How the carefully planned US bombing of Iran's nuclear facilities unfolded
Late on Friday night, eight US B-2 bombers took off from Whiteman air force base in Missouri and turned westwards towards the Pacific. Amateur flight trackers plotted their progress on social media as the black flying-wing warplanes joined up mid-air with refuelling tankers and checked in with air traffic controllers once they had reached the open ocean.
The movement of the B-2 bombers towards the US Pacific base on Guam triggered speculation that Donald Trump was arranging pieces on the board before a decision on whether to join Israel in bombing Iranian nuclear facilities.
On Thursday, Trump had let it be known that he would make that decision over the following two weeks, suggesting a window remained open for some last-ditch diplomatic alternative to war. He angrily denied a Wall Street Journal report that he had already approved a strike plan.
The British, French and German foreign ministers seized the opportunity to meet their Iranian counterpart, Abbas Araghchi, for talks in Geneva on Friday but to little or no avail. Trump himself was characteristically dismissive of European efforts. 'Nah, they didn't help,' he told journalists.
We know now that and the B-2 flights over the Pacific were part of the same elaborate ruse to ensure Iran was off its guard and looking the wrong way, and that the president's declared two-week diplomatic window was likely to be part of the same ploy.
The Pentagon described the eight bombers that were spotted flying west as a decoy, a deception effort known only to an extremely small number of planners and leaders in Washington and at central command headquarters in Tampa, Florida.
As they were tracked across the western states and then the Pacific, another seven B-2s took off from Whiteman base and headed in the opposite direction – eastwards. These seven planes made no communications with each other or with the ground as they crossed America and flew unnoticed over the Atlantic.
The planes and their two-pilot crews flew all day and into Saturday night, refuelled mid-air along the way by tankers that had been deployed to Europe over the previous week.
The careful orchestration and prepositioning, some of it predating the Israeli surprise attack on Iran on 13 June, raises questions over how early Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu decided to join forces to go to war against Iran, and over how much of the US president's professed interest in a diplomatic solution, and apparent effort to discourage an Israeli attack, was all part of the charade.
As far back as May, during a visit to Doha, Trump went out of his way to denigrate the B-2's design, declaring 'I'm not a huge believer in stealth', because it made for an 'ugly plane'.
By the time the flight of seven of these ugly planes arrived in the Middle East at the eastern edge of the Mediterranean, it was midnight local time on Saturday. The mission they had been assigned was codenamed Midnight Hammer, and to carry it out the bombers were joined by an escort of US fighter jets, surveillance and reconnaissance planes deployed in the region earlier – 125 aircraft in all. Together they flew on eastwards, with hardly a word exchanged between the pilots, to maintain the all-enveloping secrecy surrounding the operation.
At the same time as the warplanes reached the Lebanese coast, a US submarine loitering somewhere in the Arabian Sea launched Tomahawk cruise missiles, synchronised to reach their targets in Iran at the same time the bombers arrived.
The Tomahawks flew low over the Gulf of Oman and up over south-east Iran as seven B-2s and their accompanying fighters crossed Lebanon, Syria and Iraq (according to a map provided by the Pentagon on Sunday) and entered Iran from the north-west at about 1.30am local time.
The chair of the US joint chiefs of staff, Dan Caine, described the whole operation as 'a complex, tightly timed manoeuvre requiring exact synchronisation across multiple platforms in a narrow piece of airspace, all done with minimal communications'.
The primary target was the farthest north, near the Shia religious centre of Qom, the underground enrichment facility at Fordow, generally thought impregnable to every conventional weapon with the possible exception of America's biggest bomb, the 30,000lb (13,500kg) GBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrator. The seven B-2s approaching from the north were each carrying two of them.
The second target was Natanz, Iran's first enrichment facility, and the third was a complex of facilities outside the ancient city of Isfahan, which is linked to other parts of the nuclear fuel cycle, and which had already been partly damaged by Israeli bombing.
Before the bombers arrived at these targets, according to Caine's account, their fighter escort swept the area for any sign of Iranian warplanes, released decoys and opened fire on air defence sites on the ground. Apparently, there was no return fire. The Pentagon was 'unaware of any shots fired at the US strike package'. Iran's defensive shield had been flattened over the preceding week by relentless Israeli sorties.
