DECOY and deception and were at the heart of the US’s Operation Midnight Hammer against Iran’s nuclear sites.

Through meticulous planning and artful bluff, the stealth bomber squadron glided in and out of Iran without ever being detected or fired upon.

The US began spinning a web of deception at the start of the conflict – and it culminated in the “obliteration” of three of Iran’s nuke plants, including the mountain fortress Fordow.

Trump’s public statements were curated to keep the regime and the rest of the world guessing about whether the US would collaborate in strikes.

On Wednesday, the President maintained the smoke-and-mirrors, telling reporters at a flagpole opening ceremony: “I may do it, I may not do it. Nobody knows what I’m gonna do.”

The masterstroke came on Thursday when the White House tossed out a “two-week” deadline for Trump to make his decision, supposedly to give Iran another chance to return to negotiations.

This was widely interpreted as kicking the can down the road – and Trump has been known to announce a two-week deadline for events that never materialise.

We now know that, as this was announced, Operation Midnight Hammer was in fact in its final planning stages.

Israel stuck to the script, evening  feigning frustration and vowing to strike Fordow without the US support they must have known was coming.

Government sources leaked to The Times of Israel that Netanyahu’s administration had a “tense” call with the White House expressing their concerns.

This too appears to have been a ruse to lull Iran into a false sense of security.

As the operation kicked off at midnight on Friday night, the misdirection continued.

A decoy fleet of B-2s flew west over over the Pacific and towards Guam.

Their only purpose was to throw intelligence off the scent of the actual operative fleet – which at the same moment was gliding quietly east, bound for Iran.

Only “an extremely small number of planners and key leaders” knew the truth, General Caine said.

The strike group consisted of seven B-2 bombers each loaded with two of the 14-ton “bunker-buster” bombs.

The round trip was 37 hours, so an armada of more than 100 support aircraft was needed to help them refuel on the wing.

Strict instructions were issued to keep communications to a minimum to avoid detection.

Then at half past midnight Iranian time, a US submarine launched more than two dozen Tomahawk land attack cruise missiles at the Isfahan nuclear site in east Iran.

An hour later, the bomber squadron entered Iranian airspace – still undetected, but in perilous enemy territory.

More decoy and scout planes swooped out ahead of the main unit to distract any awaiting Iranian defence jets – but they encountered none.

The escort group stood ready to launch preemptive fire on any surface-to-air missiles or jets, but not a single shot was fired at the operatives.

The first bombs dropped at 2:10am Iranian time – the darkest hour of the night – and 25 minutes later it was all over.

Officials revealed that around 75 precision-guided weapons were unleashed in total, with 14 of the “bunker-busters” dropped on Fordow.

The B-2s were programmed to drop one bomb first, followed by another shortly afterwards onto the exact same impact site. point of impact.