How decoys aided US in retaining element of surprise during bombing of Iran
The real group of seven bat-winged, B-2 stealth bombers flew east undetected for 18 hours, keeping communications to a minimum, refueling in mid-air, the US military revealed on Sunday.
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Sinar Daily
10 minutes ago
- Sinar Daily
Top adviser to Iran's Supreme Leader says uranium stockpile intact despite US strikes
Earlier in the day, US President Donald Trump said American forces bombed Iran's Fordo, Natanz and Isfahan nuclear sites. 23 Jun 2025 08:59am This handout satellite image courtesy of Maxar Technologies shows cargo trucks postioned near an underground entrance to Iran's Fordow Fuel Enrichment Plant (FFEP), in Fordo, Iran on June 19, 2025. (Photo by Satellite image ©2025 Maxar Technologies / AFP) ISTANBUL - A senior adviser to Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei confirmed Sunday that Iran's stockpile of enriched uranium is still intact despite US attacks on three nuclear sites, Anadolu Ajansi (AA) reported. "Even if nuclear sites are destroyed, game isn't over, enriched materials, indigenous knowledge, political will remain,' Ali Shamkhani wrote on X. This handout picture provided by the office of Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei shows him, flanked by the Iranian flag and a portrait of his predecessor the late supreme leader and Iranian revolution leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, giving a televised address in Tehran on June 18, 2025. (Photo by / AFP) "With legitimate defence right, political and operational initiative is now with the side that plays smart, avoids blind strikes. Surprises will continue!' he added. The Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB), Iran's official radio and television broadcaster, reported Sunday that targeted sites had been evacuated before the attack and sensitive nuclear materials were moved to safe locations, without providing details. Earlier in the day, US President Donald Trump said American forces bombed Iran's Fordo, Natanz and Isfahan nuclear sites. The US targeted the sites with six bunker-buster bombs dropped on the Fordo facility with B-2 stealth bombers, along with dozens of submarine-launched cruise missile strikes on the Natanz and Isfahan facilities. The attacks came as the latest escalation in a US-backed Israeli military assault on Iran since June 13, prompting Tehran to launch retaliatory attacks on Israel. Both sides have reported fatalities and injuries in the exchange of airstrikes. - BERNAMA-ANADOLU More Like This
Indian Express
14 minutes ago
- Indian Express
Daily Briefing: As US enters Iran-Israel conflict, what's next?
Uncertainty persists a day after the US struck three key nuclear facilities in Iran. Experts are yet to determine the exact damage to Iran's nuclear facilities. A question mark hangs over the fate of the Iran-controlled Strait of Hormuz, via which 20% of global oil and gas demand flows. Most crucially, the world awaits Iran's response to the US strikes after it vowed to defend itself. Let's look at what happened and what likely comes next. Recap: The US military deployed a group of B-2 bombers from Missouri towards the Pacific island of Guam. It was seen as a possible pre-positioning for any US decision to strike Iran. It turned out that this was a decoy. The real group of B-2 stealth bombers flew east, undetected for 18 hours, before unleashing the heavy-duty bunker buster bombs on Iran's critical Fordow nuclear sites. Simultaneously, Navy submarines fired 30 Tomahawk cruise missiles at Natanz and Isfahan atomic sites. The damage: While Israel had targeted Natanz, a uranium enrichment site, and Isfahan, a storage facility for near-bomb-grade nuclear fuel, in earlier strikes, it needed US assistance to target Fordow. It is Iran's most critical nuclear enrichment facility, housed deep inside a mountain. As my colleague Amitabh Sinha explains, the US strikes did not pose threats of a nuclear explosion, nor have they led to any major radiation leak. Notably, while satellite imagery showed significant damage to Fordow, the extent of below-ground destruction remains unknown. Speculation was also rife that Iran may have moved its enriched uranium to a secure facility before the US attack. An unnamed Iranian source confirmed this to the news agency Reuters. The politics: US President Donald Trump's decision to enter the war may receive the most