Three US service members have been killed in action as part of US military operations against Iran, the US Central Command said in a statement on Sunday. These are the first confirmed deaths since the US began launching strikes against Iran on Saturday.
Five additional personnel have been reported seriously wounded as part of Operation Epic Fury, the US military said. Authorities have not yet publicly identified the three soldiers who were killed.
While announcing the military action targeting Iran, Donald Trump cautioned that “the lives of American heroes may be lost, and we may have casualties. That often happens in war”.
On Sunday, Israel and the US carried out another round of heavy attacks across Iran, marking the second day of a military effort aimed at removing the country’s government. The campaign has pushed the Middle East into a broader regional confrontation with no clear end or predictable outcome.
The escalation followed increasingly tense exchanges between officials in Washington and Tehran, signaling the possibility of further military developments in the near future.
Trump stated on Sunday that the US would strike Iran “with a force that has never been seen before” if Tehran followed through on threats of retaliation after Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was killed in an Israeli airstrike on Saturday.
The strikes extended beyond current government leaders. The home in Tehran belonging to former Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was also destroyed, and his condition or whereabouts were not immediately confirmed.
Meanwhile, Iranian state media reported that the number of people killed in a missile attack on a girls’ school in southern Iran has climbed to nearly 150. The school was hit on Saturday morning and appears to represent the deadliest single incident of the US-Israeli bombing campaign in Iran so far.
Following the attack on Iran, anti-war demonstrations took place across the US, including gatherings outside the White House and in New York’s Times Square, where protesters expressed opposition to American military involvement in the region.
Protest organizers released a statement saying: “Trump’s unprovoked, illegal attack on Iran is an act of war that threatens to cause unthinkable death and destruction. But the people of this country reject another endless war and will take to the streets now and make our voices heard.”
