Portes of Iranian military generals and nuclear scientists, killed during the attack on Israel of June 13 are displayed above a road, while a plume of heavy smoke and fire rises on an oil refinery in the south of Tehran, after being touched in an Israeli strike overnight, June 15, 2025.
Atta Kenare | AFP | Getty images
President Donald Trump said on Saturday that the United States had attacked Iran, hitting three nuclear sites in Fordo, Natanz and Esfahan.
“We have finished our very successful attack on the three nuclear sites in Iran, notably Fordow, Natanz and Esfahan,” wrote Trump on social networks SATURDAY.
“All planes are now outside Iranian airspace. A complete payload of bombs has been abandoned on the main site, Fordow,” wrote Trump.
“All planes are safe on the way back. Congratulations to our great American warriors. There is not another army in the world that could have done so. It is now the moment of peace!” The president wrote.
Trump said he would speak to the nation at 10 p.m. on Saturday.
Earlier in the day on Saturday, several Air Force B-2 stealth bombers left the Missouri, heading west on the Pacific Ocean. Massive planes are among the only American planes capable of transporting the massive GBU-57 Ordnce Petrator (MOP), a 30,000 pound bomb known as “Bunker Buster”.
Saturday’s action on Saturday places the United States in direct armed conflict with Iran, a massive escalation in its involvement in Israel’s efforts to paralyze the Tehran nuclear program and overthrow its regime.
The decision also undertakes the American army once again in an active war in the Middle East – something that Trump had promised to avoid during his second term.
He also marks a major change in less than 48 hours ago when Trump said that the United States would take “two weeks” to see if the conflict between Israel and Iran could be resolved diplomatically.
“Based on the fact that there is substantial chances of negotiations which may or may not take place with Iran in the near future, I will decide or not in the next two weeks,” Trump said in a statement published by the White House on Thursday.
Behind the scenes, the Trump administration has tried to conclude an agreement with Iran on its nuclear program, and Trump in recent months would have Exhorted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to hold a strike.
Infographic with an Iran card showing nuclear sites, reactors and uranium mines.
Graphic by Sylvie Husson, Nalini Lepetit-Cherla, Sabrina Blanchard | AFP | Via Getty Images
This diplomatic path can now be closed. Iranian Ayatollah Ali Khamenei recently said that “any American military entry would undoubtedly have encountered irreparable damage”.
“If they enter militarily, they will harm what they cannot recover,” he added in a press release read on Iranian state television.
After the United States, it was not clear what options remained for Iranian reprisals against the United States.
A possibility with direct impacts on the global economy and the supply chain would be if Tehran should fix the terrestrial mines in the Hormuz Strait, said Helima Croft, responsible for the global raw material strategy at RBC Capital Markets.
The narrow body of water between Iran and Oman is the transit point for around 20% of the world oil, via tankers.
Land mines would effectively close the strait, because the ships cannot know where the mines were placed.
“We already obtain reports that Iran blurs the transponders of ships very, very aggressively,” Croft to “Fast Money” from CNBC on Wednesday.
Qatarenergy and the Greek ministry of weddings have already warned their ships to avoid the strait as much as possible, said Croft.
Other alerts were expected after the American attack on Saturday against Iranian sites.
Infographic with Gulf map showing maritime maritime traffic in September 2024 through the Hormuz Strait
Getty images
Trump and previous American presidents have long insisted that Iran cannot have nuclear weapons.
Trump in his first mandate withdrew the United States from a nuclear agreement Whether the Obama administration and other nations had negotiated with Iran in 2015, arguing that it had not protected America or dissuade the objectives of Tehran’s enrichment.
Israel has long said that Iran developed nuclear weapons and has already threatened to hit its nuclear program. But so far, Tel Aviv has limited its military commitment to targeted assassinations and cyber attacks.
Tulsi Gabbard, Director of National Intelligence of Trump, said before the Congress in March that the American intelligence community “continues to assess that Iran does not build a nuclear weapon and that the supreme chief Khamenei did not authorize the nuclear weapons program he suspended in 2003.”
But Trump repeatedly rejected the assessment of his own official of the firm.
“I don’t care what she said. I think they were very close to having one,” said Trump on Air Force One last week.
This is a story in development and will be updated.
