a few hours ago he went to his cabinet and repeated almost the same thing saying that the only solution is for u.s. forces to leave is in the unity of iraq it is not in the favor of the rockies if anything happens and iraq is splintered into blocks and one goes to saudi the other goes to turkey and the another goes to iran these were the words of the iraqi prime minister saying that unity is of the essence because you've been hearing about such a tremendous behave off revenge that many of these groups which are backed and supported by iran many of them calling for an event saying that the blood of the mot is not going to go 'd in vain and they have also been clashing with groups which are opposed to iranian influence in iraq so it is internally a very tense situation in iraq iraq find itself in the throes of this security situation where at least 2 bases belonging to u.s.

led coalition have come under attack by iran and we await an official response from the iraqi government osama thank you very much you're watching all jazeera and continuing coverage of the developing story coming to us out of iraq iran says it's launched more than a dozen ballistic missiles of u.s. facilities in iraq at least 2 bases have been targeted one in erbil and the other one of the areas in the province of anbar iran's revolutionary guard has assumed a warning to israel and other u.s. allies in the region saying they'll be attacked if their countries are used to strikes against tehran. it is standing by for us at the white house as big as the latest reaction out of iran 1st let's go. to osama bin. in the iraqi capital just before we start our conversation of some of we have got these live pictures coming to us from kemah on the actual funeral for. so the money taking place following on from the 3 days of official mourning

compelling pictures. some of the people osama we've been talking to since this story broke 4 hours ago now have been saying that the optics are interesting that they went for the airbase that donald trump. had been to in december of 2018 had they also timed it so it's it's operating in counterpoint do you think perhaps with the actual burial. well the optics do matter and as you as you pointed out early on in this conversation that the iranians decided to hit almost the same time in the united states on friday they're in general so yes optics do matter and now that you seeing those scenes again on your screen for the last 4 days you've seen and out for of grief and emotion both in iraq and iran you've seen places in syria and lebanon where there has been a lot of grief all the way up to yemen where people have come out and showed

support for this general a general who was made into a larger than life figure against the operation on iceland he was the one who put together this ragtag ideological force together into a cohesive army which fought i.c. in iraq and syria and got them the victory remember that it was the iraqi forces in 2014 who left mosul for ice and it was the it was again when they went back in 2017 they were spearheaded by many of these militias of the popular mobilization forces who 2nd general 2nd person in command was i'm at the end 100 was also killed in this strike so this is a figure these are figures who are very very varied in not just in iraq in the region as well and that is why many people right after the death of customs in the money question. the rationale behind this because maybe and perhaps

the ministration in the united states did not gauge how deep its deep rooted the support for the ideological and the military support for this general was in the region again as as these events have developed you've seen groups saying that they want revenge but chewing a tremendous amount of restraint as well there has been and as we saw the funeral there were. reports that are from various vested diplomats that they're concerned that this crowd could turn towards the green zone in baghdad but it didn't there was there was concern that after the funeral after the bodies have been transferred to karbala now there will be retaliatory attacks because remember on sunday hezbollah the hezbollah brigades group had said to iraq the force of that distance yourself by a 1000 meters from the u.s. installations that did not happen either so it goes to show that many of these

groups although operate independently are semi independently on the ground are taking a not of their guidance from iran and iran had said that it will respond at a time and place of its choosing it said that it will respond in kind because a military action deserves a minute for your response and that is what we seen unfold in iraq again and this is what the iraqis that are very much afraid of because where does this stop is one that when we were talking to him at the parliament he said that if one american 'd was killed in the killed an iranian general if iran responds and melt multiple americans are killed how is america going to respond and then it is will it start a chain reaction of response and counter response and where does it end and why does it have to be in iraq and that is something that everyone in iraq has seemed to be asking that what did iraq do to deserve this because there are people who are against not just the united states influence here in iraq but also against iranian

influence in iraq and both of these forces seem to have chosen the theater of war to be this country. given your reporting osama when you talk to iraqis not iraqi politicians not iraqi military not even u.s. military who work with iraqi military is there a sense in which those people in iraq might be best served served if the u.s. does what iran seems to be signaling it wants the u.s. to do just over the past 2 hours and if this do not react to what we have done in the past 2 hours and then we would have to react to your reaction and the people that would benefit from that in the 1st instance would be the people of iraq. yes pieces of the people of iraq still remember been a few days ago when the u.s. president work up and said that it is going to be devastating for iraqis if the try

to push u.s. troops out he warned them of sanctions he warned them of having to pay for installations that he's built that hurt iraqis a lot of people in the street said that why doesn't the united states respect us why doesn't the united states think of us as equal partners why is are we being dictated upon by the united states and iran and this is an issue which divides iraq is whether you go to words the northern parts and the kurdish region or you go to the sunni dominated areas in the northeast and northwest and provinces of iraq and then you come towards the shia dominated areas there is a completely different perception of what foreign influence is and that is why this issue divided iraq's parliament as well and it it is it is seen on the streets when you go to a cafe and sit down with somebody over a cup of tea they they ask you the question that why why are we being dragged into this and what are we going to get out of this there's nothing that iraq has seen since the u.s.

