Emergency Episode: ISRAEL AT WAR WITH IRAN - With Ronen Bergman

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The Iranians believe it was ground teams of Mossad that were on site or not far away from the site that launched them.

It drove the Iranians crazy.

I think, I don't know, but I think that we saw so many targets hit at the same time with such precision that I would assume that we will soon see reports about quadcopters.

We saw what launchers and drones can do in the recent Ukraine attack on Russia.

The Russians were helpless, and I think the Iranians tonight felt the same.

It's 12:30 a.m.

on Friday, June 13th here in New York City.

It is 7.30 a.m.

on Friday, June 13th in Israel, as Israelis start their day, but they're not really starting their day because most of them have been up much of the night.

We are just about three hours after a nationwide siren awoke Israelis to the news that the Israeli Air Force has been conducting extensive strikes on the Islamic Republic of Iran.

As far as we know, at this point, the strikes have targeted nuclear enrichment sites, including the Natan's nuclear facility, military sites, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps leadership, including Hussein Salami, the head of the RARGC,

and the Army Chief of Staff, as well as leading Iranian nuclear scientists.

This blow comes just two days before U.S.

Special Envoy to the Middle East, Steve Witkoff, was scheduled to meet with Iran's foreign minister in what looked like a final attempt to resolve the Iran nuclear crisis diplomatically.

U.S.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio has said that the U.S.

had no involvement in the planning of the attack.

But there are contradicting reports about whether or not the U.S.

was collaborating with Israel to deceive the IRGC in the weeks leading up to this attack.

And in an interview with Brett Bearer Fox News earlier tonight, President Trump said, quote, that the U.S.

will defend itself and Israel if Iran retaliates.

Shortly after the blitz began, the IDF Home Front Command announced immediate changes to its guidelines, prohibiting all gatherings for educational, social, and workplace purposes.

Israelis have been instructed to remain near bomb shelters as they await the Iranian response.

It's an extremely tense moment for Israelis and for Jews around the world.

For years, we've discussed the danger of Iran inching closer and closer to a nuclear weapon.

The IDF said in a statement that in recent months it had accumulated evidence that Iran's nuclear program was, and I quote, approaching the point of no return.

Joining us to unpack the ongoing events that are reshaping the Middle East in real time is Ronan Bergman.

Ronan is a staff writer for the New York Times and senior correspondent for military and intelligence affairs at Yidiyot Ahronot.

He is the recipient of a Pulitzer Prize for his reporting on the Israel-Hamas war.

Ronan, welcome back to the show, and thank you for joining us at this late hour or early hour.

Thanks for being here.

It's happy to be here.

So, Ronan, let's begin with what we know as of now.

Again, just after midnight here in New York City, about the attack that took place in Iran tonight.

What actually happened?

What was taken out?

And who was taken out?

Before the attack took place, there were numerous signs, not interpreted right by the Iranis, but probably we'll talk about this later.

But everybody talked about what Israel will do, can't do to the Iranian nuclear project.

This was everybody were talking about that.

Can Israel do the same damage like a joint Israel-US Israel-U.S.

strike, etc., etc.?

Because throughout the years, it was the nuclear project that was seen as the main threat.

And therefore, if Israel wants to attack Iran, it was sort of like natural given that it will attack the nuclear sites and only the nuclear sites.

Now, Israel preferred to do something slightly different and attack and still attacking and will attack in the next few days a much bigger variety of targets.

And because because that variety included a list of top-ranking Iranian officials, among them the chief of staff, the deputy chief of staff, the head of the National Security Council, the head of the Revolutionary Guard Air Force, the head of the Revolutionary Guard, and top nuclear scientists.

And these people did not see the time as dire, did not see a need to go to a safe house.

And Israel wanted to take them by surprise in their homes.

Then basically dictate the first round to be taking out these individuals in their homes.

Because if you do it in a reverse sequence, you do something else, then of course these people will know they will go into some kind of an emergency status and go to headquarters or go to a safe house or go to a bunker.

So it wasn't just that they hit the people, the personnel, before they hit any particular sites or infrastructure.

It was that they hit the personnel in the places that the personnel would least expect it.

Yes, and at the time that they least expect it.

If it was, let's say, the nuclear facility in Natanz that was first, or the air defenses, an indication that something else will happen afterwards, then naturally these people will get a call, even if not, you know, fearing for their lives, they will go to headquarters.

