B-2 stealth bombers depart US as Trump weighs Iran strike
B-2 stealth bombers have taken off from the
United States
and are headed over the Pacific, multiple news outlets reported, as President
Donald Trump
weighs American involvement in the war between
Israel and Iran
.
The moves, picked up by flight tracking services on Saturday, indicate that the administration is getting the air force bombers in position if needed for a strike on
Iran
, the Wall Street Journal reported. The aircraft, accompanied by refuelling tankers, may be on their way to a base in Guam, according to the report.
Speculation about a potential US strike aimed at Iran's nuclear programme has focused on the B-2s, which would be needed to drop 30,000lb bombs — so-called bunker busters — if Mr Trump decided to target Iran's heavily fortified uranium enrichment site at Fordow.
Israel
, which is seeking to destroy Iran's nuclear capabilities, does not have such weapons.
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Israel says it killed veteran Iran commander as both sides attack
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]
Multiple B-2s appeared to be airborne and heading across the Pacific from Whiteman air force base in Missouri, the New York Times reported. The newspaper cited flight trackers' posts on social media and air traffic control communications.
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The Pentagon and the White House didn't immediately return messages seeking comment.
Mr Trump was scheduled to return to the White House on Saturday and meet his national security team.
The US president has sent mixed signals, discounting European efforts to secure a diplomatic solution between Israel and Iran while keeping possible US involvement in the conflict on the table.
'I'm giving them a period of time,' Trump told reporters on Friday. 'I would say two weeks would be the maximum.' – Bloomberg
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The Journal
25 minutes ago
- The Journal
United States joins Israel in war against Iran as it launches attack on nuclear sites
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Extra.ie
35 minutes ago
- Extra.ie
Trump warns Iran to make peace after US airstrikes 'obliterate' nuclear sites
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RTÉ News
36 minutes ago
- RTÉ News
Having started a conflict with Iran, the big question for President Trump is how does it end?
On Thursday, US President Donald Trump said he would make his mind up on attacking Iran within two weeks. In fact it took just two days. Now America has directly attacked Iran. Having started a conflict with Iran, the big question for President Trump is how does it end? Does Iran take this one on the chin and sue for peace, agreeing to end its nuclear weapons development and uranium enrichment capacity? Or does it go on the offensive, attacking US targets and interests right across the middle east, using Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon, militias in Syria and Iraq and the Houthis in Yemen? Does it seek to close the Straits of Hormuz - the narrowest part of the Arabian Gulf, cutting off 20% of the world's oil supply? Either way the future of the Iranian regime is in play right now - a regime that faces massive risk no matter what course it chooses. Last night on America's East Coast, in the early hours of this morning in Iran, B2 strategic bombers struck over three Iranian nuclear facilities at Natanz, Fordow and Esfahan. Each of those planes carried two Massive Penetrator Ordinance bombs - the so-called "Bunker Busters" that had been developed for jobs like this one. In all probability, precisely for this strike. They have never been used outside of a practice range before. Nobody is sure if they will work as intended. These 13 tonne massive devices are supposed to burrow about 70 metres underground before detonating. Most bombs dropped by aircraft weigh between 230kg to about one tonne. The B2 bomber can carry two of the bunker busters. US media reports say between 20 and 30 of the devices have been made, and that multiple devices would have to be dropped on a deep facility like Fordow. President Trump has already claimed a "spectacular military success" , telling viewers of a televised address from the White House overnight that Iran's "key nuclear enrichment facilities have been completely and totally obliterated". "Iran, the bully of the Middle East, must now make peace. If they do not, future attacks will be far greater and a lot easier," he added. In his statement, the President appeared to reference the kind of proxy-war attacks against US interests that the US believes have been carried out to Iranian orders: "For 40 years, Iran has been saying, Death to America, Death to Israel. They have been killing our people, blowing off their arms, blowing off their legs, with roadside bombs. That was their specialty. "We lost over 1,000 people and hundreds of 1,000s throughout the Middle East and around the world have died as a direct result of their hate. In particular, so many were killed by their general Qasem Soleimani, I decided a long time ago that I would not let this happen," he added. Solemani was assassinated in a US operation ordered by President Trump in 2020. The implication of this paragraph seems to be that top regime officials will be individually targeted if similar attacks on US personnel are mounted. The entire message was of a tough ultimatum being delivered by a group of hard men. Flanked by Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth, the President spoke from the entry to the East Room - the same place where Barack Obama announced the death of Osama bin Laden. He made sure to thank the