Deadly bombers, which only the US has in their arsenal, are on the move to a US Air Force base in Guam amid growing tensions with Iran, according to multiple reports.
Six B-2 stealth bombers, docked in Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri, appeared to be on the move on Saturday morning, according to Fox News.
The bombers are said to have refueled after launching from Missouri, which means they could have launched without full tanks due to the extraordinarily heavy bunker-buster bombs.
The B-2 is capable of carrying the 30,000-pound bomb, which experts have concluded could be the only way to destroy Iran’s most heavily fortified nuclear site: Fordo.
The bomb, known as the GBU-57 or the Massive Ordinance Penetrator, is something only the US military possesses.
The Fordo fuel enrichment plant is buried deep within a mountain system in Iran, but experts don’t know exactly how deep, which complicated a potential US mission to neutralize it.
Experts who spoke to The New York Times believe the facility at its shallowest is 250 feet deep, but could be as much as 30 feet deeper.
Nonetheless, GBU-57 is the only way to assuredly wipe out the facility, short of using a nuclear device.
Six B-2 stealth bombers, docked in Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri, are on the move to a US military base in Guam, according to reports
These aircraft are capable of carrying a payload as heavy as the 30,000-pound bunker buster bomb (pictured) that the US military could use to destroy a fortified nuclear facility in Iran called Fordo
The bombers are thought to be destined for a US air force base in Guam, which is in the middle of the Pacific Ocean
Jonathan Ruhe, the director of foreign policy for the Jewish Institute for National Security of America, said this type of bomb is designed to use the force of gravity to ‘penetrate through any mixture of earth, rock, and concrete before the bomb itself then explodes’ underground.
Ruhe told Fox News that the explosion could take out the facility fully or ‘collapse the structure’ around the target ‘without necessarily obliterating it.’
America’s possible escalating involvement in the Middle Eastern conflict comes as Israel and Iran have been launching tit-for-tat airstrikes against one another for the last week.
The war between the two countries began when Israel launched what it called Operation Rising Lion on Friday, June 13.
Israel targeted nuclear sites and military sites within Iran, while also killing many of Iran’s top military commanders.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the operation against Iran would last ‘as many days as it takes.’
‘We struck at the heart of Iran’s nuclear enrichment program. We struck at the heart of Iran’s nuclear weaponization program. We targeted Iran’s main enrichment facility in Natanz. We targeted Iran’s leading nuclear scientists working on the Iranian bomb. We also struck at the heart of Iran’s ballistic missile program,’ he said in a seven-minute video released shortly after what Israel called pre-emptive strikes.
So far, Israel’s strikes have killed 657 people in Iran, while Iran has killed 24 people in Israel.
Israel’s objective, to stop Iran from compiling enough fissile material to make a nuke, cannot be completed until the Fordo facility is destroyed.
That’s why Israel has been asking the Trump administration to get involved in the conflict, since the US is the only nation with the capability to strike at Fordo.
For days, Trump has been coy about whether the US will in fact enter the war and fly a mission to Fordo.
