First US troops killed as Israel hits Tehran again
Three American service members have been killed and five others seriously wounded during the US military’s attacks on Iran.
Three US service members have been killed and five others have been seriously wounded during the US attacks on Iran, marking the first American casualties in a major offensive that has sparked retaliation from the Islamic Republic.
US Central Command, which oversees the Middle East, announced the deaths in a post on X but did not say when and where they occurred.
The statement said “several others sustained minor shrapnel injuries and concussions” and were going to return to duty.
Central Command described the situation “as fluid” and said it would withhold the identities of the service members who were killed for 24 hours after their families were notified.
The US military also denied Iranian claims that the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier was struck with ballistic missiles, saying on X that the “missiles launched didn’t even come close”.
President Donald Trump had warned that American troops could be killed or injured in the operation.
“The lives of courageous American heroes may be lost, and we may have casualties,” the Republican president said in a video address released on Saturday.
“That often happens in war. But we’re doing this not for now. We’re doing this for the future.”
Following the US-Israeli strikes that killed Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and other leaders, Iran’s counterattacks have struck US bases in Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates.
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Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard has threatened to launch its “most intense offensive operation” ever targeting Israeli and American military installations.
Before the strikes, Trump had built up the largest US military presence in the Middle East in decades. The arrival of the Lincoln and three accompanying guided-missile destroyers at the end of January bolstered the number of warships in the region.
The world’s largest aircraft carrier, the USS Gerald R Ford, and four accompanying destroyers later were dispatched from the Caribbean Sea to head to the Middle East.
The Ford was part of the US raid in Venezuela that captured leader Nicolás Maduro, who was brought to New York to face drug trafficking charges.
Trump has launched several military operations during his second term, including strikes on members of the Islamic State group in Syria in retaliation for an ambush attack that killed two US troops and an American civilian interpreter in December.
The US military has also struck IS forces in Nigeria, after Trump accused the West African country’s government of failing to rein in the targeting of Christians.
Meanwhile, Israel has launched a new wave of strikes on Tehran and Iran has responded with more missile barrages, a day after the killing of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei that’s spiralled the Middle East and the global economy into deepening uncertainty.
US and Israeli strikes – and Iranian retaliation – sent shockwaves through sectors from shipping to air travel to oil, amid warnings of rising energy costs and disruption to business in the Gulf, a strategic waterway and global trade hub.
US President Donald Trump said the attack on Saturday was intended to ensure Iran could not have a nuclear weapon, to contain its missile program and to eliminate threats to the United States and its allies.
In an interview with the Atlantic magazine on Sunday, Trump said Iran’s leadership wanted to talk to him and he had agreed.
But he has yet to lay out his longer-term aims in Iran, which faces a power vacuum that could leave it in chaos, with unforeseeable consequences for the region.
As the first US casualties were reported, and with the vital Strait of Hormuz closed and the glittering Gulf cities of Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Doha under bombardment, the scale of the risk taken by Trump in launching the attack was becoming clearer.
Only around one in four Americans approve of the operation, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll, and if Hormuz, which is the passage for about 20 per cent of world oil supplies, remains closed for more than a few days, squeezed US consumers will start to feel the pressure on prices at the pumps, months before vital midterm elections.
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Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said on Sunday they had hit three US and UK oil tankers in the Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz, and attacked military bases in Kuwait and Bahrain with drones and missiles.
Shipping data showed hundreds of vessels including oil and gas tankers dropping anchor in nearby waters with traders expecting sharp jumps in crude oil prices on Monday.
Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian said a leadership council composed of himself, the judiciary head and a member of the powerful Guardians Council had temporarily assumed the duties of Supreme Leader.
Oman’s foreign ministry said Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi had indicated Tehran was open to any serious efforts at de-escalation.
But it remained unclear what the longer-term prospects were for Iran to rebuild its leadership and replace the 86-year-old Khamenei, who had held power since the death of the founder of the Islamic Republic, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in 1989.
Israel claimed responsibility for killing Khamenei, in what it said was a “precise, large-scale operation” guided by intelligence, while he was in his central leadership compound in the heart of Tehran.
It said it aimed to dominate the skies over Tehran, giving no sign of planning an end to the biggest aerial operation in its history, involving hundreds of fighter jets.
“We have the capabilities and the targets to keep going on for as long as necessary,” Israeli military spokesperson Lieutenant Colonel Nadav Shoshani said.
Trump warned that the US would hit Iran “with a force that has never been seen before” if it struck back.
But as Iran fired renewed missile barrages across the region, Israel’s ambulance service said nine people were killed in the town of Beit Shemesh, the United Arab Emirates said Iranian attacks killed three people and Kuwait reported one dead.
Trump said on social media the US military had destroyed nine Iranian warships so far and was “going after the rest”.
Inside Iran, some grieved for Khamenei while others celebrated his death, exposing a deep fault line in a country stunned by the sudden demise of the man who ruled for decades.
Thousands of Iranians were killed in a crackdown authorised by Khamenei against anti-government protests in January, the deadliest wave of unrest since the Islamic Revolution of 1979.
Footage from Tehran showed mourners packed into a square, dressed in black and many of them weeping.
But videos posted on social media also showed joy and defiance elsewhere, with people cheering as a statue was toppled in the city of Dehloran in Ilam province, dancing in the streets of Karaj city, near Tehran in Alborz province, and celebrating in the streets of Izeh in Khuzestan province.
Experts said that while Khamenei’s death and those of other Iranian leaders would deal Iran a major blow, it would not necessarily spell the end of Iran’s entrenched clerical rule or the sway of the elite Revolutionary Guards over the population.
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