severe criticism from his own support base. Trump rode the right-wing populist wave to power, promising to keep the US out of the endless wars in the Middle East. If the conflict with Tehran widens, he may lose crucial support. So far, Trump acolytes have insisted that the US was not at 'war' with Iran, and the actions were not aimed at a regime change (though a post on Trump's Truth Social, calling to 'Make Iran Great Again', argued precisely the opposite). Contributing editor C Raja Mohan takes a comprehensive view of the attack's impact in the region. The tightrope: India walks a diplomatic tightrope as it has ties with both Iran and Israel — and now, the US — to protect. In a phone call with Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, Prime Minister Narendra Modi urged for de-escalation, an appeal echoed by world leaders across the globe. The conflict also threatens to upend India's military capabilities if it stretches on. India accounts for 34 per cent of Israel's arms imports, including loitering munitions and air defence systems deployed during Operation Sindoor. Military sources told my colleague Amrita Nayak Dutta that the war may not impact Indian military hardware just yet. However, if Iran were to close the Strait of Hormuz, a motion already approved in Iranian parliament, it may severely hit India's oil and gas imports. 🎧 For more on the US strikes in Iran, tune in to today's '3 Things' podcast episode. Moving on to the rest of the day's headlines. India has sealed the trade deal with the UK; another one with the US is in the offing. But are the trade talks with the European Union lagging? 'What is important is not about being fast and furious, but resolute and substantial, for both constituencies. Europeans may be a bit slower, we are a bit bureaucratic, we are not shining, but at the end of the day, we deliver,' the EU Ambassador to India, Herve Delphin, said. Read everything he said about EU-India ties in the latest Idea Exchange session. ID'ed: The National Investigation Agency has made a breakthrough in its probe into the April 22 Pahalgam attack, identifying the three attackers — all from Pakistan. Crucially, the identities differ from the three sketches released by the Jammu and Kashmir police right after the incident. Dig in: Mining and related activities are prohibited in a one-kilometre zone outside the Critical Tiger Habitat (CTH) in the Sariska Tiger Reserve. Last year, over 50 marble and dolomite mines were shut down on the Supreme Court's order due to their proximity to the CTH. Now, a plan to retreat the CTH boundaries may hand a lifeline to these mines. Data crunch: Macroeconomic figures point to steady growth for India, but rarely account for individual well-being. Researchers Ashok Gulati and Ritika Juneja's breakdown of the numbers shows that India's poverty levels have reached a historic low. There may be a need to reexamine government policies, particularly around the food and fertiliser subsidies. 'Spiritual Disneyland': In 2021, bulldozers arrived at Auroville to make way for the Centre's master plan to redevelop the experimental township. The Centre insists its plans are based on the Galaxy Plan of the township's founder, Mirra Alfassa or 'Mother'. However, long-time residents have accused the authorities of indulging in 'methodical erosion' of the township's founding ideals, alleging control, surveillance, and censorship. A wave of visa renewal denials has also left many of the Aurovillians displaced. Arun Janardhan spoke to the residents to make sense of the allegations. In England's first innings against India in the ongoing Test series, Harry Brook stopped just one short of scoring a century. National sports editor Sandeep Dwivedi travelled to rural Yorkshire, where a village of 7,000 raised Brook. A boy who practically grew up at a clubhouse in the village's centre is now England's big batting hope and their heir-apparent to Test skipper Ben Stokes. Read Dwivedi's dispatch. That's all for today, folks! Until tomorrow, Sonal Gupta Sonal Gupta is a senior sub-editor on the news desk. She writes feature stories and explainers on a wide range of topics from art and culture to international affairs. She also curates the Morning Expresso, a daily briefing of top stories of the day, which won gold in the 'best newsletter' category at the WAN-IFRA South Asian Digital Media Awards 2023. She also edits our newly-launched pop culture section, Fresh Take. ... Read More
Time of India
