At least 200 US troops have been injured in the US-Israeli war on Iran, a US military spokesperson said on Monday.
“Since the start of Operation Epic Fury, approximately 200 US service members have been wounded,” a US Central Command spokesperson, Cpt Tim Hawkins, told the Guardian via email.
“The vast majority of these injuries have been minor,” said Hawkins, adding that 180 troops have since returned to duty. He did not elaborate when asked follow-up questions about what types of injuries service members sustained or their causes.
ABC News previously reported that injuries included burns, shrapnel wounds and traumatic brain injuries (TBIs), citing an unnamed US official. Out of the 200 injured, at least 10 military personnel have been “seriously wounded”, Hawkins previously told the outlet.
As of Monday, 13 service members have been killed in the US war with Iran. Six crew members died last week when a US military refuelling plane crashed in western Iraq.
Six US service personnel were killed when an Iranian drone struck an operations centre at a civilian port in Kuwait and a seventh US service member died after being wounded in an attack on the Prince Sultan airbase in Saudi Arabia.
More than 1,300 Iranians have been killed, the country’s ambassador to the UN said an update last week, as well as hundreds of civilians in Lebanon and 15 people in Israel.
Donald Trump has made contradictory statements on the conflict so far, previously urging western allies to enter the war and protect the strait of Hormuz amid fears of a global oil disruption, while also suggesting that the US should not make military efforts to protect the strait given that the country has “a lot of oil”.
