Live Updates: U.S. Casts Strikes on Iran Nuclear Sites as Limited Attack

Any attempt to close the strait, which connects the Persian Gulf to the Gulf of Oman, would most likely send oil prices soaring. It would also inflict severe economic damage in Iran because nearly all of the country’s oil exports move through the channel.

The market’s early reaction to the U.S. bombing of three Iranian nuclear sites over the weekend will become clear on Sunday evening, when crude oil futures begin trading at 6 p.m. Eastern time.

U.S. oil prices have climbed around 15 percent in the past two weeks, settling on Friday at $74.93. That is a moderate price by recent standards.

But if Iran were to try to stop oil from flowing through the region, even temporarily, prices would most likely rise far higher, analysts have said. Another risk is if Iran were to attack U.S. military bases in the Middle East.

“If Iran follows through on threats to retaliate against U.S. forces in the region, traders might finally — after more than three years of geopolitical ‘wolf’ cries — price in escalatory pathways that previously seemed far-fetched,” ClearView Energy Partners, a Washington research firm, wrote after the United States bombed Iran.

The war is already increasing energy costs for consumers in the United States. The price of a gallon of regular gasoline climbed nearly 3 percent last week, to $3.22, according to the AAA motor club. This time last year, the price was $3.45 a gallon. Prices at the pump generally lag oil prices.

Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, said on Sunday that Iran would respond in “self-defense” but declined to explain what that might entail.

It would be difficult for Iran to close the Strait of Hormuz for a long time, but the country could make passing through it more treacherous, analysts have said. “Multiple security experts contend that Iran has the ability to strike individual tankers and key ports with missiles and mines,” RBC Capital Markets analysts wrote on Sunday.

Last week, two oil tankers collided near the strait as many vessels reported experiencing interference with their GPS systems. The United Arab Emirates attributed the crash to navigational errors.

Around a fifth of the world’s oil and related products flows through the Strait of Hormuz each day, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. A similar share of L.N.G., or natural gas that has been cooled for shipment, also makes the journey.

More than 80 percent of those fuels go to Asia, meaning those countries would be severely affected by any closing, the energy administration said.

The United States and other countries would feel the effects in the form of higher energy costs.

Vice President JD Vance said on Sunday morning that disrupting shipping in the Strait of Hormuz would be “suicidal” for Iran.

“What would make sense is for them to come to the negotiating table to actually give up their nuclear weapons program over the long term,” he said on the NBC program “Meet the Press.”

“Hitting a ventilation shaft would make sense, because the hole for air already penetrates the thick rock, interrupting its integrity,” said Mark Fitzpatrick, a nuclear expert at the International Institute for Strategic Studies.

A U.S. official said that six B-2 bombers had dropped a dozen 30,000-pound “bunker buster” bombs on Fordo overnight.

Ventilation shafts “are probably the most vulnerable points of the facility,” said Scott Roecker, a vice president at the Nuclear Threat Initiative, a nonprofit dedicated to reducing the spread of nuclear weapons.

Whether or not the attack on those areas was enough to completely destroy Fordo is unclear. While President Trump said on Saturday that Iran’s nuclear enrichment facilities were “completely and totally obliterated,” his early public pronouncements were in contrast with more cautious initial assessments by the U.S. and Israeli militaries, which indicated the facility was severely damaged. Those damage assessments are ongoing, and the United States and Israel have not made any final conclusions.

Given that the U.S. attack appears to have targeted the area around the two structures, “I would assume the U.S. has active intelligence that seems to indicate that those shafts were structural weaknesses,” said Joseph Rodgers, a nuclear expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a research institute in Washington.

Satellite imagery taken by Maxar Technologies on Sunday showed debris scattered around the large complex, but the site’s support buildings appeared intact. That indicates, Mr. Rodgers said, that “the key target was really how to destroy the structure underground,” and that the attack was most likely not trying to take the facility offline by targeting other support infrastructure.