14 minutes ago
- Time of India
'Went in and out without anyone knowing': How US' B-2 jets flew undetected into Iranian skies and rained hellfire; explained
B-2 spirit bombers Under a cloak of secrecy and tonnes of planning, American stealth bombers launched a surprise attack with surgical precision, unleashing a powerful blow on Iran's underground nuclear sites. Operation Midnight Hammer saw seven B-2 Spirit bombers fly nearly 37 hours round-trip from Missouri to Iran, dropping 30,000-pound bunker-buster bombs on three key underground nuclear sites last week. The attack was designed to deal a critical blow to Iran's uranium enrichment programme, in line with US President Donald Trump 's stance that Iran cannot be allowed to possess nuclear weapons. The bombers were supported by dozens of fighter jets, aerial tankers and a submarine, and struck targets at Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan with 75 precision-guided weapons. 'We devastated the Iranian nuclear program," said US secretary of defence Pete Hegseth , calling it an "incredible and overwhelming success." Flying in silence: How the B-2s reached Iran unnoticed The mission was made possible by a complex deception plan. While seven B-2 bombers flew east from Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri to strike Iran, another set of bombers was sent west as decoys, drawing attention from media, government officials and military spotters. Backed by stealth fighters and support aircraft, the real bombers flew across the Atlantic and Mediterranean in near radio silence, refuelling multiple times in mid-air before reaching their targets. US Air Force General Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, explained that the operation was so secretive that 'only an extremely small number of planners and key leaders' knew about it in advance. "Our B-2s went in and out and back without the world knowing at all," said Hegseth. As the bombers approached Iran, a US submarine launched more than two dozen Tomahawk cruise missiles toward the Isfahan site, an hour ahead of the B-2s. Fighter jets checked for any threats along the route, but according to Caine, "Iran's fighters did not fly, and it appears that Iran's surface-to-air missile systems did not see us." Massive bunker busters and a submarine barrage At 6:40 pm ET on Saturday (2:10 am in Iran), the lead B-2 bomber dropped two GBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrators (MOPs) on the Fordow site. The rest followed over a 25-minute window, releasing 14 bunker busters on Fordow and Natanz, while Tomahawk missiles targeted Isfahan. All three sites are central to Iran's nuclear fuel processing. Trump said the Fordow facility, Iran's most heavily protected nuclear site, is now 'gone'. In his address from the White House, Trump called the strike 'a spectacular military success.' He added, 'If peace does not come quickly, we will go after those other targets with precision, speed and skill." Inside the B-2: Stealth, speed and power Each B-2 bomber costs about $2.1 billion and has a wingspan of 172 feet. It was designed in the late 1980s, and only 21 were built. The B-2 is one of the world's most advanced military aircraft, capable of flying over 6,000 nautical miles without refuelling. It can carry over 40,000 pounds of bombs inside its stealth-coated body, including MOPs and other precision-guided weapons. Its two-man crew benefits from high levels of automation and even a few in-flight comforts such as a toilet, refrigerator, microwave and space for one pilot to lie down while the other flies. The 30,000-pound MOPs dropped on Fordow are the largest conventional bombs in the US arsenal, able to penetrate over 200 feet of reinforced concrete. This was their first-ever use in combat. Numbers behind the mission According to Pentagon figures, more than 125 aircraft participated in the mission, including stealth bombers, support planes, fighters and surveillance craft. A total of 75 precision weapons were used, including 14 bunker busters and over two dozen cruise missiles. Initial assessments suggest that the damage to Iran's nuclear programme is severe. "Initial battle damage assessments indicate that all three sites sustained extremely severe damage and destruction," said Caine. Iran denied the extent of the damage and vowed to retaliate. Operation Midnight Hammer has gone down as the largest B-2 operational strike in US history and the longest such mission since 2001.
