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| - In mid-March 2026, social media users claimed that Iran had released a list of 11 cities in the United States that the Islamic republic planned to target with military operations in response to U.S.-Israeli bombardment.
The claim spread across platforms such as Instagram, Threads and Facebook (screenshot), where one user wrote: "IRAN JUST DROPPED A LIST OF US TARGETS."
(Instagram user @truecrimewithbella)
The list, as shown below, also included the cities' estimated populations, as well as the specific targets in these areas, including military bases and communication centers:
1. Great Falls, Montana — 60,422 (Malmstrom AFB missile silos)
2. Cheyenne, Wyoming — 65,168 (Francis E Warren AFB)
3. Ogden/Clearfield, Utah — 121,737 (Hill AFB)
4. Shreveport, Louisiana — 177, 959 (B-52 bomber base)
5. Honolulu, Hawaii — 341,778 (Pacific naval/air operations)
6. Omaha, Nebraska — 483,335 (Offutt AFB, former Cold War command hub)
7. Colorado Springs, Colorado — 488,664 (NORAD headquarters)
8. Albuquerque, New Mexico — 560,274 (Kirtland AFB nuclear arsenal)
9. Washington, DC — 678,972 (federal government)
10. Seattle, Washington — 737,015 (Naval Base Kitsap)
11. San Francisco, California — 873,965 (financial centre)
This list did not originate with Iran. It appeared to come from a speculative June 2025 article by the Daily Mail, a British tabloid that Wikipedia considers unreliable. The story claims to list the "likeliest targets" in a potential future World War III. The newspaper does not cite a specific source for the countries it lists as possible targets.
Based on a Google search, no reputable news media outlets have published stories about Iran formally releasing a list of U.S. cities it plans to attack. If Iran did, it would have certainly been newsworthy. As of this writing, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security has also released no alerts (archived) warning U.S. citizens in those cities to evacuate, shelter in place or create an evacuation plan, which the federal agency would be expected to do if Iran released such a list.
As such, we have rated this claim false.
Origin of claim
The Daily Mail's 2025 article is titled "Chilling list reveals which US cities would be first targets hit in WWIII."
The list in the report features the exact same cities as the list circulating online, with the newspaper also including Houston, Los Angeles, Chicago and New York City.
The report does not cite a singular source for where the list came from, instead offering vague comments about how "world policy experts, investigative journalists, and even
However, the above link to "financial analysts" leads to a 2023 Daily Mail story citing an article from 24/7 Wall St., a financial news site, from that same year, which itself cites a 2017 Business Insider story. The Business Insider headline says its list of locations, which differs somewhat from the Daily Mail's, represents "the places in the US most likely to be hit in a nuclear attack."
Further on, the Business Insider article clarifies that the list represents "the essential points Russia would have to attack to wipe out the US's nuclear forces," reportedly according to Stephen Schwartz, author of "Atomic Audit: The Costs and Consequences of US Nuclear Weapons Since 1940." (Reporters often do not write their own headlines, especially at larger publications such as Business Insider.)
The story adds — per a paraphrase of Schwartz's comments — that "people in big cities like New York and Los Angeles most likely shouldn't worry about being struck by a nuclear weapon" because there's no chance Russia could survive an act of nuclear aggression against the United States.
The primary reporter on the British tabloid's article, Osheen Yadav, did not immediately return an inquiry as to how she produced the list.
Tracking spread of claim
In January 2026, the American online newspaper International Business Times wrote a story based on the Daily Mail's reporting. That article claims that "Alex Wellerstein, a nuclear historian at Stevens Institute of Technology and creator of the widely-used NUKEMAP weapons effects simulator, has outlined the 15 US cities most likely to face attack, according to an analysis shared with the Daily Mail."
However, the Daily Mail article does not credit Wellerstein with the creation of the list. The IB Times reporter on this story, Jim Manzon, did not immediately return a request for clarification as to how he determined Wellerstein created the Daily Mail list.
This is the only comment made about Wellerstein in the entire June 2025 Daily Mail story:
Alex Wellerstein, a nuclear historian and professor at Stevens Institute of Technology, told the Daily Mail: 'If the adversary is Russia and their goal is to disable US retaliation, command centers and ICBM sites will be hit first. If the attacker is a rogue actor, symbolic or densely populated areas might be targeted instead.'
Other news media outlets then cited the IB Times story to write their own reports. For example, Shreveport
Professor Alex Wellerstein is a nuclear historian at Stevens Institute of Technology and has outlined 15 U.S. cities most likely to be the target of military attacks, with geography and military infrastructure, as well as population, determining vulnerability, International Business Times
reported .
However, in an email Wellerstein first sent to PolitiFact and forwarded to Snopes, he said the list "has nothing to do with [him] at all." Wellerstein also shared the comments he provided to the Daily Mail, which confirmed that he did not provide them the initial list. Wellerstein's comments largely focused on explaining how NUKEMAP, a tool he created that simulates nuclear weapons effects, worked.
"What are the origins of those quotes, those cities? I have no idea. I will not speculate," Wellerstein wrote. "But they do not come from me."
Wellerstein also said he did not know of any list of military targets in the U.S. that Iran had released. While there is historical precedent for doing so, he said, "the problems with announcing intentions is that if you can't follow up on them, it makes you look weak and ineffectual. And of course it allows an adversary to prepare a defense, if they can."
Wellerstein added that he does not believe Iran has any nuclear capability, nor does he believe the country has the technical means of reaching the United States with missiles.
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