Latest news with #MassiveOrdnancePenetrator
Time of India
8 hours ago
- Politics
- Time of India
Operation Midnight Hammer: 'Bunker-busters' not used on Iran's Isfahan nuclear site, top US general tells senators; cites target depth
The United States military did not use the "bunker-buster" bombs on Iran's Isfahan nuclear facility during last week's Operation Midnight Hammer, chairman joint chiefs of staff, General Dan Caine, told senators during a classified briefing. Tired of too many ads? go ad free now The facility is so deep that the bomb - actual name Massive Ordnance Penetrator (MOP) - likely would have not been effective, the general informed senators on Thursday, CNN . US officials believe that Isfahan's underground structures contain nearly 60 per cent of the Islamic Republic's enriched nuclear stockpile, which Tehran would need in order to ever produce nukes. Only Tomahawk missiles were used to strike Isfahan. On the other hand, the B-2 Spirit bombers dropped more than a dozen bunker-busters on the other two targets - Fordow and Natanz. The classified session was held by Caine, defense secretary Pete Hegseth, secretary of state Marco Rubio and John Ratcliffe, director, CIA. During the briefing, Ratcliffe said that the US intelligence community assesses that the majority of Iran's enriched nuclear material is buried at Isfahan and Fordow, according to an official. Following the strikes, a preliminary assessment by the Defense Intelligence Agency the attack did not destroy the core components of Iran's nuclear programme, including its enriched uranium, and likely only set it back by months. The assessment was disputed by members of the Donald Trump administration. President Trump has repeatedly asserted that Iran's nuclear programme was "obliterated."
Yahoo
17 hours ago
- Politics
- Yahoo
US did not use bunker-buster bombs on one of Iran's nuclear sites, top general tells lawmakers, citing depth of the target
The US military did not use bunker-buster bombs on one of Iran's largest nuclear sites last weekend because the site is so deep that the bombs likely would not have been effective, the US' top general told senators during a briefing on Thursday. The comment by Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Dan Caine, which was described by three people who heard his remarks and a fourth who was briefed on them, is the first known explanation given for why the US military did not use the Massive Ordnance Penetrator bomb against the Isfahan site in central Iran. US officials believe Isfahan's underground structures house nearly 60% of Iran's enriched uranium stockpile, which Iran would need in order to ever produce a nuclear weapon. US B2 bombers dropped over a dozen bunker-buster bombs on Iran's Fordow and Natanz nuclear sites. But Isfahan was only struck by Tomahawk missiles launched from a US submarine. The classified briefing to lawmakers was conducted by Caine, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and CIA Director John Ratcliffe. Spokespeople for Caine did not return requests for comment. Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy told CNN on Thursday night after receiving the briefing that some of Iran's capabilities 'are so far underground that we can never reach them. So they have the ability to move a lot of what has been saved into areas where there's no American bombing capacity that can reach it.' An early assessment produced by the Defense Intelligence Agency in the day after the US strikes said the attack did not destroy the core components of the country's nuclear program, including its enriched uranium, and likely only set the program back by months, CNN has reported. It also said Iran may have moved some of the enriched uranium out of the sites before they were attacked. The Trump officials who briefed lawmakers this week sidestepped questions about the whereabouts of Iran's stockpile of already-enriched uranium. President Donald Trump again claimed Friday that nothing was moved from the three Iranian sites before the US military operation. But Republican lawmakers emerged from the classified briefings on Thursday acknowledging that the US military strikes may not have eliminated all of Iran's nuclear materials. But they argued that doing so was not part of the military's mission. 'There is enriched uranium in the facilities that moves around, but that was not the intent or the mission,' Republican Rep. Michael McCaul of Texas told CNN. 'My understanding is most of it's still there. So we need a full accounting. That's why Iran has to come to the table directly with us, so the (International Atomic Energy Agency) can account for every ounce of enriched uranium that's there. I don't think it's going out of the country, I think it's at the facilities.' 'The purpose of the mission was to eliminate certain particular aspects of their nuclear program. Those were eliminated. To get rid of the nuclear material was not part of the mission,' GOP Rep. Greg Murphy told CNN. 