Iran Launches Missiles at US Base in Qatar: State Media

Bloomberg

5 hours ago

00:00
This is not a surprise. The US has been bracing for and positioning for some kind of retaliation. Well, and Iran has been warning of one scarlet. The important context here is that the chief of staff of Iran's armed forces in a video message earlier today, promised that Iran would be responding to the US attacks on its nuclear sites proportionately and decisively. And perhaps the Wall Street Journal here is indicating that that retaliation may potentially be coming soon, as it were. Iran, according to US officials briefed by the Wall Street Journal, is moving missile launchers into place for a potential attack. And the Department of Defense is tracking what they describe as, quote, a credible threat to US forces in the Middle East. This also comes as we're tracking a number of developments centered around Cutter in particular. Cutter, of course, closed off its airspace earlier today in a move that they said was precautionary. The US embassy in Qatar has also issued a warning to Americans to shelter in place. And China's embassy has urged citizens in Qatar specifically to avoid a loaded airbase. This is important because that base houses house hosts, hoses, thousands of US troops. It is our largest installation in the Middle East. It's actually headquarters of US Central Command, in addition to housing Qatari air forces, as well as the Royal Air Force. And so that is very a very key military installation that the US has that there is a lot of buzz about could potentially be targeted. Keeping in mind, of course, that President Trump had previously promised if there were retaliation, the US would respond with even greater force than the attacks we saw over this weekend is the administration has issued repeated warnings not to target U.S. military assets or personnel. But again, the The Wall Street Journal is reporting here that Iran does look to at least be moving into a position in which it could do so. And as you're speaking, Kelly, some other headlines have just crossed as well, according to Axios. Iran has launched a six missiles toward US bases in Qatar. And Reuters has also reported that there have been explosions heard over Qatar's capital of Doha. So again, you reference how Qatar has stopped some flights. That would make sense given they had anticipated some kind of retaliatory action. And again, according to Reuters, the explosions have been heard over covers capital of Doha. Kelly, tell us a little bit more about the mindset in Washington. Clearly, the weekend attacks is what everyone's talking about. But as we were just discussing with Max Layton of City, there's a lot of, I guess, expectation within the commodities market that now that the strikes are over and the US kind of waits to see how Iran responds, there's very much an expectation that the administration will return its focus to domestic matters. What are you seeing in Washington? Well, much of that will depend on the way in which Iran responds. Scarlett, I would note that as we're seeing this reporting about explosions outside Doha, the Arabic baby air base, which I just mentioned, is just southwest of Doha. So it very much could be included in whatever this materializes to be. And if there are any U.S. casualties, that could be something that President Trump feels compelled to respond to. Again, to quote him directly from this weekend, he warned any retaliation will be met with force far greater than what was witnessed during the initial attack on Saturday night. So that does indicate that the US could still be prepared to act militarily if necessary. The President likely will be getting input from his National Security Council team. He is supposed to meet with them in the Oval Office. That will be closed to press just about 20 minutes from now at 1 p.m. Eastern time so we could get more of a readout then as to what exactly the US is thinking. But of course, the president has to keep in mind various political pressures. There is not much appetite in the US for the US to get involved in another direct war in the Middle East. The MAGA base of the President's party in particular, of course has much more of an isolationist bent, doesn't want to see the US be that interventionist. So he has to consider those domestic political pressures as well as he surveys the geopolitical geopolitical landscape here. But a lot is going to depend on what we can confirm around these reports as to whether or not Iran has decided to attack U.S. military assets and if there are any casualties that could result from that.