So it was that first round, together with some of the air defenses, as we know.

And after that, started to take out different targets throughout Iran.

And these different targets include storages for ballistic missiles, laboratories like the one in Perchin.

This is a place where Iran used to hide some of the most important experiments into developing high-explosives that are a needed component in the manufacture of a warhead, the famous sites in Natanz and Fudou, and taking out the remaining air defenses guarding Iran, just to remind our viewers and listeners, that in October Israel already took out the sensitive, most capable, strategic anti-aircraft batteries.

Taking them out allowed Israel to get much closer to the needed sites.

This will basically strip Iran naked from any kind of air defense.

We are talking about a few waves of attacks deepened through the night.

We still need to see what are the results,

especially on the more fortified bunkers where the centrifuges, the storage is for the enriched uranium.

But as far as IDF sources, intelligence sources claim, those who I spoke with, they believe that the targets of tonight were achieved quite successfully and that it opens up an option for the continuation of the strike in the next days.

Can you tell us a little bit about the attack forces that were deployed and their methods to the extent that you know how they were deployed?

The Iranians believe, I don't think that they are absolutely wrong, that in many of the covert actions that were taken against different parts of the nuclear project, like factories producing the centrifuges, these sites, these factories, these laboratories, in many of the cases were hit by quadcopters carrying relatively small amount of explosives, but enough to destroy a building.

And a quadcopter, by nature, has very limited range, so they could not be launched from Israel.

And the Iranians believe it was ground teams of Mossad that were on site or not far away from the site, or maybe in the worst case, in a neighboring country, that launched them.

It drove the Iranians crazy.

I think, I don't know, but I think that we saw so many targets hit at the same time with such precision that I would assume that we will soon see reports about quadcopters.

What's a quadcopter?

It's a small drone with four propellers that is capable of carrying, relative to its size, significant amount of explosive, but still it's not one-ton J-DAP.

And it can be launched secretly from a car, from a ship, from an airplane, with very low signature on radars, especially if it comes from the ground and it is hidden in a truck or

in a car.

They need to have a nearby deployment, but once deployed, once launched, there's very little the Iranians can do to stop them.

Because they are very hard to detect and the range is very, very short.

So it's like if it's being launched from the next neighborhood and then the team that launched it just leaves the site and cannot be found.

These are very hard

to locate.

We saw what launchers and drones can do in the recent Ukraine attack on Russia.

Right.

The Russians were helpless, and I think the Iranians tonight felt the same.

Was Tehran and some of these other parts of Iran crawling with Mossad operatives and other types of commandos?

I mean,

was there a lot of on-the-ground penetration either tonight or that had been in Iran for some time?

The Iranians believe from the numerous attacks that they suffered from in the recent six, seven years, they believe that indeed there is a Mossad agent under every bed and above or around every corner.

To an extent, the answer is yes.

But of course, at the end end of the day, you need an airplane or you need a quadcopter with a team that would actually deliver the bomb and destroy the facility or kill this individual.

Ronan, could you give us a sense of what was actually hit?

I mean, there was senior-level personnel, so leaders of the regime were hit.

In terms of infrastructure, military infrastructure, nuclear infrastructure, and where?

There's a lot of, you know, there's a lot of reporting about an operation against the nuclear infrastructure in Natans, but there's nothing, I'm not hearing much about Ford.

So

I just think we're trying to understand what so far has been hit that we know of.

Yeah, so I think we are talking about 10 to 15 individuals that were targeted, most of them in Tehran, at least six cities,

among them Tabriz, Isfahan, Kashan, Iraq, Ahwaz, and Teheran, and facilities, part of them for storage of missiles, air defenses, and nuclear sites.

Natanz and Perchin, there's still unclarity about the famous, used to be secret facility inside the mountain near Fodu,

which is considered to be the most fortified and hard to access enrichment site.

And I have some more reporting about two factories that are producing centrifuges and one other factory that is producing what they call the planetaric mixers mixers that are massive, massive mixers for the production of solid fuel and explosive.

You cannot make ballistic missiles without mixers.

It crippled the ability of Iran to produce ballistic missiles.

Any sense for Israeli resources that were deployed?

For instance, back in October of 24, I was given some estimate that something along the lines of like a third of the Israeli Air Force was deployed for that operation.

