizen by a federal immigration agent. It has taken almost a year to come to light. More details after the break.

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SOLOMON: Welcome back.

New video and documents are shedding light on the death of an American citizen at the hands of federal immigration officers. It happened nearly one year before the deaths of Rene Good and Alex Pretti in Minnesota.

Twenty-three-year-old Ruben Ray Martinez was shot dead in March of last year during a traffic stop in Texas.

CNN's Brian Todd walks us through what happened.

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BRIAN TODD, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voiceover): A blue Ford sedan drives slowly past the scene of an accident. Within seconds, officers are yelling, with one officer calling to others to stop the vehicle.

POLICE OFFICER: Whoa! Stop him. Stop him. Stop him. Stop him.

TODD (voiceover): The situation escalates as the officer wearing the body camera runs after the car.

POLICE OFFICER: Get him out. Get him out! Get him out!

TODD (voiceover): Three gunshots are heard.

(Gunshots)

POLICE OFFICER: Stop the (bleep) vehicle!

POLICE OFFICER: Shots fired! Shots fired! Shots fired! We're at 2300. Shots fired.

POLICE OFFICER: Get out of the vehicle now! Out of the vehicle now!

TODD (voiceover): This body camera footage recently obtained by CNN is from an incident in South Padre Island, Texas on March 15 of last year. The driver of the vehicle, 23-year-old Ruben Ray Martinez, died as a result of his gunshot wounds.

The agent who shot him was from Homeland Security Investigations, an investigative unit which falls under ICE's umbrella.

This was the earliest of at least six deadly shootings by federal officers during an immigration crackdown launched by President Trump in his second term. It came roughly 10 months before the shootings of Rene Good and Alex Pretti by ICE agents in Minneapolis. But this shooting in Texas wasn't publicly disclosed by the Department of Homeland Security until the Associated Press and other media outlets reported it in late February of this year.

AREVA MARTIN, CIVIL RIGHTS ATTORNEY AND LEGAL AFFAIRS COMMENTATOR: It's very disturbing that this is coming out a year after this young man was shot and killed by DHS.

TODD (voiceover): We reached out to the Department of Homeland Security to ask why it took so long for this shooting to be disclosed. We haven't heard back on that.

The department issued a statement to CNN in late February saying the driver, Ruben Martinez, intentionally ran over a Homeland Security Investigations agent resulting in the agent being on the hood of the vehicle. Then DHS said another agent fired "defensive shots to protect himself, his fellow agents, and the general public."

A report from the Texas Department of Public Safety citing an account from one of the agents said Martinez bumped the agent's legs with his car, then made a turn which pushed the agent back causing him to fall over the hood.

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But the passenger in Martinez's vehicle, Joshua Orta, in an unsigned witness statement obtained by CNN, contradicted that account. In that statement Orta said the agent walked up to the car, slapped the hood, and "seemed to be trying to get in front of the car." Orta said, "Ruben did not hit anyone."

A Texas grand jury declined to issue indictments in this case and Joshua Orta, a crucial witness, died last month in a car crash, according to the Associated Press.

MARTIN: We will not have the benefit of that eyewitness testimony that's going to make again recreating what happened and getting a clear and transparent and accurate accounting of the shooting very difficult.

TODD: Attorneys for Ruben Ray Martinez's mother say the video shows that Ruben's car was barely moving when he was shot. That he was braking, not accelerating, and that the agent was in no danger. One of the mother's attorneys, Charles Stam, told me they are asking for anyone who was on the scene that night to come forward and share any video that they might have of the incident.

Brian Todd, CNN, Washington.

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SOLOMON: All right, our thanks to Brian Todd there.

And thank you for joining us. I'm Rahel Solomon live in New York. Our thanks to Becky Anderson and her team in Abu Dhabi. "CNN THIS MORNING" begins after this break.

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