led invasion in 2003 about from death and destruction there are people who are 19 years old and who say that they have seen no prosperity and no prospects and that is why a lot of iraqis in the last few months have come out in their thousands on the streets saying that they want an end to this they want to see a government which represents them they want to see a government which is not governed by the influences of either regional partners or u.s. pressures and that is what the sentiment on the ground is there's been a lot of anger against everyone who's been influential in iraq their people are not happy with the way the united states has been treated in iraq people are not been happy with the inference that iran has on many of these groups which are ideologically aligned to iran more than iraq and there are there's a strong sense of nationalism that runs deep in this country so again. issue of foreign influence foreign troops presence of foreign forces in iraq is a divisive one and that is something that runs deep and will only manifest itself

more and more as iraq gets thrown into this war between 2 major parties osama thanks very much for just joining us here in el jazeera just to get you right up to date with the very latest developments and the reaction around the world the civil aviation authority the federal aviation authority in the states has said that u.s. civil flights have been banned over the gulf region over iraq and over iran that's according to the f.a.a. being quoted in the reuters news agency that's going to be problematic for the big gulf carriers because there's already an issue over flying over saudi air space because of the g.c.c. blockade of cattle are so that was a convoluted flight if you fly into and out of this region on a regular basis you would have been aware of that if you've looked at something like flight radar dot com or flight flight tracker 24 what you're looking at right now is the burial of kassam silliman e he was killed last friday in that targeted drone strike carried out by the united

states he was killed at the same time as an iraqi militia leader there was a natural overlap between those 2 men and what they were trying to achieve of course the news agenda for the past 4 or 5 days has been dominated by the international reaction to that and the incredibly powerful pictures coming out of iran tens of thousands of people on the streets of iranian cities during the 3 days of mourning for qassam so the money somebody was saying when he was killed he wasn't on a mission he was the mission and he was directly responsible for maintaining and pushing the arc of iranian influence across the middle east from iran itself all the. down to the arabian peninsula down through and as far south as yemen there were reports that came out very very quickly and it's an established

part of the journal of record of this region that there was an overlap between him his militia influences and some of the fighters in the yemeni conflict has been going on since 2015 as is our correspondent in tehran so these pictures as well being beamed around the world and the timing of this again possibly significant. yes the burial of us and so the money was for spawned yesterday because the number of crowds that descended upon his home city of card mine hundreds of thousands there was a stampede there were casualties so authorities didn't want to know the incident so they perspire on his burial and we understand that is taking place right now no iran did say that they would respond but they've allowed for these days of mourning he's been currently buried and it is significant that as he is being buried

even before you know he is put into his crave iran has responded but who was general got some sort of money he was the head of the good force of the which is a part of the iran's revolutionary guard could force deals with operations outside of iran who is credited with fighting off isis in iraq and preventing them from reaching the borders of iran he is also built up links and plans and militias in the region from iraq and yemen and lebanon with hezbollah so he was a very instrumental pair but also even those that don't like the government here that don't like the political establishment have their recognized customs of the money as a paycheck to some month that defended the country and that's why we sourced so many people come out onto the streets over the last few days he's body was sport to have he saw trim and large number of crowds come out of the city then the holy city

of musharraf and then the funeral took place here in the crown where hundreds and thousands of people came out onto the streets the funeral was led by the supreme leader ayatollah khamenei and then his body was taken to own the holy city of qom and then to his final resting place in can mine and that was he's vish to be buried in his home city in the cemetery alongside those that had died fighting in the iran iraq war so has a very instrumental individual his very. popular individual in iran but also amongst iran's allies in the region now what we have heard tonight is that iran has carried out a retaliatory act for his assassination this seems to be true waves of missile attacks and dysthymic revolutionary guard they have issued a statement they said that to us time to fulfilled their promise they said that tens of missiles had been fired they called the united states the great satan and

they warned that if the united states allies in the region. it was used to retaliate against iran then iran would target dolls' regional countries and they also said that they did not recognize israel as a separate entity from the united states and if if iran is attacked and that opens up the door for a dragging in israel and other regional countries if this is to escalate but how did we get here how did we get to a position where we could possibly be facing a wider conflict now iran has made it clear that this is a retaliation to a single event to the assassination of general costs and so the money they said they do not want a war but if the united states respond they would have to respond but we've got had this goes all the way back to 2015 the nuclear deal that obama signed with iran things looked like they were getting better but when donald trump came into office

