Three American service members have been killed, and an additional five were “seriously wounded” as part of President Donald Trump’s military operation in Iran, U.S. Central Command said in a statement on Sunday.
“Several others sustained minor shrapnel injuries and concussions — and are in the process of being returned to duty,” the command wrote in a post on X. “Major combat operations continue and our response effort is ongoing.”
“The situation is fluid, so out of respect for the families, we will withhold additional information, including the identities of our fallen warriors, until 24 hours after next of kin have been notified.”
Trump announced the strikes on a number of targets inside Iran early Saturday morning with an eight-minute video posted to his Truth Social.
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“Our objective is to defend the American people by eliminating imminent threats from the Iranian regime, a vicious group of very hard, terrible people,” Trump said. “Its menacing activities directly endanger the United States, our troops, our bases overseas and our allies throughout the world.”
In his statement, Trump also addressed the potential loss of American lives, saying that it was likely U.S. soldiers would die as a part of the operation.
“The lives of courageous American heroes may be lost, and we may have casualties,” Trump said in his Saturday morning address. “That often happens in war. But we are doing this not for now but for the future, and it is a noble mission.”
Iran quickly responded to strikes on Saturday, striking a naval base in Bahrain along with other U.S. and Israeli military installations in the region.
More than 150 people were killed in an airstrike on an Iranian girl’s school on Saturday, with nearly 1,000 others injured across the country as a result of the strikes, the Iranian Red Crescent reported. Israel is reporting nine dead in Beit Shemesh, a community about 30 miles south of Tel Aviv.
Saturday evening, Iranian and American officials confirmed the death of the country’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, as part of the airstrikes. Israel reported it successfully targeted several other high-ranking military officials in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as well.
“He was unable to avoid our Intelligence and Highly Sophisticated Tracking Systems and, working closely with Israel, there was not a thing he, or the other leaders that have been killed along with him, could do,” Trump posted on Truth Social. “Not only the death of Khamenei but the Country has been, in only one day, very much destroyed and, even, obliterated.”
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