The bombers struck between 2.10am and 2.35am Iranian time, the Pentagon said, hitting Fordow at 'several aim points'. It was the first time the enormous GBU-57 bunker-busting bomb had been used in a US operation. It is unclear how many of the total of 14 were dropped on Natanz or Isfahan. The Tomahawk missiles fired by the navy were all aimed at Isfahan, Caine said, and landed slightly after the other two facilities were struck.
The US warplanes turned around and headed back the way they had come, leaving Iranian airspace at 3am. By that time, reports had surfaced on Iranian media of explosions in the region of the nuclear facilities, and a quarter hour later, Trump confirmed the operation in the way he has made most of his presidential announcements – on his private online platform, Truth Social, complete with key words in all-capitals.
'A full payload of BOMBS was dropped on the primary site, Fordow,' Trump wrote. 'All planes are safely on their way home. Congratulations to our great American Warriors. There is not another military in the World that could have done this. NOW IS THE TIME FOR PEACE!'
Addressing the nation a little later on television, Trump said the targets had been 'totally and completely obliterated', a claim that was modified over the course of Sunday to 'severely damaged'.
The president appealed once more for Iran to sue for peace, which he has made clear would involve a surrender of all its nuclear programme. The message was repeated by other members of the administration throughout the day. Midnight Hammer would be a one-off US intervention, as long as Iran did not try to fire back and complied with the terms laid down by him and Netanyahu.
Any retaliation, Trump said, returning to all caps on Truth Social, would be met with 'FORCE FAR GREATER THAN WHAT WAS WITNESSED TONIGHT'.
By the end of Sunday, however, there was no sign of compliance from Tehran. Araghchi, vowed that Midnight Hammer would have 'everlasting consequences' adding that Iran reserved the right to 'all options to defend its sovereignty, interest, and people'. Iran played down the impact of the US bombs, saying that the country's reserves of high-enriched uranium had been removed from Fordow long before, and all the damage inflicted could be repaired.
On Sunday morning, Iran launched a new salvo of missiles at Israel, one of which flattened most of a city block in north Tel Aviv. By the end of the day, Iran's parliament had approved a bill calling for the closing of the strait of Hormuz, the gateway to the Persian Gulf, through which over a fifth of the world's oil needs flows daily. Iran's president, Masoud Pezeshkian, warned that the US must 'receive a response' to its attacks.
Tehran has previously threatened to target US bases spread across eight countries in the region, if the US were to join the Israeli attacks. In reality, its military capabilities are constrained by the withering attacks of the past 10 days, but late on Sunday the regime was saying it would explore all its options, while making clear that submission was not one of them.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
BBC News
an hour ago
- BBC News
How the US says it hit Iran's nuclear sites
A continuous flight over 18 hours, multiple mid-air refuelings, and a series of decoys - this is how the mission to bomb Iran's nuclear facilities played out, according to four-star General Dan Caine, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the highest-ranking officer in the US the full impact of what the US is calling 'Operation Midnight Hammer' is still unclear, a timeline of how the complex mission unfolded was laid out in a Pentagon briefing on Sunday morning, mere hours after the bombers went "in and out and back without the world knowing at all", US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth told reporters. It all began just after midnight when Secretary Hegseth joined US President Donald Trump, Vice-President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and elite Pentagon staff in the Situation Room at the White House to watch as a fleet of aircraft departed an American airbase in rural the cover of darkness, B-2 stealth bombers took off from Whiteman Air Force Base at 00:01 EDT (05:01 BST), according to the ultimate target: Iran's most secure nuclear subsonic jets, which travel just below the speed of sound, flew over the Atlantic Ocean loaded with powerful "bunker buster" bombs capable of penetrating concrete over 18m (60ft) the kind of weaponry needed to hit Iran's nuclear enrichment facility at Fordo, which is buried below a mountain deep underground and considered to be the epicentre of the country's nuclear programme. The US is the only country in the world known to possess this type of weapon. But the world wasn't watching - yet. All eyes were facing west, towards the Pacific