Three U.S. troops were killed and five others seriously wounded amid ongoing hostilities with Iran, military officials said Sunday, the first known American casualties in a campaign that has quickly heightened concerns about the Pentagon’s ability to protect its personnel.
An unspecified number of troops also sustained “minor shrapnel injuries and concussions” and are in the process of returning to duty, according to a statement from U.S. Central Command, which oversees operations in the region.
The three slain Americans were part of a sustainment unit in Kuwait, two U.S. officials told The Washington Post. One of the officials said the three troops served in the Army. The military’s official statement on the deaths did not specify where the service members were killed, a deviation from the Defense Department’s traditional notification procedures when announcing U.S. combat fatalities.
The secrecy underscored how fraught the situation has become for service members deployed in the Middle East as Iran attacked U.S. facilities and interests in a half-dozen countries following the death Saturday of its supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Spokespeople for the Pentagon and Central Command declined to comment for this article.
The three fatalities – in its statement, Central Command referred to the fallen troops as “killed in action” – return the United States to a familiar footing in the Middle East, where successive U.S. administrations prosecuted costly, devastating wars over the 20 years that followed 9/11. In announcing the start of Operation Epic Fury overnight Saturday, President Donald Trump acknowledged the possibility that American lives may be lost, saying, “That often happens in war.”
In a video statement released by the White House on Sunday, the president praised the three troops who “made the ultimate sacrifice for our nation” and said that “sadly, there will likely be more before it ends.” He told the Daily Mail that the campaign could last for four weeks.
Numerous U.S. facilities throughout the region have come under attack since U.S. and Israeli forces began attacking targets in Iran – a mission, Trump has said, that is intended to topple the theocratic government in Tehran and destroy its military capabilities.
Central Command said Sunday that U.S. forces have destroyed more than 1,000 targets so far, including naval ships and submarines, missile sites, communications links and the command and control centers for the Iranian Revolutionary Guard.
The astonishing figure after less than two days of military operations reflected what one U.S. official described as a “very aggressive” effort to knock out as many of Iran’s capabilities to launch missiles and drones as quickly as possible. Like others, this person spoke on the condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to speak to the news media.
Still, overnight, military officials in U.S. operations centers tracked “dozens and dozens” of missiles and attack drones launched by Iran throughout the night, said another person familiar with the situation.
“Iran is in full retaliation,” this person said.
The vast number of retaliatory attacks – and the array of sites being targeted, including nonmilitary sites in Arab nations across the Middle East – is concerning after so much of the regime’s top leadership was killed, this person continued. Officials are worried about the command and control of those weapons, the person added.
Inside the Pentagon, and among some members of the Trump administration, there was deepening concern Sunday that the Iran conflict could spiral out of control, said people familiar with the situation.
“The mood here is intense and paranoid,” one person said.
There is anxiety among senior leaders that the fighting will extend for weeks, further stressing limited U.S. air defense stockpiles, people familiar with the situation said.
“There is concern about this lasting more than a few days,” said another person. “I don’t think people have fully absorbed yet, like, what that has done with stockpiles,” they added, noting that it often takes two or three air defense interceptors to ensure that an incoming missile is stopped.
The House Armed Services Committee’s top Democrat, Rep. Adam Smith (Washington) said this operation will force the U.S. to further expend munitions supplies that are already strained.
“At this point, it’s on. It’s not like we can say: ‘Hey, Iran, we’re out of missile defense systems now so we’re going to pause for a moment. Is that okay?’ It will stretch our ability to defend everything that we need to defend,” Smith said, characterizing U.S. resources as “stretched thin.”
As The Post reported last week, the president’s senior military adviser, Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Dan Caine, warned the White House that munitions shortfalls and a lack of broad military support from other U.S. allies would add considerable risk to any operation in Iran and to the U.S. personnel put in harm’s way.
The U.S. has a vast amount of firepower in the region, including nine destroyers capable of shooting down missiles. But videos circulating online show that one of the other major threats U.S. troops face is from Iran’s fleet of Shahed drones, which fly slow and low, and are not optimal targets for U.S. air defenses.
Trump has said in multiple social posts since the operation began that he is committed to a long-term military operation against Iran. Unlike the precision operation in June targeting Iran’s nuclear program, the president has said U.S. “heavy and pinpoint bombing” would continue for days, uninterrupted, “to achieve our objective of peace” throughout the Middle East.
The descriptions of shrapnel and concussions noted in Central Command’s statement Sunday point to missiles or drones, which produce blast injuries. While U.S. and regional allies have intercepted much of the incoming fire, some attacks have broken through, including numerous salvos that blasted a U.S. naval base in Bahrain.
In 2024, three U.S. soldiers were killed and others wounded in a drone attack on their base in Jordan. Commanders and personnel failed to properly detect and intercept an Iranian-made drone that smashed into the troops’ living quarters. Investigators later found senior leaders denied a request to position an air defense system there.
Noah Robertson and Laura Meckler contributed to this report.