he pulled the united states out of that deal in 2018 and that deal was designed to curb iran's nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief but when donald trump came into office it pulled the united states out of that deal and put sanctions on iran on the oil and banking sector they connally has been affected and from last year iran has been taking steps back from that nuclear deal in phases and just at the start of 2020 days they said that their 5th phase would be to. the nuclear program will not be ended by j c p o is that 2015 nuclear deal but everything was upset everything went out the window when the general sense of the money was assassinated by the united states now the population have people come out into the streets they have been asking for revenge the politicians have said that they will have revenge and even the supreme leader said that to the how many said that there would be revenge and tonight it seems

that that revenge has taken place just 2 ways of strikes against us u.s. targets but now the ball is in the united states courts how do they respond because iran is saying that if they are attacked it will be forced to retaliate again now the united states has overwhelming firepower but iran does have the ability with its proxies with its allies in the region with the militias just change the face of the middle east to make it very difficult and. i think we lost the line there too big in tehran as we've been hearing the u.s. federal aviation authority is prohibiting u.s. civil aviation operators from using airspace over iraq iran the gulf and the gulf of amman let's go to our white house correspondent kimberly hellcat also on top of that aspect kimberly osias well we've heard what may yet prove to be iran's 1st official reaction. the telecommunications minister tweeting i guess in effect

to the white house saying get the hell out of our region and i suppose in one sense that's the kind of strength of language that's predictable but maybe it's the kind of language that donald trump has got to rise above and maybe not react to it as a kneejerk reaction he's got to play some 3 d. chess here because it's the middle east is a complex mosaic at the best of times. yeah and it's we have to try and determine from that tweet what they mean by get out of here if that means the president's overall which has been a subject of discussion for a number of days now with regard to u.s. troop presence in the region or does this mean with respect to what you were saying just a moment ago with respect to airspace and whether or not there is a significant military presence in the air that is something we are still trying to nail down in the midst of all of this you know we have to kind of try and figure

out what the u.s. response would be because we do know that there are a number of officials in the white house right now we do have to report though an update to that that we did see the vice president mike pence his motorcade leaving the white house we're not quite sure how to read that because that's the only official that we can confirm has left the white house presumably the situation room . there may still be others in there we know earlier we did see the secretary of state mike pump aoe going in the defense secretary mark esper as well as the chair of the joint chiefs of staff so the question becomes what happens next and that is something that has not yet been determined often we don't know about what the response is until many hours after the fact one thing i can tell you from covering sort of events like this throughout my reporting career is that particularly when the united states has suffered some sort of military attack in any form or fashion

the battle damage assessment as it's called is rarely publicized because the concern being peter that the other side gets a so-called p.r. victory if you will so we may not get those answers in terms of of numbers of potential casualties even the assessment of the damage in terms of scale and scope but there is. is one question that in the midst of all of this we have to start asking and that is you know the u.s. said it was preparing for some sort of response from iran that it was preparing for some sort of attack if that's the case then why was there not some sort of immediate response why was there not sort of the air defenses that we know typically around one of the the largest air bases that we know has been hit why did that not work you know you can speculate a number of reasons why we're trying to get out sers and so far those answers are

not coming from the white house so this gives us a sense that things may still be in motion but again it's not entirely clear does this mean that when the administration was going to go to congress a little later today a minute time tomorrow your time kimberly and give them the evidence that might pump aoe kind of just deliver the word salad over because he was talking about well if you want the evidence just look back over the past 3 days and one was listening to this not one thought will but doesn't actually mean anything we want the world wants the region wants the evidence does that mean that that process is going to congress has not been kybosh because of what's happening on the ground in iraq. i don't think that it may be delayed but it will not be a limited at all together if anything the scrutiny on this white house has just intensified 100 fold there when you say word salad that that's a nice way of putting some of the explanations that reporters attempted to get from

a number of top trump administration officials with regard to the intelligence because repeatedly we've heard that there was an imminent attack and that there was a threat against americans but there's been no proof that has been offered and there is no appetite in the united states for hollow intelligence because we remember the hollow intelligence the faulty intelligence the concern of weapons of mass destruction in iraq that led to the u.s. invasion of iraq well that turned out to not be the case so there are many members of congress there are many ordinary americans who are not going to tolerate that a 2nd time around so we're expecting and still we have not heard that there's been any cancellation of the briefings to take place in congress it's we expect that some of those may have already occurred from the higher level congressional leadership but the other concerning thing in all of this is that protocol has not been followed by this administration by this commander in chief for quite some time