Israelis, particularly Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu: "We worked as a team like perhaps no team has ever worked before, and we have gone a long way towards erasing this horrible threat to Israel". And the US aircrew of the B2 bombers - saying he hoped he would no longer need their services to bomb Iran again. But that was just a prelude to another call for Iran to come to the negotiating table and give up its nuclear development programme. "There will be either peace or there will be tragedy for Iran far greater than we have witnessed over the last eight days. "Remember, there are many targets left. Tonight was the most difficult of them all, by far, and perhaps the most lethal," he added. "But if peace does not come quickly, we will go after those other targets with precision, speed and skill, most of them can be taken out in a matter of minutes. "There's no military in the world that could have done what we did tonight, not even close. There has never been a military that could do what took place just a little while ago," he added. It's a stark choice for the Iranian government - save what it has by folding and giving Mr Trump what he wants: or digging in for a long war - knowing that the Americans and Israelis have command of the skies and can bomb what they want when they want. But eventually they will run out of targets: there will be no more weapons factories, missile sites or nuclear facilities to bomb. We have seen this before in NATO's campaign against Serbia. Then what? How do the Americans get out of a spiralling conflict? The Serbs did eventually give in, unwilling to take the pounding and degradation of their capacity to live, let alone wage war. But Iran may not fold this way. The regime has always put ideology before its people, the religious zeal of the leadership incomparably harder to get through to than the mere clinging to power of an authoritarian like Slobodan Milosevic. The regime has seen off an existential external threat before in the form of the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980's, an incredibly bloody affair that resembled World War One in its squandering of soldiers' lives. What is victory, what is defeat? Is simply staying in power a kind of victory? Will the Americans eventually say it's no longer worth it, and just stop? But the biggest threat the regime faces is internal. Just as the 1979 revolution ousted one unpopular authoritarian regime, so another unpopular regime can be overthrown by its own people. Is it unpopular? The degree to which Israeli intelligence has penetrated Iranian society and its military and security apparatus - revealed to such devastating effect over the past year in Israel's operations against Hezbollah in Lebanon and indirectly in the fall of the Assad regime in Syria, and now in its bombing campaign against Iran's military-industrial complex suggests plenty of disaffected Iranians in key positions willing to work for the enemy. This is surely the most powerful evidence of regime unpopularity. On his recent visit to Saudi Arabia and the UAE, President Trump went out of his way to contrast the scenes on either side of the Arabian Gulf: on the South side a ribbon of glittering cities from Dubai to Kuwait, with more sprouting up in Saudi Arabia, a deeply conservative society slowly unclenching and starting to openly enjoy its oil wealth. But on the North side - the Iranian side - Mr Trump painted a picture of a drab, repressed society where the oil wealth has been ploughed into proxy wars abroad and a nuclear weapons programme at home, leaving a sophisticated society with a massive cultural heritage cut off from most of the world. He mused at how different the country's future might be without the ideological drive of its leaders pushing it into strategic confrontation with its neighbours, instead of joining in the regional renaissance that the Gulf Arabs - and the Trump regime, and maybe even the Israelis - see as the way forward for the region. It's an alternative vision for disgruntled Iranians to rally around. On both fronts - internal and external - there is danger for the regime. So although there are few calls for regime change to be a specific aim of this US intervention, there is a view in a significant part of the foreign policy establishment here that regime change could be a collateral consequence of the campaign to take down Iran's nuclear capacities. Not that anyone expects an overnight transformation. Indeed one of the arguments against assassinating Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khameni is that a new, military regime - even more nationalistic and repressive - could take his place. Or there could be a fracturing of central authority, and a dissolving into ethnic conflict of the type that wracked Iraq for two decades. For a huge country that stretches from Turkey to Afghanistan, this is a supremely testing moment. If the regime agrees to Mr Trump's offer and signs a peace deal that gives up nuclear capacities, and becomes subject to a very intrusive IIEA inspection regime, it will be seen internally as being extremely weakened - four decades of policy, and the sacrifices to pay for it, will have come to nought. Will this embolden internal critics who may attempt to put an end to the Islamic Republic as we know it? Or will it force the regime to become even more repressive? In the region, the regime will also be seen to be weak. What will this mean for Iraq, Syria and Lebanon in particular? How will the Gulf Arab states respond? What about Afghanistan, Pakistan, Turkey and Russia? There are so many ways this could play out. Right now we are in that liminal space between action and reaction. Something really big just happened. What's going to happen next?
