Dramatic footage shared by Donald Trump shows the moment that US forces struck a large ammunition depot in Iran with 2,000lb bunker buster bombs, triggering a huge explosion.
A clip shared by the US president on Truth Social showed the moment the bombs struck a target in the Iranian city of Isfahan with “penetrator munitions” designed to tear into targets deep underground, a US official told the Wall Street Journal.
Thick black smoke billowed above the city in the footage shared by the US president on Tuesday.
The unnamed official said the US had burned through a large number of its bunker buster bombs in strikes on the city, which is home to one of Iran’s largest nuclear facilities and targeted during the 12 Day War last summer.
Fire-tracking satellites from Nasa suggest the explosions happened near Mount Soffeh, an area believed to have military positions.
As pressure mounts on the Trump administration to find an end to the war and restore stability to global energy markets, Trump on Monday threatened the widespread destruction of Iran’s energy resources and other vital infrastructure unless a deal is made “shortly”.
“Great progress has been made but, if for any reason a deal is not shortly reached, which it probably will be, and if the Hormuz Strait is not immediately ‘Open for Business,’ we will conclude our lovely ‘stay’ in Iran by blowing up and completely obliterating all of their Electric Generating Plants, Oil Wells and Kharg Island (and possibly all desalinization plants!), which we have purposefully not yet ‘touched’,” he wrote on Truth Social.
Iran has already accused the US and Israel of carrying out strikes on the Bushehr nuclear power plant. Trump also claimed the US bombed Kharg Island, a key oil hub in the Strait of Hormuz, on 13 March.
In an interview published on Monday, Trump insisted that talks were progressing with Iran’s parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf. Tehran has denied it is talking to the US, accusing Washington of using the claims of talks as cover for US troop deployments.
Thousands of troops have arrived in the Middle East, according to US officials, part of reinforcements that would expand Trump’s options to include a ground assault in Iran, even has he claims a peace deal is close.
Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu told Newsmax meanwhile that he doesn’t want to “put a schedule on” the timeline for ending the war with Iran.
Trump has reportedly now told aides he is now willing to end the US military campaign even if the Strait of Hormuz remains largely closed.
The US president faces growing pressure at home to end the war ahead of the November midterm elections. The conflict has seen oil prices reach a four-year high, while 13 American service personnel have been killed and 303 wounded in action in just over a month.
The Israeli military said early on Tuesday that four soldiers had been killed in southern Lebanon, in the same area as three United Nations peacekeepers from Indonesia were killed in two separate incidents in recent days.
