US bombing of Iran started with a fake-out
WASHINGTON, June 22 (Reuters) - As Operation "Midnight Hammer" got underway on Saturday, a group of B-2 bombers took off from their base in Missouri and were noticed heading out toward the Pacific island of Guam, in what experts saw as possible pre-positioning for any U.S. decision to strike Iran.
But they were a decoy. The real group of seven bat-winged, B-2 stealth bombers flew east undetected for 18 hours, keeping communications to a minimum, refueling in mid-air, the U.S. military revealed on Sunday.
As the bombers neared Iranian airspace, a U.S. submarine launched more than two dozen Tomahawk land attack cruise missiles. U.S. fighter jets flew as decoys in front of the bombers to sweep for any Iranian fighter jets and missiles.
The attack on Iran's three main nuclear sites was the largest operational strike ever by B-2 stealth bombers, and the second-longest B-2 operation ever flown, surpassed only by those following the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States by al Qaeda.
The B-2 bombers dropped 14 bunker-busting GBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrators, each weighing 30,000 pounds. The operation involved over 125 U.S. military aircraft, according to the Pentagon.
From the U.S. military's perspective, the operation was a resounding tactical success. The Iranians were unable to get off a single round at the American aircraft and were caught completely flat-footed, General Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters at the Pentagon on Sunday.
"Iran's fighters did not fly, and it appears that Iran's surface to air missile systems did not see us throughout the mission," Caine said. "We retained the element of surprise."
Caine said initial battle damage assessments indicated that all three sites targeted sustained extremely severe damage and destruction, but he declined to speculate whether any Iranian nuclear capabilities might still be intact.
U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth was more confident.
"It was clear we devastated the Iranian nuclear program," he said, standing alongside Caine in the Pentagon briefing room.
Midnight Hammer was highly classified, Caine said, "with very few people in Washington knowing the timing or nature of the plan." Many senior officials in the United States only learned of it on Saturday night from President Donald Trump's first post on social media.
Hegseth said it took months of preparations to ensure the U.S. military would be ready if Trump ordered the strikes. Caine said the mission itself, however, came together in just a matter of weeks.
What happens next is unclear.
Gulf states, home to multiple U.S. military bases, were on high alert on Sunday as they weighed the risks of a widening conflict in the region.
Guarding against blowback, the U.S. military also dispersed U.S. military assets in the Middle East and heightened force protection for U.S. troops.
Hegseth said the U.S. military was positioned to defend itself in the Middle East, but also to respond against Iran if it goes through with longstanding threats to retaliate.
The Trump administration said it is not looking for a wider war with Iran, with Hegseth saying private messages had been sent to Tehran encouraging them to negotiate.
But Trump has also warned Iran that the U.S. is prepared to hit additional targets if needed, using far greater force.
"Iran would be smart to heed those words. He said it before, and he means it," Hegseth said.
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Sky News
42 minutes ago
- Sky News
Iranian nuclear sites sustained 'extremely severe damage' after US strikes, Pentagon says
Iranian nuclear sites sustained "extremely severe damage and destruction" in air strikes, the US has said - a stance mostly supported by the UN's nuclear watchdog. General Dan Caine, chairman of America's joint chiefs of staff, told reporters that the destruction wrought by Operation Midnight Hammer will take "some time" to assess. But he added that "initial battle damage assessments indicate that all three sites sustained extremely severe damage and destruction". The sites are Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan. Fordow is a secretive nuclear facility buried about 80m below a mountain and one of two key uranium enrichment plants in Iran, along with Natanz. Isfahan features a large nuclear technology centre and enriched uranium is also stored there, diplomats say. At Fordow, satellite images taken after the attack show holes in the mountain in which the nuclear site was situated. Other images of Natanz, which is also suspected of having an underground facility, appear to show a new hole in a rocky area. Pete Hegseth, the US defence secretary, said the initial assessment was that "all of our precision munitions struck where we wanted them to strike and had the desired effect". "Which means, especially in Fordow, which was the primary target here, we believe we achieved destruction of capabilities there," he added. America's attack brings the US into direct involvement in the war between Israel and Iran, which started on 13 June. It prompted threats of reprisals from Tehran, raising fears of a wider regional conflict. Rafael Grossi, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), said the facility at Natanz had been "completely destroyed", while its underground halls "suffered a lot" because of cuts to electricity as the result of Israeli attacks. He also told CNN that the Isfahan site had suffered "very significant damage". At Fordow, which