In satellite images after the strike, the facility’s entrance tunnels appeared filled in with dirt. Experts said that was probably a measure taken as part of Iran’s preparation for an attack, possibly in an attempt to shield the facility inside.

Satellite imagery released by Maxar Technologies showed a flurry of abnormal activity near the entrance tunnel in the three days preceding the U.S. strikes.

On June 19, there were 16 cargo trucks near an entrance tunnel. The following day, the trucks had moved northwest away from the site, but other trucks and bulldozers were near the entrance.

New dirt could be seen in the tunnel entrances on June 20, and far more is visible in satellite images taken after the strikes.

In announcing the trip to Moscow, the Iranian foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, called Russia “a friend of Iran” and said that the two countries “enjoy a strategic partnership and we always consult with each other and coordinate our positions.”

By Sunday evening, the Kremlin had not confirmed the meeting.

The Russian Foreign Ministry condemned the American military intervention in Iran, saying it had undermined global efforts to contain the proliferation of nuclear weapons. But the Kremlin has not publicly commented on the attacks, and it has not announced any tangible steps to help Iran.

The guarded reaction reflects Mr. Putin’s limited resources, with Russia in its fourth year of war in Ukraine, and his conflicting geopolitical priorities.

Russia is trying to maintain warm relations with Iran’s Middle Eastern rivals, including Saudi Arabia. The Kremlin is also likely to tread carefully on issues that may alienate President Trump, whose support — or, at least, acquiescence — it needs to secure a peace deal in Ukraine on its own terms.

In addition, Russia has benefited from a rise in oil prices caused by the growing unrest in the Middle East. Oil exports provide the main source of funding for Russia’s war machine.

These factors have led Russia to stand on the sidelines while Israel has destroyed Iranian air defenses, struck nuclear facilities and killed members of Iran’s military leadership.

The hands-off approach has contrasted with the military support that Russia received from Iran while it was struggling during the first year of the war in Ukraine. Drones and drone technology provided by Iran helped the Russian military regain its footing after the initial battlefield disasters.

Qatar’s Foreign Ministry — in a grammatically acrobatic statement that did not name the United States at all — said that it regretted “the deterioration of the situation with the strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities,” expressing hope that all parties would “exercise wisdom” and restraint. That stood in contrast with the directness of Qatar’s statement the day before, in which the country’s prime minister had condemned Israel by name, saying the Israeli attacks against Iran constituted “a flagrant violation of Iran’s sovereignty and security.”

Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates also avoided mentioning the United States, while expressing “deep concern” at the bombing of Iranian nuclear facilities in Kuwait’s case and “profound concern” in the case of the Emirates.

Fossil-fuel-rich Gulf countries host tens of thousands of U.S. military personnel. The American bases on their lands — along with oil and gas-producing infrastructure that is vital to the global economy — could be prime targets for Iranian retaliation against the United States.

In a statement on Sunday, the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps of Iran appeared to threaten the American bases, saying that they were a vulnerability and “not points of strength.”

Bahrain, an island nation in the Persian Gulf with a U.S. naval base, asked a majority of its civil servants to work from home and warned residents to use main roads “only when necessary.”

Saudi Arabia and the Emirates have sought to chart more independent foreign-policy courses — and to diversify their sources of weaponry — over the past few years. But they remain highly dependent on the United States to defend them when their territories come under attack, as they have by Iran-backed militias in the past.

In an attempt to ward off that danger, both countries have shifted toward a policy of cultivating ties with Iran, seeing diplomacy as a more pragmatic way to contain their neighbor. Those warmer relations mean that Iran may be less likely to target their countries than it was in the past. But fears remain.

Behind the calls for de-escalation are worries of what wider violence could do to the national and regional projects of the Gulf’s authoritarian rulers, who have tried to diversify their economies away from fossil fuels by turning their countries into global hubs for finance, tourism and trade.

“The longer a war takes, the more dangerous it becomes,” Anwar Gargash, diplomatic adviser to the Emirati president, told journalists in a briefing on Friday shortly before the American attack. “There are many issues in the region. If we choose to tackle everything with a hammer, nothing will be left unbroken.”

