The human cost of the U.S. war with Iran keeps rising. Over the weekend, an American service member was killed in northern Iraq during a controlled detonation of a downed Iranian drone, while troops searching a base in Jordan recovered unidentified remains from an earlier attack that killed two others.
CENTCOM announced Sunday that a U.S. service member was killed on July 18 in northern Iraq while performing a “controlled detonation of unexploded ordnance from a downed Iranian one-way attack drone.” A second service member was wounded and is receiving medical treatment for minor injuries.
The same day, the military announced it had found unidentified human remains at the site of Friday’s Iranian missile and drone attack on a U.S. base in Jordan. One American service member had been listed as missing after that attack, in which two other U.S. troops were killed. An examination is underway to determine whether the remains belong to the missing service member.
The latest deaths bring the total number of U.S. service members killed in the war to 17 since the conflict began with U.S. and Israeli strikes on Feb. 28. More than 430 American troops have been wounded.
The mounting toll has effectively destroyed the interim ceasefire between the U.S. and Iran. After weeks of mutual accusations that each side had violated the agreement, the two countries have resumed full-scale attacks. U.S. forces have now conducted eight consecutive nights of strikes against Iranian targets, while Tehran has launched missiles and drones at American allies across the region.
CENTCOM said the latest U.S. strikes targeted Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, specifically, “Iranian military coastal surveillance and air defense facilities, maritime capabilities and missile and drone storage sites.” The military described the operation as a measure to “swiftly punish” IRGC forces and weaken Iran’s ability to control the Strait of Hormuz.
Iran responded by firing missiles toward Jordan. Jordan’s military said it shot down several of them and summoned Iran’s charge d’affaires to protest. No casualties or damage were reported in Jordan, but the strikes risked widening the conflict. Israel warned its citizens that missiles launched toward the Jordanian port city of Aqaba, just across the border, could spill over into Israeli territory for the first time in weeks.
The deaths, one by Iranian ordnance that had already been shot down, two in a base struck by ballistic missiles, and a fourth service member still unaccounted for, underscore the widening geography of the war. American forces are now taking casualties in Iraq, Jordan, and at sea, while striking targets across Iran.
The war was supposed to be limited. The interim deal reached last month was supposed to produce a permanent ceasefire within 60 days. Halfway through that window, the deal is dead, the fighting has escalated, and the number of American dead is climbing with no end in sight.