just taken an example the notifications that have been coming from this president have been from his twitter feed we've never seen that before it's not the typical channels when you consider that congress has oversight over the white house particularly when it comes to matters of war and that's why we're also seeing in the u.s. house of representatives that resolutions being debated now to try and curtail the president's ability to strike militarily against iran so there's a lot that's happening in washington to try and get a handle on this but the events seem to be moving faster than the officials can keep up which is often the case when it comes to the wheels of government can really stay close ok we have 2 different aspects to this. bolding story that will just sum up for you very very briefly les to show you some live pictures coming to us out of customs in the money's hometown the burial process has now actually begun as a big correspondence here on was making the point a little early in one of our conversations with him that this was delayed by 24

hours following on from the 3 days of official mourning it's clear as well that the choreography or the optics of this are partially significant as far as the iranians are concerned because you're looking at this on your screen right now as precisely timed pretty much to the 10 minutes or so iran reacts to the death of qassam sulaimani by primarily hitting a big base but donald trump himself was filmed visiting in december of 2018 on top of that let's just reracked the pictures that we've been broadcasting for the past few hours of the aftermath of those 2 attacks that we heard. perhaps a dozen 13 missiles fired at the. base big base it was an established iraqi base and the united states took it over it was reinvigorate seats and increased in

size as the united states got in on board with the fight against eisel that was something that donald trump referred to very clearly very specifically when he had that impromptu news conference with the greek prime minister inside the oval office at the white house 5 hours 6 hours ago now he was talking about that he didn't go on to talk about how the u.s. forces on the ground worked with all the militia who were involved in the fight against meisel on the ground there was also there were 2 waves of missile attacks on that particular base there was also an attack on a base up 800 miles away up in erbil in northern iraq those bases of different functions the one at. was used as. basically a supply stop and also a feeding center for the military operation the fight against eisel what was going on in erbil over the past few years of the conflict in syria that tilted towards being more involved with what was happening across the border in syria so you are

right up to date with what we know so far their work claims and there are claims i'm seeing them on twitter of multiple deaths at that base the base that is not true as of now and kimberly was making the point to a surly that what's happening now is a process of defense strengthening and evaluation on the part of the pentagon we have had no reports whatsoever from anyone that we trust saying that there have been any deaths whatsoever at either of those 2 base bases and that's despite the fact as well that there was also a report or several reports for 2 hours ago now of an attack on a 3rd base that has not been discussed by anyone so i think we can safely put that aspect. of what's going on to bed for the time being let's talk now to feisal body he's a former iraqi ambassador to the u.n. and is currently the director of the center for the study of the middle east at the

university of indiana he joins us on skype from bloomington indiana feisal. welcome back to al-jazeera how dangerous is the situation right now well that's extremely dangerous particularly particularly for iraq and for iraq is i i credit what you just said that there have been no reports of any deaths but there were reports circulating true or not i cannot say of iraq he casualties because these bases which are being used by the united states are iraqi bases that have iraqi person no problem now from the iraqi perspective the nightmare scenario for it has always been since this tit for tat escalation has been going on between the united states and iran that we become the battleground that iraq become the battleground and that seems today to being the case and my concern is that as

the cycle of escalation continues to do so iraq will be drawn in increasingly against its will being the about program but this is clearly. a an escalation that even the administration hoped would not be undertaken i hope they've game this group now and have a better idea of what they intend to do rather than to continue to escalate the iraqi territory if the cycle of escalation is allowed which is wrong on the latter always on and is either sides here prepared to climb down. well the united states jumped up that run that wrong or that the jumped up several runs when it assassinated. an iranian major general i mean imagine if iran had. targeted an american major general what the american response would be so we are well up on the way i won't say we're halfway or 3 quarters i have no idea but where

and then we are up we're sort of we're running up the ladder of us fellatio i think robert and trying to find ways off you mentioned i was a former diplomat at the united nations it would have been extremely helpful for the united states that have allowed for instance the iranian foreign minister to come to new york so that at least through 3rd party intermediaries are directly in new york perhaps efforts to try to deal with it would have been one more one venue one of the of venue for deescalation which now would no longer occur and that's unfortunate would the topography of this conflict have evolved in the way it has had the decisions not been taken within kind of that bubble of the trumpet ministration versus the closed bubble of the regime in tehran all offset against a fairly in very weak government in baghdad. well this is it we have we were in the

middle of at the very least a political crisis not quite yet a constitutional crisis but a political crisis with a weak government of prime minister who has resigned and who is deemed the caretaker by parliament a president who in any event offered to resign although he is still in in place the so this has come at a moment when iraq is the ticket of leave. and it has simply made the government of iraq much weaker you know that fundamentally perhaps the most pro-government story pro-american elected government in iraq since 2003. and yet events spiral so out of control over the last week that even a fairly western oriented prime minister who are for all spent his early years in exile in paris and his 2 degrees from the sort of one who nonetheless has to balance relate has had to balance relations with iran but somebody very comfortable dealing with american interlocutors very comfortable with working closely with the

