June 22, 2025

Operation Midnight Hammer

Operation Midnight Hammer strikes three Iranian nuclear sites

The bombers flew quietly for 18 hours before the first weapon fell — while a decoy group flew west over the Pacific, the real B-2 formation headed east toward Iran.

22 June 2025: Fordow, Natanz, Isfahan

In the early hours of 22 June 2025 in Iran — the mission had launched the previous evening, U.S. time — the United States attacked the Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan nuclear sites under Operation Midnight Hammer, entering the Iran–Israel war as a direct combatant nine days after Israel's opening attack.

The strike package split by target: seven B-2 bombers dropped fourteen 30,000-pound GBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrators on Fordow and Natanz — the weapon's first operational use — while a U.S. submarine, not a bomber, fired more than two dozen Tomahawk cruise missiles at infrastructure at Isfahan. Roughly 75 precision-guided weapons were employed in all.

An 18-hour approach, an unopposed exit

The B-2s — each crewed by two — flew 18 hours outbound before reaching the target area, with a decoy group sent west over the Pacific as the real formation headed east. Per the U.S. account, Iranian fighters did not take off and the strike package reported no shots fired at it on departure.

The deeply buried Fordow enrichment plant, beneath a mountain, was considered especially difficult to attack — and it was attacked with the GBU-57, the bunker-penetrating bomb making its first operational appearance.

Damage claimed vs. damage known

All three sites sustained visible damage, and Iran reported no increase in off-site radiation immediately after the attacks — which did not itself prove the underground facilities or stored nuclear material were undamaged. The IAEA could see impact craters at Fordow but initially said it could not assess conditions inside the underground halls.

The Pentagon's early phrase was 'extremely severe damage' — a battle-damage assessment, not independent verification. Later estimates of how long the strikes delayed Iran's nuclear program differed, and none of them were facts known on 22 June.

Sources

Researched 23 Aug 2026 6 sources 3 audit passes

How this was checked

Researched from the web into a fact sheet, rewritten from that sheet, then audited against it by a different model. How the pipeline works →

What the sources leave uncertain

The operation began during the evening of June 21 in the United States but struck its targets after 2 a.m. on June 22 in Iran; June 22 is the correct local event date.
Initial Pentagon claims of devastation were battle-damage assessments, not independent verification.
The IAEA could see impact craters at Fordow but initially said it could not assess damage inside the underground halls.
Later assessments of how long the strikes delayed Iran's nuclear program differed; those estimates should not be presented as facts known on June 22.