Inside stealth bombers’ 37-hour mission to obliterate Iran’s underground nuclear fortress

Decision to attack may prove to be biggest gamble of Trump presidency

Satellite images over Fordow, before and after the US struck the nuclear facility. Photo: Reuters

Adrian Blomfield
©Telegraph Media Group Holdings Ltd

The order was given just before 7pm in Washington to drop the heaviest conventional bombs ever used in combat.

A fleet of B-2 bombers had been airborne for nearly 37 hours, having taken off from the Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri on Friday and refuelled ­several times mid-air.