Ocean, following reports bombers had been sent to the US island territory of Guam."While the deployment is not being officially connected to discussions around the US joining Israel's war on Iran, few will doubt the link," the BBC wrote at the it was just a ruse - according to the account delivered by the Pentagon - a decoy to distract from the top-secret flights heading straight for Iran over the Atlantic. The planes that flew west over the Pacific were "a deception effort known only to an extremely small number of planners and key leaders," Gen Caine said."The main strike package comprised of seven B-2 spirit bombers, each with two crew members, proceeded quietly to the east with minimal communications," he military planes don't show up on flight tracking websites, making it difficult for the BBC to independently verify the Pentagon's description of the although satellite images can help show the extent of damage at the sites overnight, they can't tell us the exact times when they were the fleet made it to the Middle East, sometime around 17:00 EDT (22:00 BST), it was joined by support aircraft that helped protect the bombers by sweeping in front of them to look for enemy fighters and surface-to-air missile threats, in what Gen Caine called a "complex, tightly timed manoeuvre".But Iranian fighter jets didn't take off and no air defences appeared to fire a shot, according to US officials."Israeli dominance over Iranian airspace primed the pump for American bombers to operate with impunity," Patrycja Bazylczyk, a missile defence expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington DC, told BBC next hour and forty minutes were described by Gen Caine during the Pentagon briefing in a level of detail not normally disclosed to the the briefing provided timings for certain events, the map showing the bombers' journey wasn't a specific flight path and differed slightly in two versions Trump administration has proclaimed the subsequent events as a total victory, claiming the US had "obliterated" Iran's nuclear regime. But the true extent of the damage, and its aftermath, has yet to be Iran has confirmed the attacks, it has minimised the extent of the damage and has not provided a specific account of the sequence of around 17:00 EDT (22:00 BST) US officials say more than two dozen Tomahawk land attack cruise missiles were launched from a US submarine stationed in the Arabia Sea towards the nuclear site near Isfahan, a city of about two million the nuclear facility there is hundreds of kilometres inland, the submarines were close enough to enable the cruise missiles to impact at roughly the same time as the stealthy B-2s dropped their "bunker buster" bombs over the other two nuclear sites, said Dr Stacie Pettyjohn, a defence expert at the Center for a New American all meant that the US was able to provide "a coordinated surprise attack on multiple sites", she told BBC the fleet of bombers entered Iranian airspace, where the US employed several other deception tactics, including more decoys, according to the the air strikes lead bomber dropped two GBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrator weapons - known as MOPs - on the first of several targets at Fordo at about 18:40 EDT (23:40 BST), just after 02:00 in the morning in MOP bomb is able to drop through about 18m (60ft) of concrete or 61m (200ft) of earth before exploding, according to experts. This means that although it's not guaranteed success, it is the only bomb in the world that could come close to impacting the depth of tunnels at the Fordo facility - thought to be 80-90m (262-295ft) below the was the first time the "bunker buster" bombs were ever dropped in a real combat operation. The remaining bombers then hit their targets - with a total of 14 MOPs dropped on Fordo and a second nuclear facility at Natanz, according to the Pentgaon. And at the Isfahan nuclear site, over 200km away from Fordo, the Tomahawk missiles hit their the planes spent 18 hours in the air, all the targets were hit in just about 25 minutes before they exited Iran at 19:30 EDT (00:30 BST) to return to the US, according to the total, about 75 precision guided weapons and more than 125 US aircraft were used, and Secretary Hegseth claimed the mission provided "powerful and clear" destruction of Iran's nuclear evidence of the full scope of the strikes will take time to assess - with more footage needed to see how deep underground the bunker buster bombs were able to penetrate at the key nuclear sites."This was an incredibly complicated and very sophisticated attack that no other country in the world could have performed," Dr Pettyjohn said."Despite the success of the operation tactically, it is unclear if it will achieve the goal of permanently setting back Iran's nuclear program." What do you want BBC Verify to investigate?
