Inside Operation Midnight Hammer: How Trump carried out unprecedented Iran attack using decoys in 37-hour covert mission
AMERICA'S colossal bomb raid on Iran's key nuclear sites was a masterclass in military might and strategy "months in the making", officials said.
Covert tactics and the world's biggest conventional bombs came together in a "spectacular success", according to Trump, which caught the Iranians completely off-guard.
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14 B-2 bombers were joined by more than 100 escort and support aircradr
Credit: Reuters
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Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said the operation had been months in the planning
Credit: AP
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Satellite pictures show Iran's Fordow nuclear facility after it was blitzed
Credit: AFP
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Iran has sworn "
While the world now waits to see how Iran and its
General Dan Caine, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said: 'This was a complex and high-risk mission carried out with exceptional skill and discipline by our Joint Force."
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said: "Our B-2s went in and out and back without the world knowing at all."
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The mission was simple: to inflict serious damage on
Plans were worked for months, and the key groundwork was laid by Trump on Thursday when he announced a two-week delay to his decision about striking
Iran
.
It's now clear that was a ploy to lull the regime into a false sense of security.
The full mobilisation began on Friday night when a unit of B-2 bombers took off from the US at midnight.
Most read in The US Sun
Some of the planes flew west towards the Pacific, leading analysts to suggest they might be heading to the UK's Diego Garcia base - but that was a decoy.
Only "an extremely small number of planners and key leaders" knew the truth about the ruse, General Caine said.
Trump's shock Iran strikes take us to bring of global conflict and will strengthen Axis of Evil alliance, experts warn
The actual fleet comprised of seven B-2 spirit bombers, which quietly set off east over the Atlantic.
Each was manned by a crew of two, but the pilots were instructed to stick to minimal communication to avoid detection.
It was an 18-hour non-stop journey to reach the
target
area, so the bombers had to refuel multiple times in the air by linking up with escort and support aircraft.
Mid-air synchronisation is difficult enough, but crews had to maintain minimal comms whilst lining up.
At half past midnight Iranian time, a US submarine launched more than two dozen Tomahawk land attack cruise missiles at the Isfahan nuclear site in east Iran.
This coincided with the bomber squad entering Iranian airspace - undetected.
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Trump played a feint by suggesting he would mull the strikes for two weeks
Credit: Splash
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Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has refused to surrender and now says diplomacy is off the cards
Credit: AP
Decoy and scout planes swooped out ahead of the main unit to scan for and distract any awaiting Iranian defence jets - but there were none.
The protection group stood ready to launch preemptive fire on any surface-to-air threats, such as air defence systems, but not a single shot was fired at the operatives.
Go-time was 2:10am - the midst of the Iranian night.
Over a period of just 25 minutes, the bombers released their powerful payload.
Officials revealed that about 75 precision-guided weapons were unleashed in total.
Amongst these were 14 of the famed "bunker-buster" bombs dropped on the mountain-fortress Fordow plant.
Israel
had not even attempted to destroy this facility, buried beneath 300ft of rock and steel, because it knew only US's superbombs could do the job.
The B-2s were programmed to drop one bomb, followed by another shortly afterwards onto the exact same point of impact.
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Residential buildings in Tel Avid were damaged by Iranian missiles the morning after the US strikes
Credit: Getty
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A graphic displayed by US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth demonstrating the operation
Credit: Getty
It was the first time that the 30,000-pound GBU, 57 Massive Ordnance Penetrators (MOPs) had been deployed in a live combat situation.
Caine said: '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. The safety of our service members and civilians remains our highest priority.
'This mission demonstrates the unmatched reach, coordination and capability of the United States military.
'In just a matter of weeks, this went from strategic planning to global execution.
'This operation underscores the unmatched capabilities and global reach of the
United States
military."
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