united states nonetheless felt the need to that this was a step too far that he could not tolerate now the onus is now on the government of iraq to take exactly the same position with the government of iran we are not about homegrown for the united states and iran having protested arguably os us forces to leave. parliament must now act to make the same demand of iran if the united states and iran want to fight one another let them do it elsewhere not in iraq. force the difference however between balancing relations with iran on the part of you're seeing yourself a very weak iraqi government was the difference between that and just giving in to iran you know customs in the money wasn't assassinated on iranian territory he was assassinated on iraqi territory. well this is the point

iran has at the very least very close allies. in iraq those allies have on sort of the lebanese hezbollah model one foot in the government and one foot out of the gulf they are both in the government but also a threat to the government. that's a reality which is which has made successive prime ministers since 2003 top to toe a very very narrow line of balance and it's a very difficult thing to do it got much harder to do last week it is harder today than it was you know 5 hours ago 6 hours ago and that is the danger there is a danger to the united states that iraq will fall without a balance without a counter bounds that iraq may fall into the iranians share of influence and if

that occurs that would be the last great service to his country that some sort of a money will have performed mr ambassador i want to ask you what i've asked a couple of guests before we came to to use a tap this conversation now i won't ask you if iran is at war with the united states because several of our contributors they're clearly trying to on the play it's for the right reasons their conversation is wrapped up with an atmosphere of hope hoping that nobody overreacts now but for you given given you are so connected with all the different facets of this what's the direction of travel generally do you think. well i can give you i'm also a lawyer by training and i teach more here. and i from a legal perspective the united states and iran certainly are are at war they have

had been sort of in a proxy war the term proxy now has to be removed now politically diplomatically that doesn't mean that we are hated or to have a general war between the 2 of the it would of necessity be an asymmetric one between iran and the united states this does not mean that there cannot be as they say what prompts but both sides have to be willing to engage in diplomacy and right now i share that i do not see that i do not see either side the iranian or the american willing to do the things necessary to engage in diplomacy apparently the iraqi prime minister was trying to play the role of an intermediary before all this between saudi arabia and iran since these events have taken place some of the gulf states have tried to intermediate between the united states and iran one or the

other or both parties are going to need to take advantage of those opportunities to neuron to take us off what is a very dangerous escalation for the region for everyone in the region ok we'll leave it there feisal istra body in bloomington in indiana thank you very much as i mentioned earlier iran's liberation only god has assumed a warning to israel saying it considers it a u.s. ally in the killing of the mani pedi force and joins us live from west jerusalem so harry not really any big surprises there. well know this does accord if not the timing at least the nature of the targets of this attack it does accord with the message that we're getting from the israeli security establishment the israeli government in a security cabinet briefing that took place on monday leaks from that briefing suggested that the prime minister benjamin netanyahu was stressing to his cabinet

colleagues that this was an american attack on syria money albeit one that he said the americans had every right to carry out in trying to preserve their own right of self defense and also leaks from that city cabinet meeting suggesting that the briefing coming from israeli intelligence was that any immediate strike back by the iranians would target u.s. interests in the region and not israel of course what is of concern here is what happens next if there is a further u.s. retaliatory response to this attack in the early hours of this morning israeli time then there are indications coming from iranian news agencies quoting the i.r.g.c. saying that haifa a major port city in israel in northern israel would be one of the targets attacked in a wider escalation by iran in that circumstance so when donald trump said in his white

house briefing 6 hours ago now you have lots of countries phoning him up and saying thank you job well done it was difficult to kind of list off a huge run of countries but probably one of them was israel. well certainly cousin has been a major threat to israel and its interests as far as the israeli government is concerned the g c and its activities in syria and in iraq have been targeted by the israeli air force over a couple of years now and there have been instances where there have been rockets fired or rounds fired across the border into the occupied golan heights and the they have been responded to by israeli forces so certainly. there is no question

that there is a lot of support in this country for the removal of solid money from the picture here in the region but there is also a good deal of concern obviously about what happens next there was a report from a major security think tank in israel just this week in which it said that the preparations for a possible wider war and a totally different type of situation in terms of the that possibility with iran was something that israel had to take very seriously and also given the fact that the government limps on without a proper functioning government after 2 inconclusive elections a 3rd one coming up in march still a caretaker administration that report also citing that as a cause for concern that there isn't the kind of strong and fully functioning administration in this country that would be preferable in such

