20 Hours Of Operation Midnight Hammer: A Timeline Of Key Events

In a mission spanning 18 hours of flying time followed by precision strikes within Iranian territory, the US claims to have "obliterated" the country's nuclear programme, marking Washington's entry into the quickly escalating Iran-Israel conflict.

Here is a key timeline of events (in IST):

June 21, 9.53 am: Aircraft Spots on X reported movement of B-2 stealth bombers from the Whiteman Air Force Base in USA.

June 21, 11.11 am: Aircraft Spots reported movement of B-2 bomber aircraft towards Andersen Air Base in Guam.

June 21, 5.22 pm: Six B-2 aircraft appear to be headed towards Guam, Fox News reported.

June 21, 10.05 pm: The Pentagon said no strike order has been issued despite deployment, Wall Street Journal reported.

June 22, 4.30 am: Iran's Fordow nuclear facility hit by US's B-2 bombers, Iranian state media reported.

June 22, 5.20 am: US President Donald Trump announced the bombing of Fordow and two other nuclear facilities in Iran.

June 22, 5.34 am: Trump cites Open-Source Intelligence to say that Fordow has been destroyed.

Trump's First Address After Strikes On Iran

In a message to the nation, Trump said at 7.25 am (IST) that "massive precision strikes" were carried out on three key nuclear facilities in the Iranian regime - Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan.

"Iran's key nuclear enrichment facilities have been completely and totally obliterated. Iran, the bully of the Middle East, must now make peace. If they do not, future attacks will be far greater and a lot easier," he said.

Trump warned, "If peace does not come quickly, we will go after those other targets with precision, speed and skill. Most of them can be taken out in a matter of minutes."

125 Aircraft, 20 Minutes In-And-Out Mission: Details Of Operations

US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth confirmed that American military strikes against three Iranian nuclear facilities have "devastated the Iranian nuclear programme." He said the operation was a result of months of meticulous preparation involving "deception" and high-level operational secrecy.

General Dan Caine, the top-ranking US military official overseeing the operation, said that the air strikes were "designed with precision and executed without warning". "Initial battle damage assessments indicate all three sites sustained severe structural degradation and destruction. The full extent of Iran's remaining nuclear capabilities is still being assessed," he said.

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Air Force General Dan Caine said Operation Midnight Hammer against three nuclear facilities. "At midnight on Friday and into Saturday morning, seven B2 bombers flew 18 hours with multiple in-flight refuellings on the way. At 5 pm (EST) a US submarine launched around 24 Tomahawk cruise missiles against key surface targets against Ishfahan. At approximately 6.40 pm EST, the lead B2 dropped massive ordnance penetrators (MOPs) at Fordow. 14 MOPs were dropped against two nuclear target areas. Between 6.40 pm and 7.05 pm EST, our aircraft entered and exited Iranian airspace," he said.

The coordinated assault involved over 125 military aircraft, including B-2 stealth bombers, the deployment of 14 GBU-57 bunker-buster bombs, and more than 30 Tomahawk missiles launched from US submarines in the Persian Gulf and Arabian Sea.