B-2 stealth bombers from Whiteman Air Force Base, Missouri, flew a 36-hour nonstop mission over the weekend to drop bunker-buster bombs on an underground compound where commanders from Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps had gathered, a U.S. official told Military Times.
Adm. Brad Cooper, the head of U.S. Central Command, gave the order after intelligence indicated a nexus of senior IRGC leaders was meeting at the location, the official said.
The B-2s are equipped to drop 30,000-pound bunker-buster bombs, also known as GBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrators, to destroy deeply fortified structures. Their immense payload allows them to strike targets at a depth beyond the reach of conventional munitions, while their flying-wing design enables them to penetrate sophisticated defenses with minimal detection.
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That weapon was key to last June’s Operation Midnight Hammer, when bunker busters battered three of Iran’s nuclear installations. The B-2s made roughly the same 7,000-mile journey this time.
At the six-week mark of the assault against Iran, CENTCOM reported that U.S. forces had struck over 13,000 sites across the country. Other bombers in America’s squadrons, such as the B-1 and the B-52, have played prominent roles in the current campaign, Pentagon officials say.
Cooper’s directive coincided with a high-stakes search-and-rescue effort focused on two American airmen who ejected from a fighter jet over Iranian territory on Friday. President Donald Trump would later liken that operation to a Hollywood scene during a press conference at the White House.
“You would call it central casting if you were doing a movie for location,” he said Monday, revealing that hundreds of personnel were involved in the extraction. “Those pilots came in so fast and so quick and got out of there.”
Moments after extolling U.S. forces from the lectern, the president declared that when it came to the reach of the American military, nothing was off-limits. He warned he could destroy Iran’s critical infrastructure, including bridges and power plants.
The following day, in a post on Truth Social, Trump escalated the rhetoric even further, threatening to eradicate Iranian civilization if Tehran did not capitulate to his demands by 8 p.m. ET on Tuesday.
“A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again,” Trump wrote. “I don’t want that to happen, but it probably will.”
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told Military Times that “only the president knows where things stand and what he will do.”
Tanya Noury is a reporter for Military Times and Defense News, with coverage focusing on the White House and Pentagon.
