July 17, 2025
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump said Saturday that the U.S. military struck three sites in Iran, directly joining Israel ’s effort to decapitate the country's nuclear program.
The decision to directly involve the U.S. comes after more than a week of strikes by Israel on Iran that have moved to systematically eradicate the country’s air defenses and offensive missile capabilities, while damaging its nuclear enrichment facilities. But U.S. and Israeli officials have said that American stealth bombers and a 30,000-lb. bunker buster bomb they alone can carry offered the best chance of destroying heavily-fortified sites connected to the Iranian nuclear program buried deep underground.
“We have completed our very successful attack on the three Nuclear sites in Iran, including Fordow, Natanz, and Esfahan," Trump said in a post 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.”
Trump said B-2 stealth bombers were used but did not specify which types of bombs were dropped. The White House and Pentagon did not immediately elaborate on the operation.
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei warned on Wednesday the United States that strikes targeting the Islamic Republic will “result in irreparable damage for them.” And Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei declared, “Any American intervention would be a recipe for an all-out war in the region."
Trump has vowed that he would not allow Iran to obtain a nuclear weapon, and he had initially hoped that the threat of force would bring the country’s leaders to give up their nuclear program peacefully.
Israel ’s military said Saturday it was preparing for the possibility of a lengthy war, while Iran’s foreign minister warned before the U.S. attack that American military involvement “would be very, very dangerous for everyone.”
The U.S. ambassador to Israel announced the U.S. had begun “assisted departure flights,” the first from Israel since the Hamas-led terror attack on Oct. 7, 2023, that sparked the war in Gaza.
The Israelis say their offensive has already crippled Iran’s air defenses, allowing them to already significantly degrade multiple Iranian nuclear sites.
But to destroy the Fordo nuclear fuel enrichment plant, Israel has appealed to Trump for U.S. bunker-busting bombs, the 30,000-pound GBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrator, which uses its weight and sheer kinetic force to reach deeply buried targets and then explode. The penetrator is currently only delivered by the B-2 stealth bomber, which is only found in the American arsenal.
The bomb carries a conventional warhead, and is believed to be able to penetrate about 200 feet below the surface before exploding, and the bombs can be dropped one after another, effectively drilling deeper and deeper with each successive blast.
Trump’s decision for direct U.S. military intervention comes after his administration made an unsuccessful two-month push — including with high-level, direct negotiations with the Iranians — aimed at persuading Tehran to curb its nuclear program.
For months, Trump said he was dedicated to a diplomatic push to persuade Iran to give up its nuclear ambitions. And he twice — in April and again in late May — persuaded Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to hold off on military action against Iran and give diplomacy more time.
The U.S. in recent days has been shifting military aircraft and warships into and around the Middle East to protect Israel and U.S. bases from Iranian attacks.