BBC News
an hour ago
- BBC News
What the US and Iran do next could be even more momentous
For decades, the United States and Iran have carefully avoided crossing a dangerous red line into a direct military American president after another held back from deploying their military might against the Islamic Republic for fear of sinking the US into potentially the most perilous Middle East war of the commander-in-chief, who promised to be a president of peace, has crossed this Rubicon with direct military strikes on Tehran's nuclear sites – the most consequential move yet in the second term of a president who has prided himself on breaking all the old an unprecedented moment provoking alarm in capitals the world next move could be even more momentous. Its 86-year-old supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, now reported to be sheltering in a bunker, has spent nearly four decades cautiously playing a long game against his most powerful enemy to protect his most important asset – the Islamic Republic. If he does too little, he will lose face; if he does too much, he could lose everything."Khamenei's next moves will be the most consequential not just for his own survival but for how he will do down in history, " says Sanam Vakil, Director of the Middle East and North Africa programme at think tank, Chatham House."His poisoned chalice is potentially more potent than the one Khomeini drank in 1988," she continues, referring to the reluctant decision of Iran's first revolutionary leader to bitterly accept a ceasefire in the devastating Iran-Iraq war. "This is not a war Iran wants" In the past ten days, intense Israeli strikes have inflicted more damage on Iran's chain of command and military hardware than its eight-year war with Iraq, which still casts a long shadow across Iranian attacks have eliminated many in the top ranks of Iran's security forces along with leading nuclear scientists. America's entry into this conflict has now ratcheted up the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), founded in the aftermath of Iran's 1979 revolution, is defiantly warning of retaliation against the US that would leave it with "lasting regret".But behind a sharp war of words lie urgent calculations to avoid calamitous miscalculation."This is not a war Iran wants," says Hamidreza Aziz, of the Middle East Council on Global Affairs. "But we're already seeing arguments by regime supporters that, regardless of the extent of actual damage the US might have inflicted, the image of Iran as a strong country [and] as a regional power, has been shaken so dramatically [that] it requires a response." Every response is risky, however. A direct attack on one of about 20 US bases in the Middle East, or any of the more than 40,000 American troops, would likely trigger major US the Strait of Hormuz, the strategic waterway for a fifth of global oil traffic, could also backfire by upsetting Arab allies in the region, as well as China, the main customer of Iran's own oil. Western naval powers could also be drawn in to protect this major "choke point" and avert significant economic what Iran had regarded as its "forward defence," its network of proxies and partners across the region have all been weakened or wiped out by Israeli assaults and assassinations during the last 20 months of not clear if an acceptable threshold exists for Iran to be seen to return fire without provoking America's wrath, which would allow both sides to pull back from the tortuous relationship was tested at least once before. Five years ago, when President Trump ordered the assassination of IRGC commander Qasem Soleimani with a drone strike in Baghdad, many feared it would spark a vicious spiral. But Iran telegraphed its counter attack through Iraqi officials, targeting sections of US bases which avoided killing US personnel or causing significant this moment is of far greater magnitude. "The US, not Iran, betrayed diplomacy" President Trump, who had repeatedly expressed his preference to "do a deal with Iran" rather than "bombing the hell out of it" now seems to be firmly in Israel's corner. He described Iran as the "bully of the Middle East," bent on building a nuclear bomb – a conclusion not shared by previous US intelligence teams are now analysing in detail the results of what the Pentagon says was the "largest B-2 operational strike in US history". It inflicted "extremely severe damage and destruction" to Iran's main nuclear sites at Natanz, Isfahan, and Fordow. Only "bunker-busting" bombs could penetrate the Fordow facility buried deep in a mountain. President Trump is now urging Iran to "come to peace".But Iran now views the US's diplomatic path as surrender too. In Geneva on Friday, where Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi met his European counterparts, a tough message was conveyed that Washington expected Tehran to reduce its nuclear enrichment to a demand Iran rejects as a violation of its sovereign right to enrich uranium as part of a civilian nuclear now considers President Trump's diplomatic effort, including five rounds of mainly indirect talks conducted by his special envoy Steve Witkoff, to be an elaborate deception. Israel unleashed its military campaign two days before the sixth round of negotiations in Muscat. The US entered the war two days after President Trump said he wanted to allow a two-week window to give diplomacy a it says it won't return to the negotiating table while Israeli and American bombs are still falling."It was not Iran, but the US who betrayed diplomacy," Araghchi told a news conference in Istanbul. During this, he met with foreign ministers of the 57-member Organisation of Islamic Conference who condemned "the aggression of Israel" and expressed their "great concern regarding this dangerous escalation".Iran has also tried to highlight an onslaught against its territory which violates the UN Charter as well as warnings from the International Atomic Energy Agency that nuclear facilities should never be attacked, "whatever the context or circumstances". European leaders are also calling for an urgent de-escalation and a path to curb Iran's nuclear programme through mediation, not they also reiterate that Iran cannot be allowed to acquire a nuclear bomb. They regard Tehran's 60 per cent enrichment of uranium, within easy range of 90 per cent weapons grade, as an ominous indication of its intentions."Iran is likely to underplay the damage to its sites and insist its nuclear program has survived these unprecedented attacks," argues Ellie Geranmayeh, deputy head of the Middle East and North Africa programme at the European Council on Foreign Relations. "The US may over-exaggerate the damage, so the Trump can claim military victory without getting dragged into further strikes." President Trump will be pulled in one direction by Israel's Prime Minister Netanyahu, whose own formidable forces will continue attacking Iran to inflict even more damage, triggering yet more Iranian the US leader is also coming under pressure at home from lawmakers who say he acted without congressional authorisation, and supporters who believe he has broken his promise to keep America out of lengthy this moment is widely expected to concentrate the minds of Iran's hardline decision-makers on how to restore deterrence as they try to avoid being targeted themselves."This is the great irony," warns Ms Geranmayeh. "Although Trump has sought to eliminate the nuclear threat from Iran, he has now made it far more likely that Iran becomes a nuclear state." Lead image: A demonstrator holds a portrait of Iran's Supreme Leader. Photography credit: Reuters BBC InDepth is the home on the website and app for the best analysis, with fresh perspectives that challenge assumptions and deep reporting on the biggest issues of the day. And we showcase thought-provoking content from across BBC Sounds and iPlayer too. You can send us your feedback on the InDepth section by clicking on the button below.
The Guardian
an hour ago
- The Guardian
Australia news live: Albanese government calling for ‘de-escalation' after US strikes Iran; 70% of renters scared to ask for repairs
Update: Date: 2025-06-22T21:38:52.000Z Title: Wong says government remains focused on supporting Australians in Middle East Content: Wong said the government remains 'very focused' on doing 'whatever we can' to support Australians in Iran, but called the situation there 'extremely difficult'. She said: The airspace remains closed in both countries we have deployed Australian officials to the border with Azerbaijan so if people are able to make their way to that which is a obviously highly people have to make a judgment about how risky that is but we urge them to move if they believe they can do so safely. Wong said airspace in Israel also remained closed and represented a complex situation, too. There is some prospect of a window of airspace opening [in Israel]. Obviously, that is highly dependent on the situation on the ground, and we are seeking to try and arrange a facilitated flight in the event that the airspace opens. Update: Date: 2025-06-22T21:36:41.000Z Title: Penny Wong: 'We have all agreed …', 'Iran', 'cannot be allowed to get a nuclear weapon' Content: Penny Wong: 'We have all agreed … Iran cannot be allowed to get a nuclear weapon' Foreign affairs minister Penny Wong said the government supported the US strikes against Iranian nuclear targets yesterday, but remained deeply concerned about what happens next, calling for diplomacy and de-escalation in the Middle East. Wong spoke to RN Breakfast this morning, saying: We have all agreed, the world has agreed, Iran cannot be allowed to get a nuclear weapon. So, yes, we support action to prevent that, and that is what this is. But I would make this point: the big question is now what? We do not want escalation in a full-scale war and we continue to call for dialogue and diplomacy. … We're deeply concerned about continued escalation in a full-scale war with all of the consequences, not just for Australians in the region, but all the peoples of the region and the risk to global instability. Update: Date: 2025-06-22T21:33:46.000Z Title: Welcome Content: Good morning and welcome to our live news blog. I'm Nick Visser. Here's what we'll be looking at this morning. The Australian government is calling for a 'de-escalation' after the US bombed Iranian nuclear sites yesterday, with almost 4,000 Australian citizens attempting to flee the conflict zone. The federal Coalition backed the attacks and have accused Labor of being 'too ambiguous' in its response, while the Greens called the strikes a 'blatant breach of international law' and urged Australia to distance itself from the US. The Albanese government has maintained the Iranian nuclear program threatens the 'stability of the world'. Australia risks losing a 'war on nicotine' as illegal tobacco sales explode. Experts have warned against changes that could undermine decades of fighting to bring down smoking rates, with some calling for a major overhaul in how we tax tobacco and regulate vaping products. Nearly seven in 10 renters say they are fearful of asking for repairs out of fear they could face a rent increase, according to a new survey of more than 1,000 people across the country. The survey also found one-third of respondents would not be able to afford a 5% increase on their current rent. Stick with us.
