U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff U.S. Air Force Gen. Dan “Razin” Caine have now briefed TWZ and other reporters on the historic strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities last night, dubbed Operation Midnight Hammer. Readers can first get up to speed on what was already known about the operation in our earlier reporting here.
U.S. Air Force B-2 Spirit stealth bombers dropped 14 30,000-pound GBU-57/B Massive Ordnance Penetrator (MOP) bunker buster bombs on Iran’s Fordow and Natanz nuclear facilities, Hegseth and Caine confirmed. The attack marked the first operational use of the MOP. A total of 125 aircraft, including the B-2s, supported the aerial component of the operation.
The Isfahan facility was struck with “more than two dozen” Tomahawk land attack cruise missiles (TLAMs) launched from a single submarine somewhere in the region. Though not explicitly stated at today’s briefing, the only boats in American service with the ability to launch this many TLAMs at once are the U.S. Navy’s four Ohio class nuclear-powered guided missile submarines, or SSGNs.
The operation “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear ambitions, Hegseth said at a Sunday morning press conference, his first since taking office.
The mission “was designed to severely degrade Iran’s nuclear weapons infrastructure,” Caine said. “It was planned and executed across multiple domains and theaters with coordination that reflects our ability to project power globally with speed and precision at the time and place of our nation’s choosing. This was a highly classified mission with very few people in Washington knowing the timing or nature of this plan.”
“At midnight, Friday into Saturday morning, a large B-2 strike package comprised of bombers” left the United States,” Caine explained. “As part of a plan to maintain tactical surprise, part of the package proceeded to the west and into the Pacific as a decoy, a deception effort known only to an extremely small number of planners and key leaders here in Washington and in Tampa.”
The main strike package, consisting of seven B-2 Spirit bombers, each with two crew members, “proceeded quietly to the east with minimal communications throughout the 18-hour flight into the target area,” he added. “The aircraft completed multiple in-flight refuelings.”
Once over land, the B-2s “linked up with escort and support aircraft in a complex, tightly-timed maneuver requiring exact synchronization across multiple platforms in a narrow piece of airspace, all done with minimal communications. This type of integration is exactly what our Joint Force does better than anyone else in the world,” Caine continued. “The U.S. employed several deception tactics, including decoys as the fourth- and fifth-generation aircraft pushed out in front of the strike package at high altitude and high speed, sweeping in front of the package for enemy fighters and surface-to-air missile threats.”
As the strike package approached Fordow and Natanz, “the U.S. protection package employed high-speed suppression weapons to ensure safe passage of the strike package with fighter assets employing preemptive suppressing fires against any potential Iranian surface-to-air (SAM) threats,” the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff added. “We are currently unaware of any shots fired at the U.S. strike package.”
Caine did not elaborate on what the “high-speed suppression weapons” employed were or what platforms were used to fire them. However, this seems most likely to be a reference to the AGM-88 High-speed Anti-Radiation Missile (HARM) family. The AGM-88E Advanced Anti-Radiation Guided Missile (AARGM) is the latest variant in operational U.S. service today, which various tactical jets, including Air Force F-16CJ Vipers, U.S. Navy F/A-18E/F Super Hornets and EA-18G Growlers, and U.S. Marine Corps F/A-18C/D Hornets, can employ.
“On the way in, at about 6:40 PM Eastern Standard Time [last night, or] 2:10 AM Iran time, the lead B-2 dropped two GBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrator weapons on the first of several aim points at Fordow,” Caine said. “As the president stated last night, the remaining bombers then hit their targets as well, with a total of 14 MOPs dropped against two nuclear target areas.”
“Following weapons release, the Midnight Hammer strike package exited Iranian airspace and the package began its return home,” he added. “We are unaware of any shots fired at the package on the way out. Iran’s fighters did not fly, and it appears that Iran’s surface-to-air missile systems did not see us throughout the mission; we retained the element of surprise.”
In terms of the naval component of Operation Midnight Hammer, “at approximately 5 PM Eastern Standard time last night and just prior to the [aerial] strike package entering Iran, a U.S. submarine in the Central Command Area of Responsibility launched more than two dozen Tomahawk land attack cruise missiles against key surface infrastructure targets at Isfahan as the Operation Midnight Hammer strike package entered Iranian airspace,” Caine further noted. “The Tomahawk missiles” were “the last to strike at Isfahan to ensure we retain the element of surprise throughout the operation.”
“All three Iranian nuclear infrastructure targets were struck between 6:40 PM and 7:05 PM Eastern time – again that’s about 2:10 AM local time in Iran,” the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff stressed. In total, U.S. forces used about 75 precision-guided weapons during this operation.
All told, “more than 125 U.S. aircraft participated in this mission, including B-2 stealth bombers, multiple flights of fourth- and fifth- generation fighters, dozens and dozens of air refueling tankers, a guided missile submarine, and a full array of intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance aircraft, as well as hundreds of maintenance and operational professionals,” Caine told reporters. “As the secretary said, this was the largest B-2 operational strike in U.S. history, and the second longest B-2 mission ever flown, it exceeded only by the days following 9/11.”
Caine stated that while final battle damage will take some time, initial “assessments indicate that all three sites sustained extremely severe damage and destruction.”
“The battle damage assessment is ongoing, but our initial assessment, as the Chairman said, is that all of our precision munitions struck where we wanted them to strike and had the desired effect,” Hegseth added. This “means especially in Fordow, which was the primary target here, we believe we achieved destruction of capabilities there.”
The New York Times has separately reported that the strike on Fordow severely damaged the facility, but did not completely destroy it.
