US military draws up plans to drop 'Mother of All Bombs' on Iran as Trump weighs major escalation
Donald Trump, who told supporters at a midterm rally that government leakers "should be shot," claims a pre-strike intelligence leak forced him to delay Operation Midnight Hammer by two days.A GBU-43/B MOAB — the military's most powerful non-nuclear weapon — which Pentagon planners have proposed deploying against Iran's suspected underground nuclear facility at Pickaxe Mountain.A GBU-43/B Massive Ordnance Air Blast bomb — the so-called "mother of all bombs" — which CNN reports the US military has drawn up plans to drop on Iran's nuclear sites.IRGC and Basij paramilitary forces parade through central Tehran. Pentagon planners warn the MOAB's vast blast radius raises serious civilian casualty concerns if deployed near populated Iranian energy sites.
Strike plans drawn up by the US military would deploy its largest non-nuclear bomb — the GBU-43/B MOAB — against Iranian energy infrastructure and nuclear sites should President Donald Trump order a return to combat operations. Trump has directed planners to develop additional strike packages covering "a lot of energy infrastructure," with one source saying the plans explicitly include possible MOAB strikes on the underground nuclear site known as Pickaxe Mountain. The war has ground to an impasse since a June ceasefire collapsed, and Trump's approval is sliding ahead of November's midterm elections.
US officials privately question whether the MOAB can penetrate deep enough to destroy Iran's buried nuclear facilities, calling it 'definitely not designed as a deep penetration warhead.'
One source says the strike plans are framed as attacks 'prior to US retrograde' from the region — meaning Trump could bomb Iran and then immediately pull American forces out.
