A rising U.S. military death toll: At least 16 service members have died in the Iran war

BRIDGEWATER, N.J.  — The U.S. military announcement this weekend that two additional service members were killed as part of the war with Iran brings the total number of deaths to 16.

One service member remained missing as of Sunday.

The deaths reflect the complicated reality that American boots don’t need to be on the ground for there to be lethal risks in a conflict that involves drones, missiles and airplanes. American forces are arrayed across the Middle East, making other nations targets of Iran as the fighting has escalated after a breakdown in peace talks.

President Trump has said the war is necessary to stop Iran from developing nuclear weapons. In an interview Sunday with NewsNation, Trump called the latest U.S. military deaths “a very sad thing.”

Previous war deaths

Shortly after the war began Feb. 28, an Iranian drone strike at a civilian port in Kuwait killed six American soldiers. The soldiers were part of a supply and logistics unit based in Iowa who were working at a shipping-container-style building that had no defenses.

A seventh soldier died more than a week after being wounded during a March 1 attack by Iran on the Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia.

Later in March, six service members were killed when a KC-135 refueling aircraft supporting U.S. military operations against Iran crashed in Iraq. The aircraft was in “friendly” airspace when an unspecified incident involving another aircraft took place, according to U.S. Central Command.

On Monday, the U.S. military said a Navy pilot died in a helicopter crash in the Arabian Sea. The Navy initially described the July 1 crash as an emergency landing and said there was “no indication the emergency was caused by hostile action.” The remaining three sailors aboard the helicopter were rescued.

On Saturday, the U.S. Central Command said two service members were killed in Jordan while defending against Iranian ballistic missile and drone attacks. The military said one U.S. service member was missing after the attack.

The military said that as part of the most recent announcement it was withholding additional information, including the names of the deceased, until 24 hours after families had been notified.

Iranian authorities said at least 50 people have been killed and more than 500 wounded in U.S. strikes in the last three weeks, including eight killed in a strike on a bridge Friday. People working on ships, as well as foreign workers and others in gulf nations, Israel and Lebanon have also perished in the conflict.

More than 1,700 Iranian civilians have been killed during the war, as have civilians in other Mideast countries — including 29 in Israel and 4,324 in Lebanon — according to the website Iran War Live.

Boak writes for the Associated Press.