In a statement tonight, ron said that this will be the only response to israels strike on irans consulate in damascus at the beginning of the month. That, of course, killed several iranian generals, including two top commanders. Iranian officials had vowed revenge for those attacks, and in their statement, they also warned that the United States must stay away from any direct military involvement. Meanwhile, officials telling nbc news that the u. S. And israel have been closely coordinating how to defend against this imminent attack. For fears of growing regional war have been escalating for months ever since hamas is october 7th attack on israel, and the subsequent israeli war on gaza. Joining me now, richard engel, nbc news chief foreign correspondent. He is in jerusalem for us in the early hours of the morning there we are in that window, richard, of anticipating some of those drones making their way into israel, as well as potentially those missiles. What can you tell us about what
Was 15 kilotons. World leaders issued rapid responses. President barack obama called the nuclear test a grave theft. The japanese Prime Minister said it was absolutely unacceptable. The president of south korea called kim jongun fanatically reckless. They are holding a closed door meeting in the Yunited Nations N two hours. We are joined by will, lisa and victor, joining us from washington. Will, you have been to north korea several times over the last few years. Probably more than any other western journalist. What is pyongyang up to . Kim jongun, when i was last in north korea in may solidified his power and lined up his leadership to develop north Koreas Nuclear program at a dizzying pace in the last several months and weeks. In addition to this nuclear test which caused a 5. 3 magnitude earthquake, still yet to are verified by the u. S. , still testing radiation levels, three missiles launch from the ground capable of hitting here in japan. The week before that, there was a submari
the other groups that operate there specifically, has below. hezbollah has an enormous present inside syria and iran sends weapons, parts, to hezbollah through syria and that is generally what we see is really airstrikes against advanced missile parts, components that would be used en by hezbollah at the israeli military takes more often take strikes inside there but again they don t acknowledge them. i will say the other group that is operating inside syria is pe the u.s. military. they have locations in southern syria and in eastern syria. what we see when israel is generally operating in these strikes inside syria is they will be conflict these strikes with the u.s. military point that is everything from giving them a heads up when the aircraft are already in the air that something is coming, just to make sure that no one, there is no miscalculation, no
but a few days from now or whatever amount of time it takes, what would we have, when could we have an accurate damage assessment of what my have actually occurred tonight? reporter: we are already seeing some social media video of explosions in the skies over isfahan. some things are starting to come out from iraq and syria so we may get a better sense of that in the next day or so. it is about daylight in all three locations right now. friday morning. so we may get a sense of that. the real question, though, is, will he get any attribution to this? keep in mind, there is a widespread knowledge that israel has taken a number of strikes inside syria in recent years, specifically, usually going after lebanese shipments of component parts. advanced missile parts that iran ships in syria. and they very rarely if ever acknowledge any of those strikes. it would not surprise me if we
in terms of number, simply because iran is subject to huge sanctions already. he cannot for example sell things from the uk to iran, particularly drum parts, missile parts, things like that. you re targeting a specific number of individuals and some defence many fractures and things like that, so it s symbolic, though. essentially this is the united states in the uk saying that yes, we should continue to maintain collective international diplomatic pressure on iran, following its unprecedented attack on israeljust over the last weekend. so essentially it is, the international community is saying we need to stick with israel, we need to keep it as an international coalition against iran, to put more pressure on the iranians, but keep the diplomatic pressure on the side to the israelis, that means you don t have to go hard with any kind of military retaliation against, as a result of their own s attack.