The Foreign Ministry of Oman, which had been serving as a mediator in nuclear negotiations between the United States and Iran before those talks collapsed in the wake of Israel’s surprise attack on Iran on June 13, issued the strongest-worded statement among the Gulf countries. The ministry expressed “deep concern and condemnation regarding the escalation resulting from the direct airstrikes conducted by the United States,” adding that the American attack was a “serious violation of international law.”

But even Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi militia — whose slogan includes the phrase “death to America” — stopped short of threatening American bases in the region. Before the U.S. attack, the Houthis had warned that they would break the truce reached in May with the United States and target American ships in the Red Sea if President Trump decided his country should enter the conflict.

After the U.S. attack, the Houthis said only that they were “prepared” to target American ships, without elaborating.

Mohammed al-Bukhaiti, a Houthi official, said on social media on Sunday that the Houthis would “stand by any Arab or Islamic state that faces Israeli or American aggression,” but then added that they would not be “more kingly than the king” — an Arabic expression akin to “holier than the pope.” He did not respond to a request for comment asking for clarification.

Ismaeel Naar contributed reporting from Dubai, United Arab Emirates, and Shuaib Almosawa contributed reporting from Sana, Yemen.

At the same time, he was trying to convey a somewhat contradictory message to the American people and President Trump’s base, who remain deeply skeptical of an open-ended war in the Middle East.

“The scope of this was intentionally limited,” Mr. Hegseth insisted Sunday, in his first news conference in five months as defense secretary.

The U.S. attack on Iran’s three main nuclear sites employed 125 aircraft and 75 precision-guided bombs. The main focus was seven B-2 stealth bombers that carried 30,000-pound GBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrators designed to destroy Iran’s deeply buried nuclear site at Fordo.

In his remarks, Mr. Hegseth drew special attention to the American military’s vast reach. The B-2 bombers had flown 18 hours from Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri.

“I think Tehran is certainly calculating the reality that planes flew from the middle of America and Missouri overnight, completely undetected,” Mr. Hegseth said.

He and Gen. Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, emphasized the mission’s secrecy and stealth. Earlier this year, Mr. Hegseth was criticized for sharing detailed information about forthcoming strikes in Yemen in two private Signal group chats.

“This was a highly classified mission with very few people in Washington knowing the timing or nature of this plan,” General Caine said.

They had gone “in and out and back without the world knowing at all,” Mr. Hegseth said of the Air Force’s pilots and planes.

Mr. Hegseth also praised Mr. Trump’s boldness in authorizing the strike. “Many presidents have dreamed of delivering the final blow to Iran’s nuclear program, and none could, until President Trump,” Mr. Hegseth boasted.

The challenge for Mr. Hegseth and Mr. Trump is that little about the U.S. attack on Iran’s nuclear sites seems final. Iran could respond by attacking U.S. troops and American allies in the region in an effort to draw Mr. Trump into an extended conflict.

And Iran’s leaders seem likely to try to rebuild their nuclear program. General Caine said that the initial battle damage assessment indicated that all three sites had sustained “severe damage and destruction,” but that a final assessment would take time.

Those facts put Mr. Hegseth in the awkward position of acknowledging the limits of American military power and the American people’s appetite for another conflict in the Middle East.

Mr. Hegseth served in both Iraq and Afghanistan — two wars that dragged on for years longer than military planners had anticipated, costing more than $1 trillion and taking the lives of more than 6,200 service members.

“Are you prepared for a protracted war?” one reporter asked him.

“Well, anything can happen in conflict, we acknowledge that,” Mr. Hegseth said. “But the scope of this was intentionally limited. That’s the message that we’re sending. With the capabilities of the American military nearly unlimited.”

“We’re all in shock — none of us expected that, within six or seven days, we’d reach this point,” said Peyman, a 44-year-old business executive who asked that his last name not be used because of concern over reprisals from the authorities.