Any sense for the scale of what was involved here?

I believe that this is much higher, much bigger.

We're talking about much of the Israeli Air Force taking off.

One of the reasons, by the way, is to make sure that there is the the airfields are empty fearing Iranian retaliation.

But we're talking about numerous squadrons of fighting jets together with quadcopters, together with long-range drones.

Much of that fleet needs either aerial or ground fueling in other areas of the Middle East, on the way to Tehran, to Iran, on the way back.

So you need fueling tankers, you need intelligence vehicles or intelligence jets, and command and control jets.

I would assume that we are talking about many, many thousands of soldiers and intelligence operatives back in Israel monitoring, helping, communicating, commanding the operation

from afar while keeping a close tap on what is happening in Iran every minute.

So, that specific IRGC leader is in the room where Israel is planning to target, and to have everything synchronized, to have so many people being monitored because Israel is aiming to kill them.

It takes a lot of manpower.

And for days, much of the IDF has been dealing with nothing but gearing up towards the attack.

While many of the soldiers and the officers not sure until the last moment the decision that the decision will indeed be taken and the strike will be launched.

Was there anything that you, from your understanding, that Israel was trying to take out, at least in the waves tonight, that they weren't able to achieve?

First of all, there is one target that is or could be potentially very, very important on the target list that, as far as I know, was not chosen.

The supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khabinai, as far as I understand, he was not targeted.

I think it's a matter of decision to go for decapitation of much of the Iranian leadership, but leave the leader in his place and maybe as a signal or as a symbolic message to say to him, listen, we could take you out as well.

We left you alive.

You should not continue to any kind of retaliation because you could be next.

Are we aware of any IDF casualties so far?

I don't think that there were.

Based on your reporting, how did Iran respond?

Before we get into what we think Iran's response will be, just how did they respond over the last few hours?

What were they doing?

The anti-aircraft defenses of Iran were on high alert for a long time.

They have tried to fire.

They were ready to an extent.

But the S-300 has a range of something like 700 kilometers.

Israel developed a secret weapon that can take them out from 1500 kilometers.

So nothing that the Iranians could match.

Now, without having the S-300 enabling them to take out the remaining few dozens of batteries of tactical air defense.

And while Israel is conducting the operation, given that, as you said, that Israel started by taking out key personnel in the command structure, in the command hierarchy of the Iranian military, of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, other parts of the Iranian security apparatus, did that completely disrupt?

Because this is comparable to when Israel took out Nasrallah and the Hezbollah and Hezbollah leadership is first take out the decision makers so that they didn't know what to do because Israel had taken out the leadership.

Was that the same idea here?

The same idea

was to really destabilize the whole command and control system and leave the organization in the Hezbollah case or the country or the regime in the Iran case in total disarray.

But there's something more that I think makes a perfect comparison between the two cases.

In a way, similar to what happened to Israel on october seventh, where Israel believed that they know the enemy better than the enemy knows itself.

Look at what happened in the world in the twenty four hours prior to the Israeli strike.

Like I think that there were very few people in the Middle East and Europe and the US who didn't know, didn't suspect that Israel is going to strike.

But the Iranians kept on publishing statements saying we know what the Israelis and Trump are doing.

They are just fluxing muscles in order to put

towards the negotiation on Sunday.

And so Israel took them by surprise and took advantage of the fact that they don't see a need to go to an emergency status.

And what are the expectations for Iran's response now?

I think that this is like a unanimous assessment.

We should be expecting hard days days for Israeli citizens everywhere in Israel.

Iran has a fleet, remaining fleet of ballistic missiles.

So the bottom line, Iran is expected to retaliate.

The question is how, for how long, and

will it lead Iran to explode the negotiation, leave the negotiation, not coming to discuss a possible solution with the U.S.

on Sunday because identifying the U.S.

and Israel in cahoot behind this attack, or understanding that not negotiating could lead to even more catastrophic results, which could potentially threaten the sole existence of the regime.

I think many of us believed it was probably just a matter of time before Israel would target Iran's nuclear program.

But what's clear from tonight is that Israel has been much more ambitious than strictly targeting Iran's nuclear program.

It has targeted parts of, not the entirety of, but it's so far from what we understand, parts of the Iranian regime.