dangerous dangerous circumstances as i say the question now is exactly how many and casualties may have. eventuated from these attacks whether u.s. forces were among them or not how that plays into the u.s. response to the that the betting the. the now is this which obviously is in very early days at the moment is that potentially if there is no further u.s. response then maybe this could be the end of it but if there is if this continues to escalate then israel is obviously very much in the front line of possible targets and could very easily be drawn in to a wider conflagration so does that mean as far as the military planners in jerusalem are concerned that you know they must be well aware there are multiple variables here because it's so difficult to 2nd guess who's going to back down who's not going to back down what the trumpet ministration does next how the iranians react how the iraqis react is israel ready for all those different permutations. well i mean israel has said that it is

on alert and it has been since the killing of so money towards the end of last week and obviously iran has been cited by benjamin netanyahu in particular as israel's number one strategic issue in this region and the major threats to israeli security so obviously israeli military the israeli intelligence forces have done mostly been gaming out all sorts of scenarios not just in the last few days but for many years now and the israelis of course have been talking to their allies in washington so they will have i imagine a pretty good idea of exactly what the intentions and potential comeback may well be from the united states and will presumably be putting their case as to

what they believe might be the best way forward but as we've seen with what happened last week with trump's decision to go after and kill silly money and take this extraordinary game changing option here no one can really predict what this u.s. president will do there is a lot of uncertainty as you're hearing from kimberley in washington itself as to what the next step might be so obviously there is a great deal of vested interest of real consequential concern here as to what happens next and how the americans respond ok thank you very much harry just very quickly before we get into the aviation aspects of this because in effect there are now airspace restrictions coming in for u.s. carriers according to joe words very for iran turkey and concluded a proportionate measured move in self-defense under article 51 of the un charter targeting the base from which quotes cowardly armed. attack against citizens and

senior officials were launched i'm just literally reading this off twitter right now you see we've graph or sized it for you we do not seek an excuse collation of war but we will defend ourselves against any aggression that last paragraph perhaps to over interpret it slightly is kind of a distillation of this trickle down of a stance that we've been getting out of tehran this seems to be an undertow on the part of the iranian authorities expecting or perhaps signaling to the u.s. if you don't react militarily we will then not react to your reaction well as we were mentioning earlier that the u.s. aviation authority the f.a.a. has prohibited u.s. civil aviation of operators from using a space over iraq iran the gulf and the gulf of oman kyle bailey is an aviation analyst he was previously a safety representative with the f a

a he joins us from butler new jersey col bailey what does this mean basically what it means is the f.a.a. is being proactive in protecting the airspace and ensuring that u.s. based aircraft and aircraft flying over the region are safe because there are obviously there have been down this was launched listing missiles and they're being very proactive here and ensuring save operation of aircraft in the region because these missiles i mean not we're not wishing to you know fan the flames as it were but these missiles can go astray one remembers an iranian long haul aircraft was taken at the skies by the americans because they thought it was an iranian fighter jet there were 300 people including 60 children on board. yet that that is true and in fact we have to find also that there are counter measures so if a ballistic missile is launched you know that the opponents actually have defensive

measures on the ground to try to intercept those missiles that are being lodged and quite often those are heat seeking missiles so also if those or if i mean a minor is giving off that signature opponents engines it could possibly interfere with the countermeasures what's intercepting more missile and in fact a commercial aircraft flying overhead and reader what does it mean to fan paying passengers does it mean diversions because flying into and out of the gulf region any way you kind of going home if we run the house is most of the time because of the current situation between saudi arabia and katsav because of the g.c.c. blockade of cassava. no one would primarily affect i would think you know long range or national flights where you might have some kind of fuel constraints for a long haul flights but you know i think for sure sure haul flights i think it

pretty much will be business as usual for the most part but yet obviously there will be some lost time for. some quite minor diversions as a result of this airspace they want. how long do you think this will stay in place . my guess feeling is you know there's a lot of uncertainty now on it if there is or if there's not going to be a reaction until the if they use confident 'd that everything is settled down as far as the possibility of any projectiles or or or any kind of arms go in into the air through the air space when that risk is 100 percent eliminated i feel that the f.a.a. will you know possibly well it will lift the restriction on commercial aircraft usually americans and forgive me i'm not being sarcastic i'm cynical here usually americans they're the 1st nation in the will to stop flying into the middle east because you get a little bit kind of frightened a little bit skin of the middle east will they be in place at the moment any

travel directives from the state department say when it comes to flying into and out of this region. as far as restrict actions go i'm not aware of any typically no fly zones in the area where for example if security is left lax in a particular area based on you know a civil unrest or a conflict the state department will put out directives to u.s. passengers warm warning them. of the particular activity that that that is happening such as civil unrest. or or or any kind of oh you know what we're activity and that would be issued by usually the u.s. department of state ok we'll leave it there kyle bailey there in buffalo new jersey good to talk to you kyle thank you very much nice to be with you. ok we're

