00:00Let's get more now from Colonel Simon Diggins, who served as UK attache in Kabul, the Afghan capital.
00:07Thank you very much indeed for joining us, Colonel Diggins.
00:09And from a military standpoint, what is your reaction to the objectives and so far the nature of the Israeli
00:16and American military action in Iran,
00:18what Donald Trump is calling a major combat operation?
00:21Good to have you with us.
00:22Good afternoon, yes, absolutely, absolutely.
00:24I mean, the Armada build-up suggests that something significant was going to happen.
00:28So it was not going to be a sort of token operation in order to put pressure on the Iranians.
00:33We heard that the build-up was closer to the build-up in 2003, prior to the Gulf War then.
00:40So clearly something major was planned.
00:42I think the words now start to come out from people like President Trump, talking about this in a once
00:47-a-generation,
00:48we've actually talked about generational change to the Iranian people, suggesting room for a long conflict.
00:55Now, Iran already retaliating against Israel and U.S. bases across the Gulf.
01:00Does this signal that we're in an inevitable direct state-on-state conflict?
01:05And just how much is this going to spread?
01:08Well, that is also good to be their reaction.
01:11They always said they would react, and they said there'd be a significant reaction to any attack by Israel and
01:18by America.
01:19So nothing new there.
01:20And I think the difference is now, if you compare it back to a couple of weeks ago, or rather,
01:24a month or so ago,
01:25when the height of the then Iranian people's revolt against the government in Tehran,
01:31President Trump at the time encouraged the Iranian people to rise up against them, but they had nothing in place.
01:36I think what we've now got in place is not just the forces to attack, but also the forces to
01:40defend.
01:41And so I think that's what we're seeing at the moment.
01:43We're seeing, and Jordan, for example, has reported, is knocked down two ballistic missiles fired from Iran into its airspace.
01:50So I think that's the kind of conflict we're going to see for a while.
01:52Exchange of missiles, exchange of attacks.
01:54And I think that will be the nature of it, at least for two or three days.
01:59And what can we gather so far about the likely targets of the strikes so far?
02:04And there are media reports that the United States and Israel are actually dividing Labour on this military operation,
02:11with the Americans taking care of the nuclear sites and perhaps Israel focusing on Iran's ballistic missile programme and military
02:17facilities.
02:19Well, it would make common sense to actually allocate the targeting to those countries who are most able to conduct
02:25those operations.
02:25Again, you look back to last year, to June 25, when there were attacks on the Iranian nuclear facilities.
02:32The Israelis conducted a lot of operations against, first of all, Iranian air defences and then some of the sites
02:37they could get at.
02:38But some of the more difficult to get outside, particularly those that were in bunkers, were left to the Americans
02:42because the Americans had the appropriate ordinance in which to conduct that.
02:45So I expect there's been a division of responsibility between these Israelis and Americans, looking at each target in turn
02:50and working out which is the best way to prosecute that,
02:53and then using the appropriate weapons and the appropriate air forces and missile systems to attack those sites.
02:59And Colonel Diggins, we've seen missile interceptions so far in Qatar, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates, including near to
03:06the U.S. 5th Fleet Headquarters.
03:09How exposed are U.S. and other Western bases in the region, and how sophisticated are these interceptor capabilities?
03:17Well, they are sophisticated, and of course the bases are vulnerable.
03:20And indeed, one of the things that the Iranians made clear was that they would attack those bases.
03:24And again, I think this goes back to the wider regional issue, because I think what the other thing that
03:27happened after when President Trump talked about supporting the Iranian people
03:31in the earlier period, in December, January, was the local regional countries, Qatar, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, said this is fine.
03:39We accept that we'll be a target. We need to do something to defend us.
03:43So what we've now seen, as said, is the build-up of the defensive side as well as the offensive
03:47side.
03:47So I think we're now getting that kind of response and counter-response from both sides.
03:52And they are sophisticated. There's no question about it.
03:54The level of sophistication you require in order to knock down a ballistic missile is high.
03:59And that's what I think was taking time to build up prior to this particular attack happening.
04:04And you touched on it before, but considering the signalling that the U.S. strikes were possible,
04:09how much preparation do you think that the military in Iran had for preparing for protecting its stockpile of missiles
04:16and launchers, for example,
04:17and getting its top political and military figures to safe locations?
04:22Well, I think they'll have been watching with extreme interest the kind of build-up of U.S. forces in
04:25the region.
04:26And we heard last week that, for example, they had established a sort of chain of command to take place
04:31if and when some of their senior leadership were removed, wounded, or simply had to be kept out of communications
04:37for their own safety.
04:38So they'll have done their best to try and build up for that.
04:41And indeed, they tried their best to recover from the attacks last year.
04:44I mean, they've got a stockpile of about 3,000 ballistic missiles, which is a huge amount of missiles.
04:48They fired some 500 off in the operations last year in response to Israeli and U.S. attacks.
04:55But they have managed to rebuild a lot of that stockpile since then.
04:58So they've all been thinking about this for a while in exactly the same way as the Americans and the
05:02Israelis have as well.
05:04And finally, what indicators should we be watching out for now, do you think?
05:09What should we be looking out for in the next, say, 48 hours to gauge just how much this is
05:13going to escalate
05:14or perhaps stabilise or find some sort of off-ramp diplomatically?
05:19Well, sure. I think the off-ramp is not going to be an early off-ramp.
05:23I think it's the first and honest on.
05:24So I think it will take a little bit of time to see what the results are going to be.
05:28We're getting back some reporting at the moment about Western targeting,
05:31but neither side is going to be very honest about what they've hit or what they haven't had.
05:34Because it does take time for intelligence analysts to work out how effective they have been or not.
05:39But I would suspect that we will continue to see a significant amount of force being used over the next
05:4448 hours or so.
05:45And then there may be an operational pause, but there may be an operational pause just to analyse what damage
05:51has been done
05:52and also to gauge whatever reactions are incoming.
05:55But I don't expect this to happen to seize early.
05:59I think we're in for a long run against the Iranian regime.
06:03Simon, we really appreciate your input today.
06:06Thank you so much for joining us.
06:08Colonel Simon Diggins, former UK attache in Kabul.
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