Three US service members have been killed in action as part of Operation Epic Fury, the US military's operations against Iran, the US Central Command confirmed 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, according to the US military. Authorities have not yet publicly identified the three soldiers killed. President Donald Trump had previously warned 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 Washington and Tehran. 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, though 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, making it the deadliest single incident of the bombing campaign so far.
Anti-war demonstrations took place across the US, including gatherings outside the White House and in New York’s Times Square. Protest organisers said: “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.”
