Nearly 100 U.S. troops injured in last two weeks of Iran war, Pentagon says

The Pentagon said Monday that nearly 100 U.S. troops have been injured in the war with Iran over the last two weeks, underscoring the significance of Tehran’s strikes on U.S. military installations across the region since negotiations to end the conflict collapsed.

The disclosure came as the U.S. military identified two U.S. soldiers who were killed in a fatal attack on Friday night, and after the Trump administration for days declined to detail how many U.S. service members have been injured recently. Sean Parnell, a Pentagon spokesman, said on social media that “nearly 100 service members were deemed to have some degree of injury since July 7,” with 96 percent of those since returning to duty.

“They are determined to get back in the fight,” Parnell said of the affected service members. “The vast majority of injuries experienced were minor concussions.”

Parnell said further updates would be posted to an online Pentagon database that was stagnant for days if not weeks, showing 14 troops dead and 427 troops injured since the beginning of the war on Feb. 28. On Monday evening, it was updated to reflect that 18 service members have died and 447 have been injured since the beginning of the war on Feb. 28. It was not clear whether those figures include all recent injuries.

The new tally of those killed in action includes a Friday night attack that left three U.S. troops dead, one still unidentified, and others wounded at the Muwaffaq Salti Air Base in Jordan. Iran has launched several significant attacks on U.S. military installations in Jordan in recent days, U.S. officials said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.

The death of another service member in Iraq on Saturday, bring the number of American troops killed to 18.

Among the latest Iranian attacks were strikes Monday on U.S. military sites hosted by Kuwait and Bahrain, according to a statement by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps publicized by Iranian state media. The IRGC, Iran’s paramilitary force, said it targeted multiple U.S. military facilities at Kuwait’s Ali Al-Salem Air Base.

Iran also claimed to have struck U.S. drone installations at Bahrain’s Salman Port and Sakhir Air Base, along with American assets at Kuwait’s Camp Arifjan, according to the semiofficial Tasnim News Agency, which is associated with the IRGC. Bahrain’s defense forces confirmed they had intercepted multiple rounds of aerial attacks Monday.

Some military officials and experts have expressed concern over the lack of protection at U.S. installations in the Middle East.

One military official familiar with the matter said that since the beginning of military operations on Feb. 28, Iran has launched approximately 8,500 drones and missiles at targets across the region. Of those, approximately 100 have gotten through U.S. and regional partner air defense systems. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters.

The deceased soldiers in the Jordan attack identified on Monday are 1st Lt. Tyler James Feehan, 25, of Ewa Beach, Hawaii, and Pvt. Isabella Gonzales, 19, of Carrollton, Texas, according to a Pentagon statement Monday. Gonzales died the night of the strike, while Feehan died the following day from injuries suffered in the same attack, the Pentagon said.

Feehan served with the 32nd Army Air Missile Defense Command at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, while Gonzales was assigned to the 10th Army Air Missile Defense Command in Ansbach, Germany.

The U.S. military launched another wave of retaliatory strikes against Iran on Monday evening, marking the 10th consecutive day with similar U.S. action. The strikes were launched at President Donald Trump’s direction and are “designed to further degrade Iranian military capabilities used to attack commercial shipping in the Strait of Hormuz,” according to a statement from U.S. Central Command, which oversees operations in the region.

Trump said Sunday that the U.S. strikes on Iran that night were in retribution for the fatal Iranian attack in Jordan. Trump called the deaths “a very sad thing.”

Separately, Yemen’s Iranian-backed Houthi rebels announced Monday a blockade on Saudi Arabia’s oil shipments through the Red Sea’s Bab el-Mandeb Strait, closing off one of the Gulf’s few viable alternatives to the Strait of Hormuz for exporting oil.

If the Houthis were to successfully block the Red Sea route, that would reduce global oil supply by 7 percent at a time when the closure of the Strait of Hormuz has already halted 10 percent of global oil shipments.

Before the strikes of the past two weeks, the U.S.-Iran ceasefire briefly energized hopes that the Strait of Hormuz would be reopened for ship traffic.

Recent days have instead threatened to enlarge the conflict and further drive up oil prices. The IRGC said Monday that two oil tankers had “exploded” and were left disabled after attempting to take a route through the strait that Iran considers to be unauthorized. It was unclear whether the reference was to a similar claim over the weekend.

The average price of gas in the United States hit $4 a gallon Monday, the second time it has reached that mark since the war disrupted global oil supplies, according to AAA data. Gas prices last reached that price on March 31, a month into the war.

The price of oil also briefly rose above $90 a barrel on Monday for the first time since June.

Even as both sides continued to trade strikes, mediators reached out to Tehran with an offer for a 10-day ceasefire.

Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei confirmed in a news conference in Tehran on Monday that messages from Washington had reached Tehran through Qatari intermediaries.

“The diplomatic apparatus has been active in recent days and ideas have been conveyed to us by certain mediators,” Baqaei said, according to Agence France-Presse, but declined to go into the details of the ceasefire offer.

Baqaei blamed Washington for the recent escalation, adding that Iran held “no hostility” toward regional states but expected them to prevent their territory from being used for attacks against it.

The U.S. “always remains open to a diplomatic solution,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters earlier on Sunday. But, he added, “it’s growing apparent that even within their own system, there’s a growing split.”

Tara Copp contributed to this report.