is deep underground, he said it was difficult to know how much damage had been done. Satellite images appear to show major damage at Isfahan. Natanz was believed to have possibly already suffered extensive damage in Israel's strikes earlier this week. Fourteen bunker buster bombs were used in the attacks on Fordow and Natanz, and numerous Tomahawk cruise missiles were also used in operation, which was described by Donald Trump as "very successful". However, a senior Iranian source told the Reuters news agency that most of the highly enriched uranium at Fordow was moved to an undisclosed location ahead of the attacks. Personnel numbers were said to have been cut, too. The IAEA said there had been "no increase in off-site radiation levels" after the strikes. Donald Trump said no further attacks were planned and he hoped diplomacy would take over. 1:15 Iran's foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, warned that the US strikes "will have everlasting consequences", adding that his country "reserves all options" to retaliate. Mr Hegseth said the United States "does not seek war" but would "act swiftly and decisively when our people, our partners, or our interests are threatened". Iran has repeatedly denied it is seeking a nuclear weapon, and Mr Grossi said this month the IAEA had no proof of a "systematic effort to move into a nuclear weapon". However, the IAEA said last month that Iran had amassed 408.6kg of uranium enriched up to 60% - a short, technical step away from weapons-grade levels of 90%. Since the war broke out more than a week ago, Iranian authorities say more than 400 people have been killed since Israel's bombardment began, mostly civilians. Israel has taken out much of Iran's military leadership with attacks targeting air defences and military bases. Iran has been launching missiles back at Israel, and at least 24 people have been killed over the past nine days. US Senator Chris Murphy, posting on X after the US strikes, said he and other senators received a classified briefing last week indicating that Iran did not pose an immediate threat through its nuclear programme. "Iran was not close to building a deliverable nuclear weapon," Senator Murphy said. "The negotiations Israel scuttled with their strikes held the potential for success." 2:36 The Iranian foreign minister told journalists on Sunday morning that he was flying to Moscow to have "serious consultations" with Vladimir Putin. He described Moscow as a "friend of Iran", adding: "We always consult with each other." Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) said that "invaders must now await responses that will bring regret" after the US strikes. Gulf states like Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, all home to US military bases, are on high alert after the strikes, with Bahrain urging drivers to avoid main roads and Kuwait setting up shelters. The UK has also further increased "force protection" measures for its military bases and personnel in the Middle East to their highest level. Iran has requested an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council to "maintain international peace and condemn the US strikes", according to state media. 3:33 Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hailed the "bold decision" by Mr Trump, saying it would "change history". The IRGC said it had launched 40 missiles at Israel on Sunday morning, including its biggest ballistic missile, the Khorramshahr-4. Iranian missiles hit sites in northern and central Israel, including in Haifa, Ness Ziona, Rishon LeZion and Tel Aviv. The UK is preparing to fly British nationals out of Israel. The and reach "a diplomatic solution to end this crisis". "Iran's nuclear programme is a grave threat to international security. Iran can never be allowed to develop a nuclear weapon and the US has taken action to alleviate that threat," said Sir Keir Starmer.
BBC News
an hour ago
- BBC News
Suicide bombing at Damascus church kills 20, authorities say
At least 20 people have been killed and 52 others wounded in a suicide bombing at a church on the outskirts of Damascus, Syria's interior ministry has said. The attacker entered Mar Elias Church in Dweila during a service and opened fire with a weapon before detonating an explosive vest, the ministry said in a statement. It added that he was affiliated with the jihadist group Islamic State (IS). There was no immediate claim from the group Syrian Civil Defence - whose emergency teams are widely known as the White Helmets - posted photos and video from inside the church showing a heavily damaged altar, pews covered in broken glass and a bloodied floor. One person told AFP news agency outside Mar Elias that "someone entered carrying a weapon" and began shooting. "[People] tried to stop him before he blew himself up," he added.A worker at a nearby shop said: "We saw fire in the church and the remains of wooden benches thrown all the way to the entrance."Security forces have condoned off the area around the church and are investigating the attack, according to the interior was the first such attack in Damascus since Bashar al-Assad was overthrown by rebel forces in President Ahmed al-Sharaa - whose Sunni Islamist group, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), is a former al-Qaeda affiliate in Syria - has repeatedly promised to protect religious and ethnic the country has been rocked by two waves of deadly sectarian violence in recent months.
The Guardian
an hour ago
- The Guardian
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.
