The United States flew 62 bomber missions during Operation Epic Fury before the Trump administration announced a ceasefire with Iran on Tuesday evening, Air Force Gen. Dan Caine said Wednesday. Eighteen of those missions were round-trip flights from the U.S. that dropped bombs on military targets in Iran, and each lasted more than 30 hours.
Caine said the long-haul bomber missions likely involved B-2 Spirit stealth bombers out of Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri, with KC-135 tankers refueling them in flight. He said B-1 Lancer and B-52 Stratofortress bombers also took off from bases in the UK in support of the operation.
The mission count put hard numbers on a five-week war effort that had already stretched U.S. air crews and aircraft across continents. Caine said the targets included air defense systems, ballistic missile and one-way attack drone storage facilities, warships, naval mines and weapons production factories, and said the U.S. had struck more than 13,000 targets in Iran since the war began in late February.
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The scale of the bombing also underscored the reach of the U.S. air campaign. Caine said the 30-hour missions showed there was no other military in the world that could do what American crews had done, a line that landed as the ceasefire took hold and the fighting paused. The United States, Iran and Israel agreed to a two-week ceasefire on Tuesday.
That truce has not fully silenced the region. The Israeli military said on Wednesday that it had carried out strikes inside Iran overnight but has since held fire. The United Arab Emirates said Tehran launched 17 ballistic missiles and 35 drones after the ceasefire took effect, keeping the conflict's final chapter from looking settled just yet.
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For now, the bomber campaign is over, but the damage tally and the ceasefire terms will shape what comes next. The unanswered question is whether the pause holds long enough for the three sides to turn a temporary stop in fighting into something more durable.