Now, maybe that is in service of taking out the nuclear program, but there's also the possibility of the regime just crumbling.

I mean, I think what we learned from December of 2024, from the fall of the Assad regime in Syria, a regime that had been in power for 53 years, and then it meets a little bit of resistance.

And in a matter of 13 days, the regime crumbles in a way that it couldn't crumble after like 13 plus years of civil war.

And then in 13 days, there's this revolt, there's this uprising, and the regime, this regime that's been around for over half a century, falls.

And we're all sitting there saying, wait a minute, this regime was far more wobbly

than we expected.

So if the Iranian people who are frustrated with this regime ever thought there was a moment where this regime looks weak, I would think it would be now.

I believe this is the weakest moment in Iranian modern history.

So since the revolution and the establishment of the Islamic Republic.

It's weaker and seen weaker more than in the toughest days of the Iran-Iraq war.

And there were tough days there.

There were people in Israeli intelligence that for a long time how to destabilize the regime and take it down.

I assume that these people are looking at the moment, if not...

directly involved in the planning and thinking what else Israel can do to accelerate pressure.

I would assume Israel is also aiming to suggest to convince the U.S.

to take a part here, not just standing aside and helping Israel in case it needs defense, but having a crucial part

in finishing this task.

I think this could be another goal for Israel now, is to convince the U.S.

to take a much more decisive role, use the robust American military capabilities that Israel doesn't have.

For example, the B-2 bombers potentially launched from Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean.

These can carry few of the mob, the mother of all bombs, that is like 11 tons of explosive, of bunker busters, that can be dropped and destroy even the most fortified, the most deep Iranian sites.

This is something Israel cannot do.

They don't have the bombs and they don't have the bombers to carry it.

And I could see Israel now, after something that is at least for now looking as a great success militarily and intelligence-wise, operationally, I could see Israel potentially lobbying with the U.S.

trying to convince the U.S.

to enter.

Ronan, what should we expect in the days ahead in terms of will Israel continue with further waves?

of attacks for, you know, I've heard estimates of like another week of this.

Yeah, a week is more or less what was planned before the attack started, four days to a week.

But there are two sides here.

It depends also on Iran.

While we speak, there's the news coming about 100 drones that were fired, that were launched from Iran, so suicide drones.

They're on their way.

It takes hours for a drone, it's a slow vehicle to get to Israel, but they are on their way.

I assume this is just the beginning.

And Israel also has targets, more targets to hit in Iran.

I think we are looking at a week that is going to be a tough, very tough week for the people of Israel.

Last question.

Roughly speaking, how many years in the making was an operation like we witnessed tonight?

It started in 2008.

First, they wanted to take out Natans.

Then they discovered Fordu.

Then they did the massive cyber operation, Stuxnet, Olympic Games, that delayed the process there.

So we are talking about two decades of collection of intelligence, translation of that intelligence into an actual,

and all of that reaching a peak in the last, let's say,

three years when the penetration, the intelligence penetration into Iranian ranks was, I would say, not less extensive than the one against Kizbalah.

And we saw what...

what were the achievements, what were successes against Kizbalah, the ability to monitor Iranian officials in real time.

Israeli intelligence in the previous two attacks in April and October of last year, when the Iranians attacked Israel, Israeli intelligence knew what will be launched and precisely what hour.

And then during the last year, the Air Force started to make more and more drills.

And one of the things that alerted the Iranians, but yet not alerted them enough because they still didn't believe, were massive drills of hundreds of Israeli airplanes taking off, flying

into the sea, doing all sorts of drills during aerial fueling, etc., and coming back.

Now, this is not a demonstration.

This is not in order to go and visit someone's yacht.

This is, it's clear, there's only one thing they can rehearse, which is striking Iran.

But in spite of all that, and Iran sees this, like nobody, you cannot miss it.

Iran saw it.

There was alertness in Iran.

There were even some suggestions in Israeli intelligence that Iran might strike first,

which led to the total, total evacuation of many, many military sites in Israel in the last 24 hours.

But yet, luckily for Israel, the Iranis didn't get it.

They thought there's no way that Israel would launch the attack.

All right.

Ronan, I'm sure we'll be speaking to you again in the next,

you know, in the weeks ahead.

Thank you for doing this at this

odd hour for me.

And, you know, keep in touch.

We'll do.

Thank you then.

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