Defense department says 1Lt Tyler James Feehan of Hawaii and Pvt Isabella Gonzales of Texas were killed
The US military on Monday identified two soldiers killed in action recently as part of the war with Iran.
The defense department said in a statement that 1Lt Tyler James Feehan, 25, of Ewa Beach, Hawaii, and Pvt Isabella Gonzales, 19, of Carrollton, Texas, were killed in Jordan, where they were supporting a US mission against the Islamic State group. It’s unclear how they were killed.
On Saturday, the US Central Command said two service members were killed in Jordan while defending against Iranian ballistic missile and drone attacks.
The US military has said the total number of deaths in the war with Iran, which was started in late February, is 17.
The deaths reflect the complicated reality that US soldiers don’t need to be on the ground in Iran 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.
The latest US military death from the conflict was on Saturday in northern Iraq when an American service member in northern Iraq was killed during a “controlled detonation” of unexploded ordnance from a downed Iranian drone, US Central Command said Sunday. A second service member was wounded and was receiving medical treatment for a minor injury.
The military said it was withholding additional information until 24 hours after families had been notified.
The deaths in the war are not limited to Americans.
Iranian authorities said at least 50 people have been killed and more than 500 wounded in US strikes in the past three weeks, including eight killed in a strike on a bridge on Friday.
People working on ships, as well as foreign workers and others in Gulf nations, Israel and Lebanon have also perished in the conflict.
Donald Trump has said the war in Iran is necessary to stop Iran from developing nuclear weapons. Far from the conflict, the war’s effects on the prices of fuel and other goods have hit some of world’s most vulnerable areas hard.
US-Israel war on Iran