After Israel launched its military assault last week, a missile hit nearby on his commute to work, and he decided to escape Tehran. Now his immediate family, parents, in-laws and brother’s family are all sheltering in one house in northern Iran. His primary concern is for his 9-year-old daughter.

“I grew up in war, so the sound of bombardment doesn’t scare me, but I left because of my daughter,” he said. “I fear soon we’re going to have a shortage of water and food.”

Iranians awoke to the news of the American attack on Sunday feeling a combination of sorrow and anger.

“I really hope there’s a cease-fire, because this is not OK,” said Dr. Parsa Mehdipour, 29, a general practitioner in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, who flew home to Tehran for a visit in late May and has been trapped there since the war began and flights into and out of Iran were suspended.

Dr. Mehdipour said he had no idea how he would get back to Dubai. His options include traveling by road and then taking a ship across the Persian Gulf or crossing into a neighboring country where he can catch a flight.

“These tensions will cause a lot of problems for civilians,” he said. “This is honestly a breach of international law,” he said, adding that attacking nuclear facilities “could have catastrophic consequences for the people.”

One 44-year-old mother of two, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to protect her family from reprisals, described how she and her children left everything behind after Israel began its military campaign and the Iranian authorities ordered her neighborhood in Tehran to evacuate. They packed a few small bags, locked the door and left, traveling on a pothole-filled road to the border and crossing into Armenia, where they have been staying in hotels.

By day, her sons live a normal life. But as night falls their crying and nightmares begin, and they awake at the slightest sound, she said. When she mentioned that they were on a vacation, her 7-year-old son corrected her, saying he knew they had escaped from a war.

The woman said that leaving Iran was the worst feeling, but that she had lived through the Iran-Iraq war and did not want her children to experience the same trauma. She does not care about the nuclear sites, she said, but feels sad for regular Iranians who are stuck between two fronts: their own government and the countries attacking them.

Since the Israeli attacks, which appeared to have involved intelligence breaches deep inside Iran’s government, Iranian news media have reported that officials have cracked down on people they accuse of being “collaborators” of Israel.

The Iranian authorities arrested 53 people who they said were linked to Israel and charged them with disturbing public opinion, possessing and operating drones, filming sensitive locations and sending that footage to “hostile media outlets,” Fars, an Iranian news agency affiliated with the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, reported on Sunday.

The Iranian authorities also arrested a European citizen accused of espionage in the western province of Kermanshah, the Tasnim news agency, which is closely affiliated with the government, reported on Sunday. The report did not say what country the person was from.

The New York Times was not able to independently verify the Iranian news media reports.

Peyman, the executive, said that he was no fan of President Trump or Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel — “not at all” — but that he nonetheless found himself blaming his own government for the war and its heavy toll.

“The feeling I have is a feeling of 40 years of hatred toward this foolish government,” he said, lamenting the money that had been spent to develop Fordo, a uranium enrichment site that the United States targeted. “All these years of slogans and chest beating, saying we have a strong defense system and that no enemy could ever attack our soil.

“That’s not even counting how much the value of our currency has dropped, how much of our human capital has fled the country, how much chaos has been created,” he added. “The psychological, financial and cultural toll on the country is immense.”

Saeed, who asked that his last name not be used because of concern over reprisals from the authorities, said in text messages from Tehran he had feared the United States entering the war, believing it would prolong the conflict and expand its scope.

“Even the staunchest opponents of the Islamic Republic have been humiliated so much that they wish we would attack American bases, even though they know harder days will follow,” he said.

He added: “And in the middle of all this, it’s us, the people, who suffer.”

Sanam Mahoozi contributed reporting.

Others worried that the American intervention was likely to lead to a stronger Iranian retaliation and a broader, prolonged war.

The differences of opinion played out among supporters and detractors of President Trump and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, his close ally; among citizens sharing space in bomb shelters; within families; and among bewildered individuals who did not dare to presume the ultimate outcome.

Around 7:30 a.m., a few hours after the American strikes, Iran launched two barrages of ballistic missiles, sending millions of Israelis into bomb shelters while the Israeli Air Force continued to strike targets across Iran.

