US military says a service member was killed after an Iranian attack in northern Iraq on Saturday, a day after an attack on a base in Jordan killed two US soldiers and left another missing.
Central Command (Centcom) announced that the fatality occurred during a controlled detonation of unexploded ordnance from a downed Iranian drone, which also wounded a second U.S. service member.
Reuters verified footage shows at least two impacts and an explosion inside the Jordanian facility where the drone was intercepted, confirming the sequence of events that led to the casualties.
The US death toll from the conflict now totals 17, after the Navy pilot Jeffery M. Sakowski was declared dead earlier this month. Iran reports at least 50 deaths and more than 500 injuries from recent U.S. strikes, with the health ministry citing ongoing casualties.
Washington’s latest attacks aim to “degrade Iran’s ability to threaten commercial shipping” in the Strait of Hormuz and to punish the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps responsible for the Jordan attack. Tehran, in turn, has declared the Strait closed and has targeted U.S. allies in the region.
The US and Iran have exchanged strikes for a fifth day of escalating attacks, with both sides accusing each other of hitting critical infrastructure. A preliminary ceasefire collapsed less than a month after it began, and Washington has reimposed blocks on Iranian ports.
Under international law, civilian targets are protected unless they support the enemy’s war effort. Iran, however, has struck bridges, an airport, and a train station earlier this week, while the US argues these were purely military logistics targets.
Iran’s Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei blasted the US in a written statement, accusing America of “repeated breaches” of the agreement and calling its president’s signature “worthless and devoid of credibility.”
