The War Department early Monday released the names of two U.S. soldiers killed last week in an Iranian missile strike on a military installation in Jordan.
Pvt. Isabella Gonzales, 19, of Carrollton, Texas, and 1st Lt. Tyler James Feehan, 25, of Ewa Beach, Hawaii, died following Friday’s attack on Muwaffaq Salti Air Base, located east of Amman, the Pentagon said in a statement.
Authorities had earlier disclosed that a third American service member, whose name has not yet been made public, was killed Saturday in Iraq during the “controlled detonation” of an Iranian drone that had been shot down.
The deaths bring the number of U.S. service members killed since the U.S. and Israel launched Operation Epic Fury on Feb. 28 to 17.
The identification of the fallen soldiers came after a ninth straight night of U.S. airstrikes against Iran, attacks President Trump said were conducted “in honor of the … great patriots.”
“Well, we feel very badly, but you know those great people, those great patriots, were out there fighting that Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon,” Trump told reporters at Joint Base Andrews after returning from Sunday’s World Cup final in New Jersey.
“Iran has been very, very badly damaged. They’ve lost everything almost militarily. They’ve got very little left. They’ve got some missiles. They’ve got some drones. They’ve got some manufacturing ability, not much. We control the Strait [of Hormuz]; they don’t control anything. So we’ll see what happens.”
U.S. Central Command said the most recent strikes hit a range of Iranian military targets, including command centers, air defense and coastal surveillance sites, maritime assets, missile and drone launch locations, and communications networks.
Iran’s state-run IRNA news agency reported that the American strikes killed at least one person around Tabriz, a northwestern city about 325 miles from Tehran that is believed to host underground missile bases run by the paramilitary Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).
At least 50 people have been killed and 517 wounded in the latest rounds of US strikes, according to Tehran authorities.
American strikes likely also hit Bandar Imam Khomeini in Khuzestan province, Sirik and Jask in Hormozgan province and Konarak and Chahbahar in Sistan and Baluchistan province, IRNA reported.
Iran responded Monday by attacking US partner countries throughout the Middle East. Bahrain sounded its missile alert sirens, while Kuwait said its air defense were firing at an incoming Iranian barrage.
Meanwhile, a vessel caught fire early Monday in the Strait of Hormuz after being hit by a projectile near the coast of Oman, the British military’s United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations center said. The crew abandoned the vessel, which was adrift and still ablaze hours later, the UKMTO said.
Despite the escalating hostilities, Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters Sunday that the US remains open to a negotiated settlement with Iran.
“I think we’re always open to diplomacy. It has to be real. It has to be a deal that they’re willing to live by,” Rubio said at Joint Base Andrews. “Look, Iran a week ago was supposed to put out a statement saying that the Straits of Hormuz would be opened and that they would no longer attack shipping.
“And instead of doing that, they attacked three ships. I think that was last Friday or Saturday. So I mean, their behavior has to change in order for ours to change.”
Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmail Baghaei hours later acknowledged that “proposals conveyed through mediators have been communicated to us,” but he declined to elaborate on their substance.
With Post wires
