US warplanes have struck three Iranian nuclear facilities this morning, President Donald Trump announced. The US-owned bombers used 30,000-pound bombs to strike the Fordow nuclear facility, which is built hundreds of feet beneath a mountain in Iran.
“US aircraft are now out of Iranian airspace. All aircraft are safe,” Trump wrote on Twitter. Two of the three targets targeted were Iran’s major uranium enrichment facilities, the first at Fordow and the second at Natanz. The second facility is a much larger uranium enrichment facility that Israeli warplanes have bombed in the past few days.
The third site hit by the US was near the ancient city of Isfahan, where Israel says it has enriched uranium that is close to being used to make a nuclear bomb. The US strike took place at 2:30 am (05:30 GMT) on Sunday, the New York Times reported, citing unnamed Iranian officials. Donald Trump, who campaigned on a promise to end America’s “forever wars” abroad, has used the US military to attack Iran’s vast underground nuclear facilities.
Israel and its US ally have said they will never allow Iran to develop a nuclear bomb, and they say the strikes are aimed at that goal. Israel launched its strikes on Iran about 10 days ago, and Iran responded by firing long-range missiles into Israel. The Israeli attack killed 11 top Iranian generals and more than 400 Iranian civilians.
Many of the Iranian missiles were shot down by Israeli air defenses, but some fell inside Israel, killing dozens. Before the attack on Iran, Donald Trump had called for Iran to surrender completely, but he said he did not support the assassination of Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Iran has said it would retaliate against US targets in the Middle East if the US attacks Iran, and Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said on Monday that he had named three people to succeed him if he were to die.
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