Three U.S. Service members were killed and five seriously wounded during Operation Epic Fury, a joint U.S.-Israeli military operation against Iran, U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) announced Sunday. The casualties mark the first American deaths reported in the escalating conflict, which began with a large-scale assault on Iran targeting its Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and other high-ranking officials.
CENTCOM stated that several other personnel sustained minor injuries, including shrapnel wounds and concussions, and are expected to return to duty. The military is withholding the identities of the fallen service members pending notification of next of kin. “Major combat operations continue and our response effort is ongoing,” CENTCOM said in a statement. “The situation is fluid.”
The deaths occurred as Iran launched retaliatory strikes against U.S. Military installations across the Middle East following the initial U.S.-Israeli bombardment. Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) reported targeting the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier with four ballistic missiles, though a U.S. Official confirmed to Al Jazeera that the attack caused no damage. CENTCOM affirmed on social media that the Lincoln “continues to launch aircraft in support of CENTCOM’s relentless campaign to defend the American people by eliminating threats from the Iranian regime.”
President Donald Trump, speaking to Fox News, characterized the operation as progressing rapidly and expressed confidence in its outcome. “I’m not worried about anything, and things are going well,” he said. Trump as well asserted that without the strikes against Iranian nuclear facilities, Iran would have possessed a nuclear weapon within two weeks, making the current operation impossible.
The operation, initiated Saturday at 1:15 a.m., focused on disrupting “the Iranian regime’s security apparatus, prioritizing locations that posed an imminent threat,” according to CENTCOM. Targets included Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps command and control facilities, Iranian air defense systems, missile and drone launch sites, and military airfields. The compound of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was also directly targeted.
The casualties have prompted calls for a Congressional debate regarding the administration’s plans for the operation, according to Al Jazeera’s Alan Fisher reporting from Washington D.C. “What they want to know is, what are the administration’s plans? Where does this head? How long is this going to last?” Fisher reported. “And the big question, of course, is how many more service personnel will be put at risk.”
Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi told Al Jazeera that there were “no limits to our self-defence” in response to the killing of Khamenei and the ongoing attacks. The U.S. And Israel continued their attacks across Iran on Sunday, the second day of the campaign aimed, according to President Trump, at removing Iran’s government from power.
