In the heaviest blow yet to Iran’s “missile city” network, U.S. and Israeli warplanes have pounded 13 underground missile bases in a coordinated overnight barrage, defence sources say, aiming to gut the launch sites that have been firing rockets across the region for days.

Stealthy B‑2 bombers, U.S. Navy strike aircraft and Israeli F‑35s reportedly launched waves of precision bunker‑busting munitions at hardened shafts buried deep in Iran’s central and southern deserts. Satellite imagery reviewed by Western intelligence shows multiple access tunnels collapsed, scorched launch pads and secondary explosions as stored fuel and warheads detonated beneath the sand.

Washington and Jerusalem are hailing the operation as a “strategic decapitation” of Iran’s long‑range missile arm, claiming that command bunkers, underground rail systems and at least one suspected control hub for “missile shower” salvos were destroyed or severely damaged. Early assessments argue Iran’s ability to sustain large‑scale barrages has been “set back years.”

Tehran delivers a starkly different message. State media insists most missiles were moved before the strikes and vows that “dozens more undisclosed bases” remain ready to fire. Iranian commanders promise retaliation “far beyond symbolic,” raising the spectre of fresh missile volleys at U.S. bases, Israel and key Gulf energy hubs.

For ordinary Iranians and anxious neighbours, the stakes are brutal and immediate: shaking windows hundreds of kilometres from the blast zones, fuel prices already ticking higher, and a gnawing question spreading from bazaars to boardrooms — did this night of fire finally tame Iran’s missile threat, or just lock the Middle East into a cycle of escalation that no airstrike can end?