CNN’s Wolf Blitzer on Iran War: “It Looks Like This Is Gonna Escalate Big Time”
CNN reports on the latest news regarding U.S. strikes on Iran:
VICTOR BLACKWELL: Let’s bring in now, Wolf Blitzer. Wolf, a busy morning, and the Supreme Leader promised an expanded regional response if there was a strike, and we’re now seeing it. WOLF BLITZER: Yeah, it looks like this is gonna escalate big time in the coming hours and days for that matter. Victor, thanks very, very much. Our team has been up and gathering information since the attack started several hours ago. I wanna get to CNN’s Alayna Treene and Zach Cohen in just a minute, but right now I wanna go to CNN’s Jeremy Diamond. He’s on the scene for us in Tel Aviv. Set the scene over there in Telaviv. We know the sirens have been going off, not just in Tel aviv, but in Haifa and Jerusalem, elsewhere in Israel as well. JEREMY DIAMOND: That’s right, Wolf. Over the course of the last seven hours, we witnessed initially Israeli and U.S. strikes in Iran, which, as we understand it, are very much still ongoing. And that was quickly followed by Iranian retaliation. Within two hours of Israel announcing that it was carrying out strikes in Iraq, Iran fired its first volley of ballistic missiles towards Israel, sending millions of people in this country rushing to bomb shelters, both here in Tel Aviv, but also in Jerusalem, in northern Israel, as well as in the southern part of the country as well. As of yet, I’m told by an Israeli military official that dozens of ballistic missiles have been targeting Israel, but there have been no significant hits according to that military official. And indeed, we haven’t witnessed any hits here in tel Aviv. It appears that most of the missiles are indeed being intercepted. What we understand in terms of the strikes that the United States and Israel are carrying out in Iran, they are extraordinarily significant and every source I’ve been talking to has been warning that this military operation is and will be far more severe in scope and in scale than the 12-day war between Iran and Israel, during which the United States also struck nuclear sites. And that’s because here, there’s not just military targets being hit, Iran’s ballistic missile program. But two Israeli sources familiar with the matter are telling me that Israel also carried out strikes targeting Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, as well as several other senior Iranian figures. And so it’s quite clear, and you can hear it as well in listening to the words of President Trump, that this military operation isn’t just aimed at diminishing Iran’s military and nuclear capabilities, it is very much aimed at creating the conditions for regime change in Iran. And that is very much what appears to be underway as US and Israeli officials have warned us that this operation is going to continue for at least several days.
