Senior American military leaders approved a strike on a subterranean Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) site near Tehran while carrying out a mission to recover U.S. airmen whose aircraft had been brought down inside Iran, according to a Fox News report citing senior sources.

The report said that during the rescue operation, U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) chief Adm. Brad Cooper gave the order to hit the underground command center. The attack was executed by B-2 bombers deploying Massive Ordnance Penetrators, specialized munitions designed to destroy hardened, deeply buried targets.

Officials cited in the report indicated that the targeted IRGC facility was destroyed in the strike.

At the same time, as the rescue mission unfolded, U.S. B-1 bombers released roughly one hundred 2,000-pound bombs in the surrounding area to prevent Iranian forces from advancing toward the extraction site, a senior U.S. defense official said.

A senior military source described the action to Fox News by stating that US forces had applied significant force against the IRGC during the operation.

CENTCOM later confirmed in an official statement that two service members were successfully recovered after their F-15E aircraft had been shot down.

The Fox News report added that the strike on the IRGC installation took place between the two rescue phases. According to the report, the B-2 bombers launched from Whiteman Air Force Base in the United States after receiving time-sensitive intelligence showing that multiple IRGC commanders were present inside the underground complex.

Following the mission, President Donald Trump said that American forces had rescued a severely injured F-15 crew member from deep within Iran, highlighting the dangers involved. He also referred to a second rescue effort that followed the initial extraction, describing both operations as unusual due to their length and complexity.