US President Donald Trump announced on Saturday night that American forces had struck three nuclear sites in Iran, calling the operation “a spectacular military success” and warning that more attacks would be ordered if Tehran did not agree to a deal.
“We have completed our very successful attack on the three Nuclear sites in Iran, including Fordow, Natanz, and Esfahan,” Trump said in a post on his Truth Social platform. Trump said a “full payload of BOMBS was dropped on the primary site, Fordow” and that all US planes were out of Iranian airspace and en route back to their bases shortly after 7:50 PM EST.
He called the operation a “HISTORIC MOMENT FOR THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, ISRAEL, AND THE WORLD.”
US officials confirmed to Al Arabiya English that B-2 stealth bombers were used in the attacks. Earlier in the day, multiple B-2s departed Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri and flew west over the Pacific.
“Iran’s key nuclear enrichment facilities have been completely and totally obliterated,” Trump said in televised remarks late Saturday night.
“There will be either peace or there will be tragedy for Iran far greater than we have witnessed over the last eight days,” he said.
Trump warned that “there are many targets left,” and that if peace does not come quickly, “we will go after those other targets with precision, speed and skill, most of them can be taken out in a matter of minutes.
“Iran, the bully of the Middle East, must now make peace. If they do not, future attacks will be far greater and a lot easier.”
Following a phone call with Trump, Fox News reporter Sean Hannity said he was told that the US military dropped five to six “bunker buster” bombs from B-2 stealth bombers on Fordow and another 30 Tomahawk missiles were launched by US submarines around 400 miles away against Natanz and Esfahan.
The B-2 remains the only aircraft in the US arsenal capable of delivering the type of bomb required to target and potentially destroy Iran’s deeply buried nuclear facilities, such as those at Fordow.
According to an unnamed US official quoted by The New York Times, Fordow had likely been “taken off the table.”
The chairman of the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee said this would not be the start of a “forever war.”
“There will not be American boots on the ground in Iran. This was a precise, limited strike, which was necessary and by all accounts was very successful,” Senator Jim Risch said in a statement.
Risch went on to say this was “Israel’s war not our war, but Israel is one of our strongest allies and is disarming Iran for the good of the world.”
Source: Al Arabiya
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