Still, many Israelis, including Yair Lapid, the leader of the political opposition, agreed that the events overnight were “historic,” regardless of the results, and thanked Mr. Trump. “Israel, the Middle East and the world are now safer,” he wrote on social media.

“I’m happy to the high heavens,” said Eldad Ella, 48, a pest exterminator who was eating breakfast with a friend at a sidewalk cafe in Jerusalem’s nearly deserted city center during a break in the missile fire. “Bibi and Trump are our saviors,” he added, referring to Mr. Netanyahu by his nickname.

His friend Tomer Shoshani, 49, a businessman, said, “On the way here, I said finally, the wars will end, we’ll be a normal country and tourists will come.”

Israel’s air defenses intercepted most of the Iranian missiles fired at it on Sunday morning, but at least two direct hits caused widespread damage in a Tel Aviv neighborhood and in a city about 15 miles south. There was also damage in the port city of Haifa to the north.

More than 20 people were wounded, mostly lightly. But the Israeli authorities had closed schools and all nonessential businesses and services, and much of the population had taken cover in shelters or fortified safe rooms in their homes.

Shelly Lixenberg, 61, moved out of her apartment in north Tel Aviv a week ago because mobility problems had made it difficult for her to reach the bomb shelter in the basement of her building. She is staying with her daughter and son-in-law, who have a more accessible safe room in their apartment, in the south of the city.

At least four direct hits have since wrought destruction within a mile or so of her old neighborhood, including one on Sunday morning, and several other strikes have fallen near where she is staying now.

Ms. Lixenberg said she was glad that the United States attacked Iran. “We could see Israel wasn’t going to be able to complete this mission entirely on its own,” she said by phone. “And once it’s started, it needs to be completed.”

Yet she was skeptical that Iran’s nuclear program had been wiped out and was concerned that the conflict would escalate. “I can’t believe that it’s done and dusted so quickly,” she added.

In Jerusalem, some residents hung Israeli flags from their balconies and windows in a show of patriotism usually reserved for Independence Day each spring. But people’s lives were upended even though the city had been spared the worst of the missile threat.

Daniel Karni, 21, a music student who rushed to a bomb shelter in Jerusalem early on Sunday, said he hoped U.S. intervention would bring an end to the war with Iran closer.

“I think our government didn’t have clear goals about how and when the war would end,” he said. “But the United States is helping us.”

Ghassan Bazazu, 24, a Palestinian resident of the Old City, in Israeli-annexed East Jerusalem, said his formerly full-time job in a luxury west Jerusalem hotel had just been reduced to 16 hours a week because of a dearth of visitors to the country. Tourism from abroad has been down since the Hamas-led attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, which ignited the war in Gaza. Since Israel launched its assault on Iran on June 13, Israeli airspace has been largely closed.

“Nothing will stop the war now,” Mr. Bazazu said on Sunday, glumly predicting that it could go on for three more years.

Aaron Boxerman contributed reporting.

A senior U.S. official similarly acknowledged that the American strike on the Fordo site did not destroy the heavily fortified facility but said the strike had severely damaged it, taking it “off the table.” The person noted that even 12 bunker-busting bombs could not destroy the site.

The damage assessments by Israel and the United States are ongoing, and they have not made any final conclusions. The officials spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence matters.

In its overnight strikes, the United States took aim at three nuclear sites, including dropping 30,000 pound, bunker-busting bombs on Fordo, Iran’s most critical site.

In a briefing Sunday morning, top Pentagon officials echoed President Trump’s claims of success, while also saying the final assessment would take time. Gen. Dan Caine, the new chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that the initial assessment indicated that all three sites sustained “severe damage and destruction,” but added that it was too soon to say whether Iran retained some nuclear capability.

The Iranian foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, said at a news conference that the country was “calculating the damages” from the strike.

The initial assessment by the Israelis was based on Israeli satellite imagery and additional aerial photography conducted over the site, as well as Israeli intelligence monitoring of Fordo, according to the Israeli officials.

