World Desk

The U.S. military carried out airstrikes on three locations in Iran early Sunday, marking a direct intervention in Israel’s ongoing offensive aimed at dismantling Iran’s nuclear infrastructure. The move, intended to weaken a longstanding adversary, risks escalating regional tensions as Iran has warned of potential retaliation.

Former President Donald Trump was the first to announce the strikes. The Iranian government did not immediately respond, though Iran’s state-run IRNA reported that the targets were the Fordo, Isfahan, and Natanz nuclear facilities, without offering further details.

The U.S. decision to join the campaign followed over a week of Israeli operations targeting Iran’s air defenses, missile systems, and nuclear sites. American and Israeli officials indicated that the U.S.’s stealth bombers and the GBU-57 “bunker buster” bomb, capable of penetrating deep underground, were necessary to strike Iran’s heavily fortified nuclear infrastructure.

“We have completed our very successful attack on the three Nuclear sites in Iran, including Fordow, Natanz, and Esfahan," Trump stated on social media. "All planes are now outside of Iran air space. A full payload of BOMBS was dropped on the primary site, Fordow. All planes are safely on their way home.”

Later, Trump said he would address the nation at 10 p.m. Eastern Time, declaring it “an HISTORIC MOMENT FOR THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, ISRAEL, AND THE WORLD. IRAN MUST NOW AGREE TO END THIS WAR. THANK YOU!”

While the White House and Pentagon withheld further comment initially, Fox News host Sean Hannity claimed after speaking with Trump that six bunker busters had struck Fordo, while 30 Tomahawk missiles from U.S. submarines 400 miles away had hit Natanz and Isfahan.

The action marks a high-stakes choice for Trump, who has long promised to avoid entangling the U.S. in foreign wars. He had recently stated that sending ground troops to Iran would be “the last thing you want to do” and had previously planned to decide on military involvement over a two-week window.

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei had warned just days earlier that any attack on Iran would bring “irreparable damage” to the U.S. Meanwhile, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmail Baghaei called potential American military involvement “a recipe for an all-out war in the region.”

Trump had insisted that Iran would never be allowed to develop a nuclear weapon, initially favoring diplomatic pressure to convince Tehran to abandon its nuclear ambitions.

On Saturday, Israel said it was bracing for a prolonged conflict, while Iran’s foreign minister warned that U.S. involvement would make matters “very, very dangerous for everyone.”

Tensions heightened further as Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels threatened to resume attacks on U.S. vessels in the Red Sea if the U.S. joined Israel’s campaign. The Houthis had paused such operations in May following a deal with Washington.

In a related move, the U.S. began arranging "assisted departure flights" from Israel, the first since the Hamas-led October 7, 2023 attack that ignited the war in Gaza.

Though White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt had said Thursday that a decision on U.S. strikes would be made within two weeks, Trump authorized the strikes just two days later. This shift reportedly came under pressure from Israeli leaders and Republican lawmakers who believed Israel’s strikes had sufficiently degraded Iran’s defenses to create a rare opportunity to seriously damage its nuclear capabilities.

Israeli officials claim their assault has already dismantled key air defenses and damaged several nuclear sites. However, they requested U.S. assistance to target the deeply buried Fordo facility using the GBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrator — a U.S.-only weapon that is deployed by B-2 stealth bombers.

This could mark the first time the GBU-57 has been used in combat. It carries a conventional warhead and can penetrate approximately 200 feet underground before detonating, with successive drops capable of reaching even deeper.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) confirmed that Iran has been enriching uranium at Fordo, raising concerns that bombing the facility could release radioactive material. However, past Israeli strikes, such as one on the Natanz centrifuge facility, led to contamination only at the site itself, according to the IAEA.

Trump’s decision followed a failed two-month diplomatic push, which included high-level direct talks with Iran. In April and again in late May, Trump persuaded Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to delay military action to allow diplomacy more time.

As tensions escalated, the U.S. had moved warships and aircraft into the region to support Israel and defend American assets.

Trump’s tone has shifted sharply over time — from offering Iran a “second chance” to make a deal, to issuing direct threats, including warning Ayatollah Khamenei that the U.S. knows his location. “He is an easy target, but is safe there - We are not going to take him out (kill!), at least not for now,” Trump wrote on social media

This military confrontation with Iran comes seven years after Trump pulled the U.S. out of the 2015 nuclear deal, which had been negotiated by the Obama administration and other global powers. That agreement restricted Iran’s nuclear activities in exchange for relief from economic sanctions — a deal Trump has long criticized as overly lenient.

Trump’s decision has drawn criticism from parts of his own political base. Some conservative voices, such as Tucker Carlson, have warned that deeper involvement in the conflict would betray Trump’s promise to avoid costly, prolonged wars.

Source: With inputs from agency