still tracking this story for you we have multiple correspondents following the events taking place in washington in tehran and in baghdad can really help that they're standing by for us outside the white house and said big is in the iranian capital tehran and osama bin laden will talk to him right now he's our correspondent in the iraqi capital baghdad so clearly osama if this if the direction of travel here is as bad as some people are saying it might be caught in the middle will be iraq underpinned by a sense of why are we caught in the middle again. absolutely that is and sensually defined iraq for the last 3 decades and it finds itself yet again in a conflict that is not of its choosing of a fight that it did not want iraq the prime minister and iraqi officials had to being afraid of this escalation they've been saying that they do not want to be

dragged into further deep into this conflict between a superpower and a region and power but again that seems to have happened now as iran has retaliated just to recap for viewers who are joining us this is. it is been an eventful night where it 1st officials confirmed that a volley of missiles has been fired as a wave of retaliation to customs and in monday's killing which was confirmed by iraqi security forces confirming that at least 2 places where u.s. and coalition troops are present have been hit one in the last province a sprawling compound which is a major you just tickle in support as well as a very important base for recon as. refueling operations the 2nd place which was it wasn't really been a number of missiles that there is so there have been many claims by many sides

about casualties and damage figures so far what we can tell you is that you spoken to some iraqi security officials who fear that there are casualties in and i said but this so far have not confirmed whether their injuries are the deaths and how many if there are some so there's that will be this is something the lead up to this you saw beginning on friday when questions in the money and imagine one does the 2nd in command of popular mobilization forces was taken out by the united states outside baghdad airport. the background to that was. that is a contractor and could cook was killed in the united states blamed on a group linked with popular mobilization forces known as has been never gave the united states targeted them and killed $27.00 of their fighters on the iraq iran iraq syria border enter in retaliation after the funeral of those debts.

and why did popular mobilization forces besieged the u.s. embassy they literally left the embassy on the request of the iraqi government after they were promised that the iraqis will ask the united states to leave iraqi soil and after that us i'm still in money and the general who the iraqi prime minister described as somebody who was coming in with a message he was due to meet the iraqi prime minister in a few hours was taken out by the united states as he came out of baghdad international airport and in retaliation after the funeral and in fact just as the funeral was taking place the final rights were to be read and the burial was happening in cairo man if the iranians decided that they are going to hit u.s. interests in iraq and there you have it this is this is where we are right now we're waiting for official confirmation from the iraqi government but so far the

iraqi government has not said anything the last thing we heard for is from the iraqi prime minister contradicting the u.s. the u.s. version of events saying that the letter that was sent to him that the u.s. forces will be pulling out was the last official communique that was relayed to him and we are waiting as the iraqi government picks up to see what their reaction of these attacks is going to be osama thanks very much kelly. the white house for us kimberly mr trump's on to associate saying. yeah the u.s. president has just tweeted in laos have to pull that off i thought you were going to pull that off and read it peter but we can do it together here we go all is well missiles launched a rocket to military bases located in iraq assessment of casualties and damage is taking place now so far so good we have the most powerful and well equipped military anywhere in the world by far i will be making a statement tomorrow morning so that would be wednesday here in washington to the

still tuesday evening right now about 10 just to come have to 10 pm local time so we had been reporting earlier because there had been some speculation here in the media here in the united states that the u.s. president may be addressing the nation that did not occur and now we are hearing from the president directly that he will be making a statement in the morning a lot of people wondering what just happened we had expected given the tough talk from the u.s. president that there would be some sort of retaliatory measure taking place by the united states after news broke that there had been those strikes on 2 u.s. bases inside iraq so we are watching very carefully for some of the movements peter we know that at one point in the situation room we had the secretary of state mike pump aoe the defense secretary and there are seem to be this feeling that there was an assessment now confirmed by the u.s. president of the casualties or in terms of damages if you will

a battle damage assessment with regard to what had happened so given the president's tough talk that it come from the oval office as he sat down with the prime minister of greece earlier there seemed to be this feeling that there may be something imminent and not clear what is happening right now because the white house is not saying anything in fact if there was a bit of confusion as you came to me here was because my producer chris sheridan was just in the. press office and said the lights are out there's nobody there so it seems that things have kind of tamp down a little bit if you will but we need to talk about in terms of this word retaliation because we've been using a lot tonight peter and the united states keeps saying that it will retaliate for iran's aggression that sort of thing but if we back up we really have to remember that this is a president that came in swinging when he was elected when he came into the white house you know he said on the campaign trail and he delivered when he came in right

away with a number of rather aggressive stances towards iran not just declaring the r.g.c. a terrorist organization putting in the place that maximum pressure campaign the tough economic sanctions but also pulling out of that 2015 nuclear agreement i know your guests have been talking about this but you have to remember and even the secretary of state mike pompei of said it today that this is something that was a calculated decision by this president that the previous administration in his words had underwritten iran and its activities the malign activities throughout the broader middle east according to the secretary of state this president's desire was to confront and contain those read the exact words the secretary of state use so when we use this word of retaliation the united states wanting to retaliate against iran's aggression we also have to remember those same words coming from the secretary of state from the president saying that they wanted to confront iran

