The USA has carried out strikes that induced “extraordinarily extreme harm” to 3 of Iran’s nuclear services, the highest US navy officer, Common Dan Caine, mentioned on Sunday.
President Donald Trump had spent weeks pursuing a diplomatic path to interchange the nuclear take care of Tehran that he tore up throughout his first time period in 2018.
However he in the end determined to take navy motion in opposition to Iran’s nuclear program, which had already been bombarded in a greater than week-long Israeli marketing campaign that has additionally focused Tehran’s high navy brass.
Under, AFP examines what we all know in regards to the US strikes on Iran — an operation dubbed “Midnight Hammer.”
– Main operation –
Caine informed journalists the strikes concerned greater than 125 US plane together with B-2 Spirit stealth bombers, fighters, aerial refueling tankers, a guided missile submarine and intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance plane.
“This mission demonstrates the unrivaled attain, coordination and functionality of the US navy,” the overall mentioned. “No different navy on the earth might have achieved this.”
Caine mentioned it was “too early” to touch upon what stays of Iran’s nuclear program, however that “preliminary battle harm assessments point out that each one three websites sustained extraordinarily extreme harm and destruction.”
– B-2 bombers –
The US employed seven B-2s within the strikes — plane that may fly 6,000 nautical miles (9,600 kilometers) with out refueling and that are designed to “penetrate an enemy’s most subtle defenses and threaten its most valued, and closely defended, targets,” in keeping with the US navy.
“This was the most important B-2 operational strike in US historical past and the second-longest B-2 mission ever flown,” in keeping with Caine.
A number of B-2s proceeded west over the Pacific as a decoy whereas the bombers that may participate within the strikes headed east — a “deception effort identified solely to a particularly small variety of planners and key leaders,” the overall mentioned.
“Iran’s fighters didn’t fly, and it seems that Iran’s surface-to-air missile methods didn’t see us. All through the mission, we retained the ingredient of shock,” Caine mentioned.
The USA used the B-2 in operations in opposition to Serbian forces within the Nineties, flying continuous from Missouri to Kosovo and again, and the bombers had been subsequently employed within the Afghanistan and Iraq wars within the 2000s.
– Huge Ordnance Penetrator –
Caine mentioned the B-2s dropped 14 bombs often known as the GBU-57 or Huge Ordnance Penetrator — a strong 30,000-pound (13,600-kilogram) bunker-busting weapon that made its fight debut within the Iran operation.
The bombs — that are designed to penetrate as much as 200 toes (60 meters) underground earlier than exploding — had been wanted to hit deeply buried Iranian nuclear services.
Testing of the weapons started in 2004 and Boeing was in 2009 awarded a contract to finish the mixing of GBU-57 with plane.
– Tomahawk cruise missiles –
Along with the bombers, a US guided missile submarine within the Center East launched greater than two dozen missiles at unspecified “floor infrastructure targets” at Isfahan, one in every of three nuclear websites struck within the operation, Caine mentioned.
The missiles are “designed to fly at extraordinarily low altitudes at excessive subsonic speeds, and are piloted over an evasive route by a number of mission tailor-made steering methods” and had been first utilized in 1991 in opposition to Iraqi forces throughout Operation Desert Storm, in keeping with the US navy.
– Purpose of the strikes –
US Protection Secretary Pete Hegseth informed journalists the strikes had been launched to “neutralize the threats to our nationwide pursuits posed by the Iranian nuclear program and the collective self-defense of our troops and our allies.”
“This mission was not, has not been, about regime change,” Hegseth informed journalists.
A variety of key figures in Trump’s “Make America Nice Once more” motion have vocally opposed US strikes on Iran, and his promise to extract the US from its “endlessly wars” within the Center East performed a job in his 2016 and 2024 election wins.
– What comes subsequent? –
Trump has referred to as on Iran to “agree to finish this struggle,” saying that “now could be the time for peace.”
However it stays to be seen whether or not the strikes will push Tehran to deescalate the battle, or to widen it additional.
If Iran chooses the latter possibility, it might achieve this by concentrating on American navy personnel who’re stationed across the Center East, or search to shut the strategic Strait of Hormuz, which carries one-fifth of world oil output.