President Donald Trump has promised retaliation for every American service member killed in the escalating war with Iran, as the United States launched missiles at Iranian targets for the 10th straight night.
The widening Middle East conflict has claimed the lives of 17 US troops so far, among them First Lieutenant Tyler James Feehan, 25, and Private Isabella Gonzales, 19, who were killed Friday in an attack on an American air base in Jordan.
Another US soldier died Saturday in northern Iraq during the controlled destruction of an unexploded Iranian drone, according to officials. The Pentagon has not yet made that service member’s name public.
US Central Command is also trying to determine whether remains discovered near the badly damaged base in Jordan are those of a fourth service member previously reported missing.
The mounting American casualties have triggered an angry response from Trump.
‘Every time Iran kills an American Soldier they will pay for that killing many times over!’ he wrote Monday evening in a post on Truth Social.
Trump said the order had already been relayed to Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Daniel Caine and “every Leader in the Military.”
Not long after his statement, US Central Command said American forces were carrying out a fresh round of airstrikes against Iranian military targets as part of an effort to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, the critical shipping lane that carries roughly one-fifth of the world’s oil supply.
It said on social media that the latest strikes ‘are designed to further degrade Iranian military capabilities used to attack commercial shipping’ in the strait.
President Donald Trump vowed payback for the deaths of each American soldier killed in the war against Iran on Monday
Private Isabella Gonzales, 19, was one of two American soldiers killed following an attack on an American air base in Jordan on Friday
Trump announced his new ‘directive’ for payback against Iran in a post on his Truth Social page on Monday
Iranian state media later reported that explosions were heard in Bandar Abbas, Chabahar and Konarak on the country’s southern coast, while air defense systems were activated near the Bushehr nuclear power plant.
Previous strikes overnight on Sunday had also targeted Iranian command centers, air defenses, naval assets, coastal surveillance posts and missile, drone and communications sites.
At least one person was killed around Tabiz, a northwestern city about 325 miles from Tehran that is believed to host underground missile bases run by the Islamic Regime’s Revolutionary Guard.
But Iran had also launched explosive-laden suicide drones at critical infrastructure in Kuwait on Monday morning, the Kuwaiti military said.
Iran-backed rebels in Yemen have also said they planned to prevent Saudi Arabia from shipping in the Red Sea, an alternate route for oil exports during the war.
At the same time, the British military’s United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations center said Monday evening that a second ship had been attacked on Sunday in the Strait of Hormuz, off the coast of the United Arab Emirates.
The vessel caught fire in the Strait of Hormuz after being hit by a projectile near the coastline of Oman. The crew abandoned the vessel, which was adrift and still ablaze hours later, the UKMTO said.
The route around Oman has been the one the US military has encouraged ships to travel to avoid Iran’s control. The Guard later claimed it was targeting tankers in the strait.
A statue of Iranian military members stands as vessels in the Strait of Hormuz are visible near the beach of Bandar Abbas, Iran
The US and Iran have been striking each other for more than a week, after the US accused Iran of violating a Memorandum of Understanding to end the war by attacking oil tankers passing through the Persian Gulf.
American forces are now seeking to cripple Tehran’s ability to strike commercial shipping tanks while the US Navy reimposed a blockade on all of the Iranian regime’s ports and seized several of its ships.
‘The US is planning for a wider war,’ said one American official familiar to the Washington Post, noting that the Pentagon was boosting the number of aircraft in the region.
The official cautioned that the expanded operation would be limited because US stocks of air-defense and long-range weapons are running low, and battle damage was restricting how many extra troops and warplanes can be funneled into the region.
The escalation has pushed oil prices higher in recent weeks.
Benchmark Brent crude traded Monday above $88 a barrel and regular gasoline in the US climbed to an average of $4 a gallon, keeping pressure on Americans’ wallets ahead of midterm elections this fall.
This is a breaking news story and will be updated.
