Senior US official says US attack on Iran was meant to be unexpected

(MENAFN) According to reports from U.S. media, President Donald Trump gave the green light for a military strike on Iran only hours before American bombers and submarines targeted critical nuclear facilities. This decision came after weeks of planning and marked a significant departure from Trump’s earlier public remarks, which had suggested Tehran would be allowed up to two weeks to meet U.S. demands.

“The goal was to create a situation when everyone wasn’t expecting it,” a senior U.S. official told the media outlet.

Shortly after the approval, B-2 stealth bombers launched from Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri dropped six massive 30,000-pound bunker-buster bombs on the underground enrichment site at Fordow. At the same time, U.S. Navy submarines fired more than two dozen Tomahawk cruise missiles at nuclear facilities located in Isfahan and Natanz.

In a televised speech hours later, Trump described the strikes as “a spectacular military success,” claiming that Iran’s main nuclear sites were “completely and totally obliterated.”

However, Tehran disputed the reported scale of the damage. Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization released a statement affirming its commitment to advancing its nuclear program, describing the sector as “built on the blood of nuclear martyrs.”

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