WASHINGTON, D.C. — In a stunning show of military power and stealth, the United States launched a precision airstrike Saturday night targeting three of Iran’s most fortified nuclear sites—Fordow, Natanz, and Esfahan—marking the most ambitious and destructive attack on Tehran’s atomic infrastructure in history.
The operation, codenamed Midnight Hammer, was personally ordered by President Donald J. Trump and executed by the U.S. Central Command in a multi-theater, multi-domain strike that officials say has “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear capabilities.
This was not just an airstrike—it was a message,” said U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth at a Pentagon press briefing on Sunday. “When this president says ‘no nukes,’ the world now understands exactly what that means.”
Planning involved a tight circle of senior defense personnel and was kept under extreme secrecy, with very few in Washington aware of the scope, scale, or timing of the strike.
“This was a highly classified mission,” said General Dan Caine, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. “Only a select number of planners had access to the full picture. Operational security was paramount.”
The plan relied on misdirection, deception, and coordinated silence. Elements of the U.S. Air Force flew decoy routes into the Pacific to distract from the true strike force heading eastward toward Iran.
A vast network of U.S. combatant commands—including CENTCOM, STRATCOM, CYBERCOM, and the Space Force—coordinated across time zones and domains to maintain full operational integrity.
THE STRIKE PACKAGE
The strike force was led by seven B-2 Spirit stealth bombers—America’s most advanced long-range strategic aircraft—each carrying two crew members and equipped with GBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrators (MOPs), 30,000-pound “bunker buster” bombs capable of demolishing hardened underground facilities.
Launched from the continental United States, the B-2s undertook an 18-hour non-stop mission, refueled multiple times mid-air, and entered Iranian airspace under the cover of complete electronic silence.
At 2:10 a.m. local Iranian time, the first of the B-2s released two MOPs onto Fordow, Iran’s most fortified nuclear enrichment facility buried deep beneath a mountain.
Over the next 25 minutes, a total of 14 MOPs were deployed across three key sites—Fordow, Natanz, and Esfahan—decimating what Pentagon officials described as the “core infrastructure” of Iran’s nuclear weapons program.
Simultaneously, a U.S. guided missile submarine stationed in the Persian Gulf launched over two dozen Tomahawk cruise missiles against surface-level installations at Esfahan. These were timed to land last to preserve strategic surprise.
The strike also involved more than 125 aircraft, including:
- B-2 bombers
- 4th and 5th generation fighter escorts
- Dozens of refueling tankers
- Surveillance and reconnaissance aircraft
- Electronic warfare platforms
No American aircraft was fired upon during ingress or egress, a fact officials attribute to the operation’s surprise and precision. “Iran’s fighters didn’t scramble. Their surface-to-air systems never even saw us,” General Caine noted.