Finally, at the desperate urging of PM Netanyahu, the US on June 21, 2025, in a complex attack involving around 125 aircraft, including seven B-2 Spirit stealth bombers, and one submarine bombed three Irani nuclear sites at Natanz, Fordow and Isfahan. The US dropped fourteen 30,000 pounds GBU-57 bunker busting MOP (massive ordnance penetrator) at Fordow and Natanz and fired around 75 BGM-109 Tomahawk cruise missiles, mainly at the Isfahan site. The Virginia-based B-2s flew in two directions on takeoff, one component heading towards Guam for deception, and the other towards the Middle East. The sites already pulverised by the IAF revisits were described as 'obliterated' by President Trump.

Fordow, containing around 3,000 sophisticated centrifuges in two enrichment halls, was attacked through ventilation shafts at two points, and GBU-57s seems to have "severely damaged but not destroyed" it, as per US officials. Iran claims the site was already evacuated. Natanz, the largest uranium enrichment centre, had earlier sustained 11 explosions in Israel's clandestine operation in 2020. IDF destroyed its above ground structures and electric supply on June 13. The US strikes extensively damaged its underground enrichment centrifuges.

The Isfahan complex, outside the ancient Isfahan capital, was a storage site for the near bomb-grade nuclear fuel. IDF struck its laboratories that convert Uranium gas into the substance needed to produce a weapon. IAF jets again targeted it on June 21, before the US bombing. Satellite images show extensive damage.

Israel's no-holds-barred illegality aside, the US attack on another country's nuclear sites was........

© The Express Tribune