June 22, 2025 · Central Iran (Qom Province) Theater

The centerpiece of Operation Midnight Hammer. US B-2 Spirit stealth bombers, flying from Diego Garcia after multiple aerial refueling contacts, dropped GBU-57A/B Massive Ordnance Penetrators — 30,000-lb bunker-buster bombs — on Iran's most fortified nuclear facility. Fordow was built inside a mountain near Qom, 80–90 meters beneath solid rock, specifically to survive conventional air attack. The MOP had been developed precisely for this scenario. Multiple bombs were required to breach successive layers. Iranian air defenses fired SA-20 batteries but failed to detect the B-2s until impact.

June 22, 2025 · Central Iran (Isfahan Province) Theater

Natanz — the birthplace of Iran's enrichment program — was targeted simultaneously with Fordow using a combination of B-52H-launched cruise missiles, F-15E precision-guided munitions, and Tomahawk strikes from US Navy ships in the Persian Gulf. The complex included the Fuel Enrichment Plant and the Pilot Fuel Enrichment Plant. Above-ground facilities were destroyed in the first minutes of the strike; attacks on buried halls continued for thirty minutes. The underground centrifuge hall was specifically targeted.

June 22, 2025 · Central Iran (Qom Province) Theater

After the initial GBU-57 strikes on Fordow created impact craters and detonation points in the mountain, a second B-2 wave carried out follow-up strikes using the same MOP weapons to penetrate deeper through the created channels — a 'progressive penetration' technique. The technique exploited the fact that each MOP detonation breaks through layers of rock and concrete, allowing subsequent bombs to penetrate to successively greater depth. US intelligence assessed that this method reached the primary centrifuge halls 80+ meters underground, though definitive battle damage assessment required post-strike satellite monitoring.

June 22, 2025 · Central Iran (Isfahan Province) Theater

The Isfahan Nuclear Technology Center — a sprawling complex housing uranium conversion facilities, laser enrichment research, and nuclear engineering institutes — was struck in the third phase of Operation Midnight Hammer. The strikes were designed to eliminate Iran's capacity to reconstitute its enrichment program quickly. Isfahan's conversion facility transformed uranium ore into the feedstock for centrifuges; without it, even surviving centrifuge halls could not function. Surface-to-air missile systems at Isfahan were suppressed by US electronic warfare.

June 22–24, 2025 · Persian Gulf / Middle East Theater

Within hours of the US strikes, Iran launched waves of ballistic missiles and Shahed drones against US military installations in Iraq (Ain al-Assad, Erbil), Qatar (Al Udeid Air Base), and the UAE (Al Dhafra Air Base). The attacks echoed Iran's calibrated January 2020 retaliation for Soleimani's killing — designed to demonstrate capability and satisfy domestic audiences without triggering a full US counteroffensive. US Patriot and THAAD batteries intercepted the majority of incoming missiles. Two US service members were killed; approximately 40 were wounded.

June 23, 2025 · Strait of Hormuz Theater

IRGC Navy fast boats and shore-based anti-ship missile batteries made limited moves to threaten commercial shipping through the Strait of Hormuz — the 21-mile-wide chokepoint through which approximately 21% of global petroleum flows. IRGC patrol boats harassed tankers and attempted to board one Panamanian-flagged oil tanker. US Navy warships and carrier-based aircraft responded rapidly, warning off IRGC vessels at gunpoint. Two IRGC fast boats were sunk after they opened fire on a US destroyer. Oil prices surged 18% in 24 hours on closure fears.

June 23–24, 2025 · Persian Gulf / Strait of Hormuz Theater

Following the initial ballistic missile salvos, Iran launched multiple drone swarm attacks targeting the USS Gerald R. Ford carrier strike group operating in the Gulf of Oman and USS Dwight D. Eisenhower in the Red Sea. The attacks employed Shahed-136 and newer Shahed-238 jet-powered variants in saturation tactics — sending dozens of drones simultaneously from multiple bearings to overwhelm point-defense systems. The Ford CSG's layered defense — SM-2 and Evolved Sea Sparrow Missiles, Phalanx CIWS, and electronic jamming — successfully repelled all attacks. One drone penetrated close enough to trigger Phalanx, with shrapnel slightly damaging a superstructure antenna.

June 24, 2025 · Red Sea / Yemen Theater

Iran activated its Houthi proxy network in Yemen to open a second front against US forces and commercial shipping in the Red Sea. Houthi forces launched a surge of ballistic missile and drone attacks against the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower carrier strike group and several commercial vessels. The US and British navies intercepted the attacks. US B-2 bombers conducted retaliatory strikes against Houthi ballistic missile storage facilities in Yemen's Hodeida governorate, destroying launchers and reducing Yemen's ballistic missile stockpile significantly.

June 25–27, 2025 · Diplomatic (Paris, France) Theater

French President Macron offered Paris as the venue for emergency back-channel talks between US and Iranian envoys, mediated by Oman's Foreign Minister Badr bin Hamad Al-Busaidi. The meetings — held in secret at the French Foreign Ministry — explored the parameters for a ceasefire: Iran signaled willingness to pause nuclear activities in exchange for a halt to further strikes and sanctions relief; the US sought verifiable destruction of remaining centrifuges and IAEA access. The talks did not produce an agreement but established the framework for Oman-mediated discussions that continued through July 2025.

