A continuous flight over 18 hours, numerous charges in the middle of the air and a series of baits-how the mission of bombing of Iran's nuclear equipment has played, according to the four-star General Dan Kane, chairman of the joint headquarters, the highest-ranking officer in the US military.
Although the full impact of what the US is called “Midnight Hammer Operation” is not yet clear, a time line about how the complex mission is unfolded in a Pentagon briefing on Sunday morning, just hours after strikes.
The US bombers went “in and out and back, without the world at all,” US Secretary of Defense Pete Heget told reporters.
It all started shortly after midnight, when secretary Heget joined US President Donald Trump, Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and an elite Pentagon employee in the White House situational hall to watch an airplane fleet departing in rural Missuri.
Under the guise of the darkness, the B-2 Stealth bombers flew out of the Whiteman Air Force Base at 00:01 EDT (05:01 BST), according to the Pentagon.
Their ultimate goal: the most secure nuclear objects in Iran.
Sub -sound jets that travel just below the speed of sound flew over the Atlantic Ocean loaded with powerful Buster Buster bombs, capable of penetrating concrete over 18 m (60 feet) depth.
This is the type of weapon needed to strike Iran's nuclear enrichment in Fordo, which is buried under a mountain deep underground and is considered an epicenter of the country's nuclear program. The US is the only country in the world that is known to have this type of weapon.
But the world was not looking – still. All eyes were turned to the west, toward the Pacific, After reports, bombers were sent to the territory of Guam IslandS
“Until the deployment is officially linked to discussions around the United States, joining the Israel war against Iran, few will doubt the relationship,” the BBC wrote at that time.
But it was just Rousse – according to the Pentagon account, a lure to distract from flights with the most secretive flights aimed straight at Iran over the Atlantic.
The planes flying west over the Pacific were “an effort for fraud, known only to an extremely small number of planning and key leaders,” said Gen Kane.
“The main impact package, consisting of seven B-2 bombers, each with two crew members, stepped quietly east with minimal communications,” he added.
These military aircraft do not appear on flight tracking websites, which makes it difficult for the BBC to independently check the Pentagon description of the events.
And though Satellite images can help show the degree of damage On the sites overnight, they cannot tell us the right moments when they were hit.
When the fleet reached the Middle East, sometime around 5:00 pm (22:00 BST), he joined the maintenance planes that helped to protect the bombers by sweeping before them to look for enemy fighters and rocket threats from the surface of the air, in what Gen Kayne was “sophisticated, densely paid.
But the Iranian fighter Jets did not take off and did not seem air defense to launch, according to US officials.
“Israeli domination over Iranian airspace is primed the pump for US bombers to work with impunity,” Baz Patrycja Bazylczyk, an expert more district defense at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, told the BBC Patrycja.
The next hour and forty minutes were described by Gen Kane during the Pentagon briefing at the level of detail, which is not usually revealed to the public.
Although the briefing provided times for certain events, the map showing the bombers' trip was not a specific flight path and was slightly different in two versions.
The Trump administration announced subsequent events as a complete victory, claiming the United States had “deleted” Iran's nuclear regime. But the true degree of damage and its consequences have not yet been measured.
While Iran confirms the attacks, it minimizes the degree of damage and has not provided a specific report on the sequence of events.
Around 5:00 pm (22:00 BST), US officials say more than two dozen rockets to attack Tomahaw's land were fired from an American submarine located in Arabia at sea to the nuclear site near Isfahan, a city with about two million people.
While the nuclear facility has hundreds of kilometers inside the interior, the submarines were close enough to allow cruise missiles to influence approximately the same time as the B-2 thieves missed their bombs “Bunker” over the other two nuclear sites, said Dr. Stacey Petihon, a newly downtown expert at the center of the downtown.
All this meant that the United States was able to provide a “coordinated surprising attack on multiple sites,” she told the BBC Cerify.
Meanwhile, the bombers fleet entered the Iranian airspace, where the United States used several other tactics of fraud, including more lures, according to the Pentagon.
Then the air strikes began.
The lead bomber released two massive weapons of the GBU -57 Ordnance Penerator – known as MOPS – the first of several targets in Fordo with around 18:40 EDT (23:40 BST), just after 2:00 in the morning in Iran.
The MOP bomb is able to fall into about 18 m (60 feet) concrete or 61 m (200 feet) land before it explodes, according to experts. This means that although not guaranteed success, it is the only bomb in the world that can approach the depth of the tunnels in the Fordo facility-it is laid for 80-90 m (262-295 feet) below the surface.
It was the first time the Bunker Buster bombs were once put into a real combat operation.
The other bombers then struck their goals – with a total of 14 mops that fell to Fordo and a second nuclear facility in Nathan, according to the Pentagon. And on the nuclear site of Isfahan, over 200 km from Fordo, Tomahawk rockets hit their goals.
After the planes spent 18 hours in the air, all the goals were struck in just about 25 minutes before leaving Iran at 19:30 EDT (00:30 BST) to return to the United States, according to the Pentagon.
A total of about 75 precision weapons and more than 125 US aircraft were used, and secretary Heget claims that the mission provided “powerful and clear” destruction of Iran's nuclear capabilities.
But the evidence of the full scope of strikes will take time to evaluate – with more frames needed to see how deep underground the Buster Bombs hopper managed to penetrate the key nuclear objects.
“It was an incredibly complicated and very complicated attack that no other country in the world could do,” said Dr. Petichon.
“Despite the success of the operation tactically, it is unclear whether it will achieve the goal for the constant return of Iran's nuclear program.”