Washington DC: In June 2025, the US military executed Operation Midnight Hammer, a secretive, high-stakes strike against Iran's heavily fortified Fordo nuclear enrichment site.

The mission, greenlit by President Donald Trump, involved stealth B-2 bombers delivering 30,000-pound GBU-57 bunker-buster bombs with the aim of obliterating Iran's underground nuclear infrastructure.

Newly released statements from the Pentagon offer the most vivid portrait yet of what unfolded during the operation. General Dan Caine, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, described the tense mission and praised the years of coordination, engineering, and intelligence work behind it.

One B-2 pilot reportedly told Caine after the mission: "This was the brightest explosion I’ve ever seen—it looked like daylight."

The GBU-57s were precisely dropped to strike Fordo's unique triple-vent system, described by US planners as a "pitchfork" layout. Despite Iran laying concrete slabs over the shafts days before the strike, all six weapons hit their targets. The detonation was engineered not to create surface craters but to send devastating overpressure and shockwaves deep through the underground facility, destroying vital enrichment equipment.

Caine highlighted how two unnamed Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) officers had studied Fordo's geology, airflow, and construction since 2009. The bomb itself, the Massive Ordnance Penetrator (MOP), was developed through hundreds of tests specifically for this target.

The operation saw active-duty Air Force and Missouri Air National Guard crews flying a 37-hour round mission. On their return to Whiteman Air Force Base, they were met by families waving flags, unaware until then of the mission their loved ones had undertaken.

"They literally dreamed about this target," said Caine. "They knew this wasn’t peaceful."

The US has since claimed the strike caused "total obliteration" at Fordo. Iran, however, has disputed the severity, with Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei calling US statements "exaggerated." Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi acknowledged "serious" damage but downplayed its impact on the nuclear programme.

However, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) confirmed extensive damage at Fordo, Natanz, and Isfahan sites, corroborating US claims to a significant degree.

Operation Midnight Hammer marks one of the most technically complex pre-emptive military strikes in recent history, aimed at disrupting Iran's nuclear ambitions while avoiding escalation to full-scale war.