American strike plans for Iran now include the mother of all bombs, CNN reports, though officers question whether it would work

The plans are not an order. But the weapon named in them tells its own story about the scale of what is being prepared.

CNN reported on Thursday that the American military has developed new strike plans for Iran that include the possible use of the GBU 43/B Massive Ordnance Air Blast Bomb, known as the mother of all bombs, against Iranian energy infrastructure and nuclear sites, if President Donald Trump orders combat operations to resume. Reuters, reporting the CNN account, said it could not immediately verify it.

The bomb is the largest non nuclear weapon in the American arsenal, at about 21,600 pounds. It detonates above the ground and delivers its force as a vast blast across a wide area. It was built during the Iraq war partly as a psychological weapon, and it was used in combat for the first time in 2017, under President Trump, against Islamic State tunnel positions in Afghanistan.

One set of plans, sources told CNN, covers strikes on a significant portion of Iran's energy infrastructure and includes the bomb among the options. A separate strand of planning for Iran's nuclear facilities names it specifically for a possible strike on Pickaxe Mountain, the underground site where the United States and Israel believe Iran has stored parts of its nuclear programme. The same reporting describes discussion inside the military of striking, then declaring victory and drawing American forces out of the region quickly.

The doubts are in the reporting too. Officials familiar with the discussions questioned whether a blast weapon designed to burst in the air can penetrate deeply enough to destroy facilities buried under a mountain, and noted the risk to civilians if it were used near populated areas. They also questioned whether bombing, on its own, ends the war. The president has said publicly that he would not resume strikes on Iran before the November 3 midterm elections, and advisers quoted by CNN said they did not know whether that position is final. What is established, on the reporting available as of October 15, is narrower than the headline: options exist, they are drawn up, and the largest conventional bomb in the arsenal is written into them. No order to use it has been reported.