JUST IN: US air base in Saudi Arabia reportedly under attack

So we just heard General Keane say that this could be quicker than anticipated. It could be potentially over within two to three weeks, just based on what we're seeing in the early stages of the response here from Iran and the more we learn about the decapitation of so many of their leaders in the country. Chief National Security Correspondent Jennifer Griffin reporting that a U.S. base in Saudi Arabia has come under attack by incoming

ballistic missiles. She joins me now by phone. Jennifer, it's great to have you with us. Terrific reporting all throughout the day. We've been hanging on every one of your reports as we go through this. What's the latest that you're learning now, Jen? Well, thank you, Martha. In

the last hour, I received a report from Saudi Arabia that the Prince Sultan Air Base was under a new ballistic missile attack and that the Saudis were actively shooting those missiles down. I also learned that there will be an emergency Gulf Coordination Council meeting called tomorrow to align all of the Gulf states who are now facing attack from Iran, basically, all of the countries where the U.S. has bases, Qatar, UAE, Kuwait, Bahrain, as well as Saudi Arabia, they are

all now facing incoming Iranian missiles. And that has really caused them to sort of get off the sidelines. And you'll remember when this started, Saudi Arabia said that the U.S. and Israel could not use their airspace to target and strike Iran. But now that Iran has fired on Saudi Arabia, that has changed. And Saudi Arabia, along with the other Gulf states, are entering this operation because

they can't sit back and not defend their people from these incoming missiles. So that's significant. I think it's also significant, Martha, that these missiles being fired at the US base in Saudi Arabia, also at the same time, more than a dozen missiles were fired at Israel.

And we saw from trade's reporting how one of those missiles got through and hit in central Tel Aviv. That was about the same time that we were confirming that the supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, had been killed in those strikes.

And it's almost as though the IRGC would have launched a number of missiles simultaneously. We haven't seen quite that number of missiles fired at the same time at Israel in this round in the last 12 hours. Clearly, they were trying to get through the missile defense system and trying to make a point, sort of a last gasp, if you will, and protest against the killing of not only Ali Khamenei, but based on my reporting, five to ten of the top leaders of Iran, the

IRGC commander, as well as the defense minister and others, all of them taken out in that initial strike. And then just back to our original reporting in the last two hours, we learned from a senior U.S. defense official that the timeline for when the strikes would begin, the joint operation between Israel and the U.S., had to be moved up because of this intelligence that this meeting was taking place on a Saturday morning in Tehran.

In Iran, they were feeling very complacent that it was still Shabbat, as well as Ramadan and daylight when the U.S. normally doesn't strike. And that is when the intelligence came in that they were all meeting and the timeline was moved forward.

You know, when you look at this, this morning attack that you've just been talking about, and the earlier news today that Saudi Arabia had turned its focus to defending itself. You find this amazing kind of chessboard change in the Middle East over all of this. I go back to the Abraham Accords, Jennifer, and the sort of inching together of Israel and Saudi Arabia as they were getting very close to sort of maybe having some sort of agreement between the two of them.

And then you have October the 7th, which reset so much of that. But the fact that the Gulf States and Saudi Arabia are now joining in this effort to push back and end this regime in Iran, is nothing short of incredible.

It really is. And you really can't say enough for the sea change that occurred when the Abrahamraham Accords were signed at the end of the first Trump administration. And Jared Kushner was leading that effort at the time, and it was done very quietly. And that set the table for this opening, this thaw, if you will.

It's like glasnost back in the Soviet Union when things started to thaw. And that's fun. October 7th really set things back, as you mentioned, but it also accelerated the demise of Iran and its proxies. Because if you look, coming out of October 7th, what Israel has been able to do in terms of literally decapitating Hezbollah with operations that drew those leaders together, and you know, Mossad-led operations with exploding pagers, and then killing the head of Hamas

in downtown Tehran at the funeral. It really, these brazen daytime operations, intelligence-driven, you know, the fact that the U.S. has carried out in the last 12 hours alone 900 airstrikes. It's never happened in the history of, you know, it has been very rare to see that kind of activity and precision and the fact that there have been no U.S. casualties.

Excellent point at the end there, Azal. I want to ask you just quickly here about these sort of one-trip drones that are being used for the first time in this operation by the United States. But also Iran has become a pretty expert drone builder themselves. We've seen their drones in action used by the Russians against Ukraine. And it is, you know, notable, I think, that some of these drones are getting into certain places now. They fly low, they fly slow, they are a

different beast than what the Middle East has prepared themselves to defend against. A quick thought on that, if you can.

Well, the Iranians really changed the equation in the Ukraine-Russia battle by providing Russia with the Shahed-136 drone. The U.S. has introduced a new weapon in this last 12 hours, and we'll be looking back on it as a turning point. They sent in one-way attack drones that we don't know what the targets were, but they have been used in combat for the first time by the United States.

But the Ukrainians have been the ones who have really ramped up the development of one-way attack drones. And now I think the anger that people feel at how the Iranians were spreading their drone technology to Russia and prolonging the Ukraine conflict. It's a reason that you've heard President Zelensky speak up in favor of this joint Israeli-U.S. operation to target Iran.

Yeah. Jennifer, thank you. We're just looking on the screen at some of the impact in Kuwait City in the airport there by what we think in the early reporting is a drone attack that was effective in landing in that very civilian target

of the airport terminal in Kuwait City. So we're gonna continue to dig on that. Jennifer Griffin, thank you so much. Great to have you with us.

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