'Here's where we're at: the program was obliterated at those three sites. But they still have ambitions,' said Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina. 'I don't know where the 900 pounds of highly enriched uranium exists. But it wasn't part of the targets there.' '(The sites) were obliterated. Nobody can use them anytime soon,' Graham also said. Weapons expert and professor at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies Jeffrey Lewis told CNN that commercial satellite images show that Iran has accessed the tunnels at Isfahan. 'There were a moderate number of vehicles present at Isfahan on June 26 and at least one of the tunnel entrances was cleared of obstructions by mid-morning June 27,' Lewis said. 'If Iran's stockpile of (highly enriched uranium) was still in the tunnel when Iran sealed the entrances, it may be elsewhere now.' Additional satellite imagery captured on June 27 by Planet Labs show the entrance to the tunnels were open at the time, according to Lewis. The preliminary DIA assessment noted that the nuclear sites' above ground structures were moderately to severely damaged, CNN has reported. That damage could make it a lot harder for Iran to access any enriched uranium that does remain underground, sources said, something that Graham alluded to on Thursday. 'These strikes did a lot of damage to those three facilities,' Murphy, the Connecticut Democrat, told CNN on Thursday night. 'But Iran still has the know-how to put back together a nuclear program. And if they still have that enriched material, and if they still have centrifuges, and if they still have the capability to very quickly move those centrifuges into what we call a cascade, we have not set back that program by years. We have set it back by months.' Caine and Hegseth on Thursday said the military operation against Fordow went exactly as planned but did not mention the impacts to Isfahan and Natanz. CNN's Manu Raju contributed to this report.
News18
a day ago
- Politics
- News18
US Bunker Bombs Used To Strike Iran's Fordow Nuclear Site Took 15 Years To Develop
Last Updated: Caine described Operation Midnight Hammer as the result of 15 years of intense preparation 'Bunker bombs" used by the United States last week to strike Iran's Fordow nuclear fuel enrichment plant were under production for 15 years before the US even knew about the extent of the Tehran threat. The US struck three nuclear sites in Iran on June 21 using powerful bunker-busting bombs, marking the first use of weapon was used in combat for the first time. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Lt. Gen. Dan Caine has said that the heavy-duty bunker bombs used were designed specifically for the deeply buried site. Even though the US first learnt about the Fordow plant in 2009, it could not act due to the unavailability of a 'weapon that could adequately strike and kill this target," Caine said, the New York Post reported. This situation forced the US to produce 30,000-pound GBU-57 series MOP (Massive Ordnance Penetrator) bunker-buster bombs. The June 21 strike was meticulously crafted by the Pentagon to meet the precise demands of targeting Iran's Fordow facility. The operation focused on two key ventilation shafts intended to guide the bunker-busting bombs deep into the underground site. According to Caine, Iranian forces had tried to defend the shafts by sealing them with concrete. 'The mission planners had anticipated this scenario — they prepared for every detail," he said. 'The initial weapon forcibly removed the concrete covering, exposing the main shaft beneath." Caine described Operation Midnight Hammer as the result of 15 years of intense preparation — from the air and tanker crews to the weapons teams that designed and assembled the munitions, and the load crews who made the strike possible. All About GBU-57 – Bunker Bombs The GBU-57 — also named Massive Ordnance Penetrator — is designed to penetrate up to 200 feet (60 meters) underground before exploding. 'To defeat these deeply buried targets, these weapons need to be designed with rather thick casings of steel, hardened steel, to sort of punch through these layers of rock," said Masao Dahlgren, of the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), a Washington-based research center. The 6.6-meter-long GBU-57 also has a specialized fuse as 'you need an explosive that's not going to immediately explode under that much shock and pressure," Dahlgren said. The only aircraft capable of deploying the GBU-57 is the B-2 Spirit, a stealth bomber. The US employed seven B-2s in the Iran strikes — aircraft that can fly 6,000 nautical miles (9,600 kilometers) without refueling and which are designed to 'penetrate an enemy's most sophisticated defenses and threaten its most valued, and heavily defended, targets," according to the US military. 'This was the largest B-2 operational strike in US history and the second-longest B-2 mission ever flown," Caine said. Several B-2s proceeded west over the Pacific as a decoy while the bombers that would take part in the strikes headed east — a 'deception effort known only to an extremely small number of planners and key leaders," the general said. (with inputs from AFP)