New satellite imagery taken shortly after the U.S. strikes on the Fordo nuclear site indicated damage and likely entry holes from the American bombs. The imagery, captured by Planet Labs, shows changes in the ground’s appearance and dust near the likely strike locations.

The Israelis, in their assessment, are also looking at satellite imagery from a few days before the U.S. strikes. They believe the images show the Iranians moving uranium and equipment from the Fordo facility.

Satellite images released by Maxar Technologies from around the time show 16 cargo trucks positioned near an entrance. An analysis by the Open Source Centre in London suggested that Iran may have been preparing the site for a strike. It is unclear exactly what, if anything, was removed from the facility.

Mick Mulroy, a former Pentagon official in the first Trump administration and a former C.I.A. officer, said of the strike: “With the type and amount of munitions used, it will likely set back the Iranian nuclear weapon program two to five years.”

“A full battle damage assessment will be conducted in the coming days to determine that more accurately,” he added.

Josh Holder and Julian Barnes contributed reporting.

The final battle damage assessment for the military operation against Iran, General Caine said, was still to come. He said the initial assessment showed that all three of the Iranian nuclear sites that were struck “sustained severe damage and destruction.”

Mr. Hegseth and General Caine, appearing before reporters in the Pentagon’s briefing room for the first time since they took office, described an intricate operation that began at Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri, home to the B-2 stealth bombers used in the strikes, and hit three nuclear sites in a span of less than a half-hour — 6:40 p.m. to 7:05 p.m. Eastern time on Saturday.

The bombers took off in secrecy on Friday night from Missouri for the more than 7,000-mile trip, which involved multiple refuelings. They crossed the Atlantic Ocean and Mediterranean Sea to reach the skies above Iran, where they struck the heavily fortified nuclear site at Fordo, as well as facilities at Natanz.

The operation used 14 GBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrator bombs — often referred to as “bunker busters” — with the first two dropping at 2 a.m. Sunday local time, General Caine said. A U.S. Navy submarine also launched more than two dozen Tomahawk land attack cruise missiles, he said. Those were directed at a third site, Isfahan.

General Caine said that Iran had not deployed fighter jets or surface-to-air missiles to hit back at the American warplanes. “Throughout the mission, we maintained the element of surprise,” he said, adding that “we are currently unaware of any shots fired at the U.S. strike package on the way in.”

The strikes were the first operational use of the GBU-57, Mr. Hegseth said. It is a 30,000-pound guided bomb that contains the explosive power of approximately 5,500 pounds of TNT and is designed to attack deeply buried targets. It can be carried only by B-2 stealth bombers.

General Caine said the operation “was designed to severely degrade Iran’s nuclear weapons infrastructure.”

The main portion of the attack was carried out by seven B-2 bombers that launched from the United States from midnight Friday into Saturday morning, the general said, while additional B-2s headed over the Pacific Ocean as “a decoy.”

The flight to the target area over Iran took 18 hours, the chairman said, and required “multiple in-flight refuelings” from tanker aircraft before linking up with fighter escorts and entering Iranian airspace.

At approximately 5 p.m. Eastern time, just before the American warplanes flew over Iran, a U.S. Navy submarine in the region launched the Tomahawk missiles, General Caine said.

Fourth- and fifth-generation warplanes flew ahead of the B-2s, according to the general, indicating that either F-35 or F-22 fighters — or a combination of the two, along with older warplanes — attacked additional sites on the ground, including Iranian air defenses, in preparation for the stealth bombers’ approach.

The lead B-2 dropped two of the bombs on “the first of several aim points at Fordo,” and a total of 14 Massive Ordnance Penetrators were used to attack “two nuclear target areas” in Iran, according to the Pentagon.

In total, “approximately 75 precision-guided munitions” were used during the operation, inclusive of the penetrator bombs and cruise missiles, General Caine said.

The operation’s name was “Midnight Hammer.” General Caine called it a “highly classified mission with very few people in Washington knowing the details of the plan.”