June 24, 2025 · Iraq / Gulf Region Theater

Alongside the nuclear facility strikes, CENTCOM conducted precision strikes against IRGC Quds Force command nodes and weapons depots in Iraq belonging to Iranian-backed militias — including Kata'ib Hezbollah and Asa'ib Ahl al-Haq — that had been supplying attacks on US troops in Iraq and Syria. F-35As from Al Udeid Air Base and Tomahawk missiles from US destroyers struck militia headquarters, drone warehouses, and rocket launcher storage sites. The strikes killed several senior Kata'ib Hezbollah commanders.

February 28 – April 8, 2026 · Iran — nationwide Theater

Authorized by President Trump on February 27, 2026, and opening at roughly 9:45 a.m. Iran Standard Time on February 28 — during Ramadan — Operation Epic Fury was a joint US–Israeli air campaign on a scale the region had never seen. The Israeli Air Force called its share the largest combat sortie in its history: some 500 targets struck and more than 1,200 bombs dropped in the first twenty-four hours. Strikes ranged across Tehran, Isfahan, Qom, Karaj, Kermanshah, Tabriz, and Bushehr, hitting leadership, nuclear and missile infrastructure, air defenses, and naval assets. The campaign followed the largest US military buildup in the region since 2003 and the collapse of nuclear negotiations, against a backdrop of Iranian security forces killing anti-government protesters in January.

February 28, 2026 · Tehran Theater

The opening wave of Operation Epic Fury killed Ali Khamenei, Supreme Leader of Iran since 1989, along with the senior official Ali Larijani and dozens of other figures in the political and military leadership. It was the first killing of a sitting head of state of a major country by another state's air force in the modern era, and it removed the man who had personally arbitrated every significant Iranian decision for thirty-seven years. Tehran's Assembly of Experts moved within days to appoint his son, Mojtaba Khamenei, as successor — an outcome the Islamic Republic had spent decades insisting was not dynastic and could not happen.

March 1 – 6, 2026 · Israel Theater

Iran's Revolutionary Guard answered within hours, naming its response Operation True Promise IV — the fourth in a series of direct Iranian strikes on Israel that had begun in 2024. Waves of ballistic missiles and drones struck Tel Aviv, Haifa, and Israeli military facilities. Unlike the largely telegraphed exchanges of 2024, these were sustained and unannounced, and Israeli air defenses — layered but finite — were saturated repeatedly over several days. Israel recorded 39 military and contractor deaths and 31 civilian deaths across the war, with 7,834 injured.

March 3 – 8, 2026 · Persian Gulf — Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, UAE, Saudi Arabia, Iraq Theater

Iran deliberately widened the war to the states hosting American forces. On March 3 it struck Doha, hit the US embassy in Riyadh, attacked cloud infrastructure across the Gulf, and set fire to the UAE's Fujairah Oil Industry Zone. Strikes reached Manama, Kuwait International Airport, Abu Dhabi, Riyadh and Saudi Arabia's Eastern Province, and Erbil International Airport and the US Consulate General in Erbil. The US Fifth Fleet's home in Bahrain was among the targets. Tehran threatened to hit every economic hub in the Middle East if the strikes on Iran continued. Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Kuwait subsequently launched strikes of their own against Iranian targets — Gulf Arab states entering open war with Iran for the first time.

March 4 – June 17, 2026 · Strait of Hormuz Theater

On March 4, 2026, Iran declared the Strait of Hormuz closed and made the declaration real, attacking ships that attempted to transit. Roughly 13 million barrels of oil a day — about a fifth of global consumption — normally pass through the strait. Brent crude, around $72 a barrel before the war, peaked near $118–120 in March, a spike of roughly 64 percent and the largest monthly rise ever recorded; the IEA called it the largest disruption in the history of the oil market. The United States answered with a blockade of Iranian ports and coastal waters. The two blockades became the central bargaining chips of the war: Iran would reopen the strait in exchange for the US lifting its own.

April 2026 · Lebanon Theater

A two-week ceasefire that began on April 8, 2026, broke down when Israel struck targets in Lebanon, reopening the front against Hezbollah. Already shattered by the 2024 decapitation of its leadership and stripped of its Syrian resupply route by Assad's fall in December 2024, Hezbollah entered the 2026 war a fraction of the force it had been — and lost more than a thousand fighters. Negotiations in Islamabad on April 12–13 failed to restore the ceasefire, and the US imposed its naval blockade of Iranian ports in the aftermath.

June 17, 2026 · Islamabad, Pakistan Theater

On June 17, 2026, after the failed April talks in the same city, the American and Iranian presidents signed a fourteen-point memorandum of understanding setting out an initial sixty-day negotiating period covering Iran's nuclear and missile programs. Its immediate substance was an exchange of blockades: Iran would reopen the Strait of Hormuz, the United States would lift its blockade of Iranian ports. Oil prices fell sharply on the news. The memorandum settled nothing about the underlying dispute — it was a mechanism for stopping the shooting long enough to discuss it.

July 8, 2026 – Present · Persian Gulf and Iran Theater

The Islamabad framework lasted three weeks. In July 2026 Iran struck three commercial vessels that had bypassed its preapproved transit route through the strait, mutual attacks followed, and on July 8 the ceasefire collapsed into full-scale hostilities. The sixty-day negotiating window expired without substantive agreement on either the nuclear or the missile file. As of August 2026 the war is active, the strait is contested again, and Iran is governed by a supreme leader appointed in the middle of an air campaign whose authority within the system is untested.