kimberly as a pleasurable till she very soon i'm sure let's go to tehran i said big as our correspondent there i said as well i noticed that the iranian foreign minister on twitter as well was he saying. well he's treated iran took a concluded a proportionate measures insult defense under article $51.00 of the un charter and they talk to the bases from which the attack against this citizens and senior officials were launched he also reiterated what we've hit with what we've been hearing out of the iran which is we do not seek escalation of war but would defend ourselves against any aggression that's what we're also hearing from the islamic revolutionary guard that this was a response to the assassination of course and so the money for this was a response to a single event but they have warned that if the united states retaliate then iran will be forced to take further action action and this could escalate they've also

warned regional countries that has u.s. bases and warned them that if an attack is launched against iran from those bases then they would become a target they've also warned israel that israel could be dragged into this because they said that there is they see no difference between israel and the united states and so kearney what we're seeing is that the stomach revolutionary guard have said that they have acted that they have 2 waves of attacks against united states bases but they want to deescalate current need to defeat and go to iran is that they want to step back from this and say we've taken our revenge but if you talk a test will be forced to escalate this thanks very much let's talk to michael preachin to is a fellow at the hudson institute and previously served as a u.s. intelligence officer and military adviser he joins us from arlington virginia michael great to talk to you again what. was the chance so that you're picking up

on as the conversation is going on inside the white house. just as i think to your romance what i mean it's been sardar. white house and state department is this looks like the response it what they're used accurate missiles to miss the u.s. side of iraqi bases and not killing americans followed by strong rhetoric to attack israel or reason why our allies and inside the us if we responded and they communicated to us this is our response to custom so the money's worth so if we do not respond this is the deescalation we've been looking for but i think the president needs some credit here because so you know constant sort of mani might have been that show that there are certain water events where the rich teams what is present to keep them warm i would equate tussle so long as death to losing half of iran's navy and they were right in operation praying mantis this is

a big deal ok so the soloist orbiting could actually be to deescalate an event that we've been looking for and i think that's why the u.s. president is going to be speaking in the morning instead of announcing that we've hit iran iranian targets tonight are thinking this is does that mean off that it's the off ramp that people have been talking about the requirement for is actually a mini small military strike on the part of the iranians and can we extrapolate that out and say that some of the the the temperature has been taken out of this now because of the way the white house has not need to react to it. right and it's symbolic of that the missile attack had to come from your law it couldn't be an iraqi proxy it had to come from iran to demonstrate that they were willing to. challenge or the u.s. strike against justice on why they used persistent enough missiles to miss us

targets to to not have the president have to waive his decision the night he killed an american they wanted an american i have to respond i think this is the deescalation of that for iran but i think we still have an iraq problem iraq should issue a statement condemning the attack on the on the rocky sovereign territory and injuring if not killing iraqis service members on the same basis this is an opportunity for iraq because and so the money is not there anymore already on one hand this isn't there anymore for iraq to really consider when i see iraq and the baghdad silly consider it's feared sure because the u.s. at this point has leverage as leverage with iran and baghdad this is a mean we're going to go to the table and make concessions towards iran but i think this is a time where iran might actually go into that it wants to listen to him to just interrupt you michael pietsch and there was the leverage with the leverage that washington has with tehran right now we killed qassam so money that was such

a big deal if this is the response to cost and so money is death it's a very easy response to take it didn't kill americans doesn't solmonese death was based on one of those militias killing one american so by killing you hang on just to just stop you there by killing the man who some people say was being groomed to be the next supreme leader taking him right out of the equation the man who almost got very close to carrying through on his dream which was getting u.s. personnel out of iraq you're saying that gives the u.s. leverage. yes because this regime or the last 40 years in time you get it this far and demonstrators all it's backed down the president party ask themselves maybe 5 min if i hit any of these men does it stop no sir why customs of mines and what about this man or no sir carson saw them on his life what about cost us

a lot and i'm pretty sure nobody looked around the room instead customs of money and customs so the money was targeted that man was like you said possibly being groomed to take over the supreme leader's position and also pushing rice others that want deposition i think the president made the right decision it was the right message to send it meaning if you want to send a message to iran to stop i think this is the message but we had to give them a face saving gesture and tonight's attack was that a face saving gesture and this is the escalation ok we have something else something that i'm interested in but michael pietsch and thank you so much for joining us here on al-jazeera thank you. it's just on 6 am and back that 630 in teheran 10 pm in washington d.c. i'm come out santa maria here in doha with continuing coverage of the new developments out of the galley.