Operation Roaring Lion / Epic Fury

The 28 February 2026 joint US-Israeli air campaign opened a new conflict against Iran, distinct from the June 2025 Twelve-Day War in which Operation Rising Lion (Israel) and Operation Midnight Hammer (US) had already destroyed or disabled Natanz, Esfahan, and Fordow. By the time Roaring Lion launched, those nuclear sites had been non-operational for eight months. The 2026 campaign struck Natanz and Esfahan access points in March 2026 as access-denial strikes on already-ruined facilities; the IAEA confirmed "some recent damage" but "no additional impact" on the underground enrichment halls themselves. Fordow was not retargeted: US bunker-busters had rendered it inoperable in June 2025 and there was nothing left to hit.

The campaign's actual first-wave targets were IRGC military leadership, air-defence networks, missile infrastructure, and administrative Tehran, not nuclear sites. CENTCOM confirmed more than 7,000 targets struck by 19 March. The Center for Strategic and International Studies estimated the first 100 hours at $3.7 billion, rising to roughly $900 million per day by week three and an estimated $19 billion with no supplemental Congressional funding requested. New target sets in late March included the Yazd uranium processing facility, the Khondab heavy-water complex, and the Parchin-area Talkan site used for weapons development.

The campaign's stated objectives shifted without formal declaration, from neutralising Iran's nuclear programme to signalling Regime change. Netanyahu conceded on 11 March he could not guarantee the latter. Congress authorised no war powers; Senator Mark Warner publicly contested the intelligence justification. The attribution error in early briefings (structural nuclear damage assigned to the 2026 strikes) arose because the primary destruction had occurred nine months earlier under Operation Rising Lion and Operation Midnight Hammer, both part of the Twelve-Day War (June 2025).