Satellite imagery separately provided by Maxar Technologies, taken earlier this morning, clearly shows several large-diameter holes and/or craters along the top of a ridge over the Fordow underground complex.
“A layer of grey-blue ash caused by the airstrikes is seen across a large swath of the area,” Maxar noted in a statement accompanying the imagery. “Additionally, several of the tunnel entrances that lead into the underground facility are blocked with dirt following the airstrikes.” The actual ridgeline near where the MOPs entered appears to have been altered.
Additional post-strike satellite imagery of Fordow, as well as Natanz, from other commercial providers, is now circulating online.
At today’s press conference, Hegseth framed the strikes on Iran as a singular operation that is “not open-ended,” but stressed that the U.S. military was prepared to respond if necessary to any further threats. The secretary also highlighted unspecified force protection measures taken at locations “especially in Iraq, Syria, and the Gulf,” ahead of the operation.
“I would just say, as the president has directed and made clear, this is most certainly not open-ended. It doesn’t mean it limits our ability to respond. We will respond if necessary. The most powerful military in the world is postured and prepared to defend our people,” Hegseth said. “But what the president gave us, as I said, was a focused, powerful, and clear mission on the destruction of Iranian nuclear capabilities. Those were the targets. That’s what was struck. That was overwhelming. That’s what was overwhelming. That’s what the Iranian regime needs to understand. As the president put it out, put out last night, he wants peace. There needs to be a negotiated settlement here. We ultimately demonstrated that Iran cannot have a nuclear capability. That is a very clear mission set on this operation.”
“This mission was not and has not been about regime change,” he added. “The president authorized a precision operation to neutralize the threats to our national interests posed by the Iranian nuclear program and the collective self-defense of our troops and our ally Israel.”
“Our forces remain on high alert and are fully postured to respond to any Iranian retaliation or proxy attacks, which would be an incredibly poor choice. We will defend ourselves,” Caine said.
Members of Congress “were notified after the planes were safely out, but we complied with the notification requirements of the War Powers Act,” Hegseth also noted.
Taken as a whole, this was a remarkable operation, but one that was executed exactly how logic would state. Maybe the biggest surprise was the diversionary deployment of B-2s to the Pacific, which leveraged predictable activities by the open source intelligence monitoring community online to turbocharge the misdirection. The fact that the B-2s that headed east on the actual mission were not spotted by multiple parties along the way is quite interesting. We still don’t know if decoy B-2s actually traveled to the Pacific or if their communications and air traffic control ‘footprints’ were faked. Regardless, the feint worked perfectly.
It’s also worth discussing what went into making this attack possible. We have been writing about the B-2 and its MOP capability constantly for many years. It has been a critical program that has needed constant enhancement. Mission planners, maintainers, ordnancemen, aircrews, engineers and everyone else in between have been preparing for this exact mission for many years. Many years of technological development went into the hardware to achieve it. We have seen large-scale exercises that certainly looked like rehearsals for yesterday’s mission, too. And it’s not just B-2 and MOP, but the package of aircraft (likely F-22s, F-35s, EA-18Gs, tankers, and possibly one or two we don’t even know about yet), vessels, satellite assets, and the supporting command and control architecture that all played a part.
So, seeing it all come together, with apparently perfect timing and coordination, from space to down below the waves, is something to behold.
At the same time, even with Operation Midnight Hammer’s success, it’s far too early to call anything ‘mission accomplished.’ So far, Iran’s retaliatory actions in the wake of the U.S. strikes have been limited to additional attacks on Israel. Still, Iranian officials have already said they reserve the right to respond more directly to the U.S. military’s actions, and concerns do remain about the possibility of a larger regional conflict now emerging. In particular, this could mean an attempt to close the Strait of Hormuz and/or execute short-range ballistic and cruise missile, as well as drone strikes, against U.S. interest in the Persian Gulf region.
In other words, this isn’t over and it could get worse before it gets better.
UPDATE: 1:55 PM Eastern –
Maxar has provided additional satellite imagery taken today of Iran’s nuclear facilities at Isfahan and Natanz in the wake of Operation Midnight Hammer, as well as comparative views of those locations from before the U.S. strikes.
“At Isfahan, extensive new building damage across the facility can be seen on today’s imagery,” Maxar said in an accompanying statement. “At Natanz, an approximately 5.5-meter diameter hole/crater is visible in the dirt that is directly over part of the underground military complex.”
UPDATE: 2:35 PM Eastern –
Fox News, citing an unnamed U.S. official, is now reporting that two B-2 bombers did actually fly out over the Pacific as part of the deception effort for Operation Midnight Hammer.
The United States provided Israel with a list of air defense targets it wanted neutralized prior to Operation Midnight Hammer, according to a new report from Axios, citing an unnamed Israeli official.
UPDATE: 2:52 PM Eastern –
We have received some audio of B-2 crews talking over the radio as they continue to make their way back from the strikes on Iran, courtesy of our spotter friend Bill Bagley, which you can listen to below. They include a little slice of life, including talk about venting the bomb bays of fuel, first-come/first-serve parking for the bombers on the ramp, and even brushing teeth during the mission.
The video below is said to show B-2s heading west over New Jersey, still on their way back home following the strikes.
Update: 6:06 PM Eastern –
After making their historic attack on Iran, B-2 Spirit stealth bombers returned to base at Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri.
In new statements, Netanyahu said that Fordow was badly hurt, but the extent of the damage remains to be seen, Reuters reporter Phil Stewart posted on X. Israel, the Israeli leader added, is close to achieving its goal of destroying Iran’s nuclear program and ballistic missiles.
“We won’t be dragged into a war of attrition but also won’t end the Iran campaign prematurely,” Netanyahu explained.
Contact the author: howard@thewarzone.com