The US Air Force used its B-1B Lancer bombers to conduct long-range strikes deep inside Iranian territory, targeting ballistic missile facilities as part of Operation Epic Fury, CENTCOM said.
The Lancer strikes aimed to decimate Iran’s ballistic missile capabilities, focusing on launch sites, missile stockpiles, command-and-control centres, and related infrastructure.
“Last night, U.S. B-1 bombers struck deep inside Iran to degrade Iranian ballistic missile capabilities. As the President stated, “we’re going to destroy their missiles and raze their missile industry to the ground,” CENTCOM said.
Earlier, as EurAsian Times reported, citing CENTCOM, the U.S. launched precision strikes on Tehran’s ballistic missile facilities using B-2 Spirit stealth bombers.
The B-2 bombers departed from Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri and reportedly fired multiple guided bombs targeting Iran’s fortified facilities. CENTCOM described the strikes as successful against “hardened” infrastructure.
The B-1 strikes represent the second consecutive attack targeting Iran’s vast missile arsenal, which has wreaked havoc across the Middle East.
The bombers likely flew non-stop round-trip missions across the Atlantic and Mediterranean, supported by multiple aerial refuelings from KC-135 and KC-46 tankers.
The B-1B Lancer, a supersonic variable-sweep wing bomber, excels in conventional precision strikes with a massive payload capacity up to 75,000 pounds of munitions. It carries joint direct attack munitions (JDAMs), small-diameter bombs, and standoff weapons.
“The B-1 is an incredible aircraft. It brings unmatched versatility and firepower to the fight,” Lt. Col. Ryan Stillwell had said earlier. “Here at the 9th, we’ve demonstrated the B-1’s ability to rapidly deliver munitions across the globe, consistently showing up for our allies and partners.”
“The B-1’s ability to deploy quickly, operate at supersonic speeds, and carry the largest conventional payload makes it inherently unpredictable to adversaries and a flexible combat asset.” “Whether it’s integrating with our allies or responding to our adversaries, the B-1 enables a forward presence alongside critical strategic reach. Our adversaries never know when or where a B-1 will show up, but they all know exactly what it can do when it does.”
The Pentagon released footage showing B-1 operations alongside carrier-based launches from the USS Abraham Lincoln, highlighting integrated military operations.
US President Donald Trump emphasized in updates: “We’re going to destroy their missiles and raze their missile industry to the ground. It will be totally obliterated.” He reiterated this as the first priority of the campaign, stating it is progressing “on an hourly basis” and “way ahead of schedule.”
While full battle damage details remain classified, CENTCOM reports significant degradation of Iran’s ballistic missile infrastructure.
Iran Missile Threat
The US military has shot down hundreds of Iranian ballistic missiles in recent days, raising concerns about how long American interceptor missile stocks will last in a war that appears to be gaining momentum.
Since the start of the war, the US has “intercepted hundreds of ballistic missiles targeting US forces, our partners and regional stability,” General Dan Caine, the top US military officer, said Monday.
Those intercepts are a success—they prevented the missiles from striking their targets—but they also come at the cost of pricey, high-tech interceptors in short supply.
“There is a risk the United States and its partners could run out of interceptors before Iran runs out of missiles, though it is far from certain,” said Kelly Grieco, a senior fellow at the Stimson Center think-tank.
At the beginning of the conflict, Israel estimated Iran had some 2,500 ballistic missiles — “almost certainly more than the combined ballistic missile interceptor totals of Israel and the United States,” Grieco said.
However, the US and Israel are hunting for launchers and storage sites, so “the race is, in short, between Iranian launchers and American and Israeli strikes on the sources of those launches,” she said.
Caine said Iranian drones also pose a threat, but did not provide a figure for the number that had been shot down, only saying that “our systems have proven effective in countering these platforms, engaging targets rapidly.”
Grieco said that while interceptors are being expended on drones, it is not to the same degree as for missiles, and “the most acute shortage is with the ballistic interceptors.”
The length of the conflict is a factor affecting how many interceptors will be needed, and it is currently unclear how long it will last.
US officials, including Donald Trump, have referred to a multi-week war, though the president said Monday that “we’re already substantially ahead of our time projections.”
“From the beginning, we projected four to five weeks, but we have the capability to go far longer than that,” Trump said. Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth had earlier given various possible timelines for the conflict: “Four weeks, two weeks, six weeks, it could move up. It could move back.”
Joe Costa, director of the Atlantic Council’s defense program, said that “sustained conflict with Iran could severely strain US stocks of critical air defense interceptors for China and other global priorities.”
“It depends on how effective the US and Israel will be in neutralizing Iran’s launch capability of missiles and drones,” he said.
Grieco said that when it comes to interceptors, “production simply cannot keep pace with demand.”
“Every theater, from Europe and the Indo-Pacific to the Middle East, has an acute need (of) more missile defense launchers and interceptors, and the United States is simply consuming them faster than it can replace them.”
By ET Online Desk and Agence France-Presse
