News broke of B-2 bombers that could be used to bomb Iran’s nuclear facilities being sent toward Guam hours before the Saturday night attack that plunged the United States into conflict with Iran.
As reported by The New York Times, multiple B-2s were heading over the Pacific. The Times and Air and Space Forces did not offer specific details, but reported that more than one B-2 took off from Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri.
The Times of Israel reported that between two and four B-2s were being dispatched, speculating that Diego Garcia, an island in the Indian Ocean 2,175 miles away from Iran, would be the destination.
The B-2 stealth bomber was the only bomber in the Air Force able to carry the only bomb capable of taking out Iran’s Fordow nuclear enrichment facility, which was built into a mountain as a strategy to protect it from whatever the Israeli Air Force might throw at it, as noted by the Associated Press.
President Donald Trump announced on Saturday evening that the United States had destroyed Fordow.
The site was estimated to be about 260 feet below the surface.
Trump said earlier this week there would be a two-week window for making a decision on U.S. involvement, saying the call would be made within that time frame.
The B-2 was required because only the GU-57A/B Massive Ordnance Penetrator bomb had a chance of destroying the buried lab, according to The Hill.
The 20-foot-long bomb is a GPS-guided, penetrating device created to destroy deeply buried and hardened tunnels or bunkers.
The Air Force says it has tested putting two MOPs on a B-2, which would give the plane a 60,00-pound payload, well above its 40,000 pound rating.
“The MOP is the most powerful and deeply burrowing non-nuclear bunker buster on earth and is critical to taking out highly fortified targets buried under literal mountains, like those found in Iran, Russia, China, and North Korea,” the War Zone wrote.
“The weapon is guided and can impact the surface above its target with a high degree of accuracy,” the site wrote.
🚨🇺🇸#BREAKING | NEWS ⚠️
Update 6 B-2 Stealth are heading west into the Pacific and were met and aerial refueled from KC-135R tankers out of Hawaii. Then the tankers flipped off their transponders.The B2’s and likely headed to Guam 🇬🇺 to assist 🇮🇱Israel with a strike on 🇮🇷Iran’s… pic.twitter.com/dga9yVmgJC
— Todd Paron🇺🇸🇬🇷🎧👽 (@tparon) June 21, 2025
The War Zone noted that only 20 percent of the bomb’s weight is from the explosives it carries.
“The vast majority of its heft comes from its super-hardened, dense structure that is capable of borrowing so deep into fortified structures that no other bunker busters can touch,” the War Zone wrote.
As noted by The Times of Israel, the bomb is believed to be able to penetrate more than 200 feet.
The MOP had never been used before, but a precursor was. In 2017, during the first Trump administration, the GBU-43/B, known at the time as the “Mother of All Bombs,” was dropped on Afghanistan, as noted by the BBC.
That bomb weighed 21,000 pounds, about 9,000 pounds less that the MOP.
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