The Herald Scotland
a day ago
- Politics
- The Herald Scotland
Pentagon gives new details on Iran strike, leaves questions open
The strike was "decimating - choose your word - obliterating, destroying," Hegseth said at a June 26 early morning news conference. He characterized the report as "low confidence" and said it had "gaps in the information." Caine describes Fordow strike, leaves out Natanz, Isfahan Air Force Gen. Dan Caine, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, shared more details of the strike on the Fordow nuclear site during the news conference, but left open questions about attacks on the other two sites - Natanz and Isfahan - and whether the Pentagon knows what happened to Iran's enriched uranium stockpiles. Caine described the work of a pair of officers at the Defense Threat Reduction Agency who intensively studied the Fordow facility for more than 15 years and designed the Massive Ordnance Penetrator bunker-buster bombs to destroy it. They played a key role in planning the strike, he said. A dozen penetrating bombs targeted two ventilation shafts located on opposite sides of Fordow that Iran tried to cover over with concrete in the days leading up to the strike, Caine said. On each side, the first bomb blew open the shaft and the next four bombs entered "at greater than 1,000 feet per second," he said. The sixth bomb acted as "flex weapon" in case of an issue with one of the preceding bombs, he added. All six bombs "went exactly where they were intended to go," he added. Caine played reporters a video of a test bomb burrowing into a shaft and exploding and a picture of the hole it left in the ground. "Unlike a normal surface bomb, you won't see an impact crater," he said. Hegseth touted Caine's explanation as proof the bombs fully demolished Fordow. But no mention was made of the aftermath at Natanz, which was targeted by two penetrator bombs, or Isfahan, which was struck only by missiles fired from a Navy submarine. In the wake of the strikes, experts and watchers of Iran's nuclear program raised questions of what happened to the 880 pounds of enriched uranium believed to be deeply buried in underground tunnels at Isfahan. More: Key parts of Iran's nuclear program still intact, says Pentagon report disputed by Trump Satellite images from Maxar Technology also captured a line of cargo trucks parked outside Fordow in the days before strikes, stirring speculation of whether Iran had moved some of its nuclear equipment. Iranian officials have also claimed they took materials out of the facility. Pressed by reporters on those questions, Hegseth did not have answers. "We're looking at all aspects of intelligence and making sure we have a sense of what was where," he said.
West Australian
a day ago
- Politics
- West Australian
WATCH: Pentagon reveals test footage of bunker-buster bombs used in Iran strike
US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Dan Caine have described in great detail the planning and execution of the US strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities. Mr Caine shared dramatic test footage on Thursday morning (local time) showing how 30,000-pound (13,600kg) bunker-buster bombs work, such as the ones used against Iran's Fordow uranium enrichment plant. The video showed a GBU-57 series Massive Ordnance Penetrator (MOP) striking its target, triggering a towering cloud of dust moments before a blinding explosion illuminated the shaft during a test detonation. According to Mr Caine, the pilots who dropped the bunker-buster bombs on the site called the blast 'the brightest explosion' that 'literally looked like daylight.' The MOPs used in the attack, which can only be dropped by a B-2 stealth bomber, were manufactured in 2009 after the US learned of the existence of the Fordow site. 'Unlike a normal surface bomb, you won't see an impact crater because they're designed to deeply bury and then function,' Mr Caine explained to reporters during a press briefing. 'All six weapons at each vent at Fordow went exactly where they were intended to go.' Another angle presented during the briefing showed an MOP impacting its target in slow motion, slicing through the curved interior of a second ventilation shaft without exploding as it continued to penetrate deeper into the test facility. 'A bomb has three effects that cause damage: blast, fragmentation, and overpressure,' Mr Caine added. 'In this case, the primary kill mechanisms in the mission space were a mix of overpressure and blast.' 'Imagine what this looks like six times over.' Sharing some more detail about the strike on Fordow, Mr Caine said, 'The weapons were built, tested and loaded properly' before 'being released on speed and on parameters.' He added that, 'the weapons all guided to their intended targets and to their intended aim points,' before exploding.
