Nearly 100 US troops injured by Iran strikes, Pentagon says
Nearly 100 American service members have sustained some degree of injury since 7 July, in the latest wave of fighting between the US and Iran, Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell said on Monday.
Iran has been retaliating against nightly US strikes by targeting its military bases across Bahrain, Iraq, Jordan, and Kuwait.
The Pentagon’s disclosure came nearly five hours after spokesperson Parnell denounced a New York Times report saying that the Pentagon withheld dozens of US military injuries in the Iran war as “baseless” and “malicious” .
“This is the most transparent Department of War in history. We challenge the so-called journalists who wrote these lies, one of whom was recently subpoenaed regarding an alleged violation of federal criminal law, to stop the smears against the finest warfighting force on Earth,” Parnell said.
As early as Tuesday morning, the official Pentagon database tracking US casualties showed that no US forces were killed or wounded in action in July.
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The Department of War has now published that three US Army soldiers were killed in ballistic missile attacks on Muwaffaq Salti Air Base in Jordan over the weekend: Private Isabella Gonzales, 19, of Carrollton, Texas; Lieutenant Tyler James Feehan, 25, of Ewa Beach, Hawaii; and a third soldier provisionally listed as missing.
In Iraq, Sergeant Michael Emmanuel Swinton, 30, of Fayetteville, North Carolina, was killed and another soldier was wounded over the weekend during a “controlled detonation” of an Iranian attack drone at Erbil Air Base.
Parnell said in his X post that further casualty updates would be available on the Defense Casualty Analysis System, a site tracking “deceased, wounded, ill or injured” service members for Congress and the president. He stated that a vast majority of the injured only experienced “minor concussions” and 96 percent had since returned to work.
The Pentagon has had a well-documented history of “casualty cover-up” throughout the war on Iran, according to The Intercept.
The breakdown of the 60-day ceasefire triggered by the signing of the Islamabad Memorandum of Understanding has been followed by a series of escalatory attacks by the US and Iran.
Escalation
Tehran has said it is ready to "welcome" an American ground invasion, as US Central Command (Centcom) reported its ninth consecutive night of strikes on Iran after the deaths of American soldiers in Jordan and Iraq over the weekend.
Iran's foreign ministry spokesperson, Esmaeil Baghaei, said that the country's leadership is “counting down the minutes to welcome” US forces in any ground invasion.
He added that the text of the Pakistan-brokered interim deal signed with the US in June is "completely clear", and that there is "no excuse" for Washington to violate the treaty.
In the early hours of Monday morning, the US military said in a post on X that its attacks hit “Iranian military command centers, air defense and coastal surveillance sites, maritime capabilities, missile and drone launch sites and communications networks”.
It added that the fresh onslaught aims to “further diminish Iran’s ability to attack commercial vessels and civilian mariners transiting the Strait of Hormuz”.
US President Donald Trump said the latest round of “very hard” attacks came in “honor” of three American service members who had been killed over recent days.
“We hit them very hard again tonight, and we did that in honor of the, probably three, it's probably three great patriots," he told reporters.
He said that Iran has "been very, very badly damaged. They've lost everything almost - militarily".
"They've got some missiles, some drones, some manufacturing ability, not much."
When asked about the military fatalities, Trump responded that "we feel very badly", adding that those who died were fighting so that Tehran "cannot have a nuclear weapon".
Also on Monday, Iranian state news media reported strikes targeting several locations in the southern port city of Bushehr, home to the country's civilian nuclear plant.
"A few minutes ago, several locations in Bushehr city were hit by [the] American enemy's projectiles," said Bushehr Governor Mohammad Mozaffari, adding that the scope and extent of the strikes are under investigation.
Tehran called on the International Atomic Energy Agency on Sunday to condemn a US attack on its Darkhovin nuclear plant, which is still under construction in the country’s southwest.
Iran's Atomic Energy Organisation denounced the attack as "a clear violation of international law".
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