THE WASHINGTON POST: Nearly 100 US troops injured in last two weeks of Iran war, as dead soldiers named

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

The disclosure came as the US military identified two US soldiers who were killed in a fatal attack on Friday night, and after the Trump administration for days declined to detail how many US 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 per cent 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 February 28.

The UK also reported that an “unknown projectile” struck a tanker off the coast of Oman as Iran and the United States exchanged fire over control of the Strait of Hormuz.

The UK Maritime Trade Operations agency said on Tuesday it “received multiple reports that a tanker . . . has been struck by an unknown projectile in the Strait of Hormuz,” adding that the incident occurred 15 kilometres north-east of Limah, Oman.

On Monday evening, The Pentago updated its database to reflect that 18 service members have died and 447 have been injured since the beginning of the war on February 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 US troops dead, one still unidentified, and others wounded at the Muwaffaq Salti Air Base in Jordan.

Iran has launched several significant attacks on US military installations in Jordan in recent days, US 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 brought the number of American troops killed to 18.

Among the latest Iranian attacks were strikes Monday on US military sites hosted by Kuwait and Bahrain, according to a statement by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps publicised by Iranian state media.

The IRGC, Iran’s paramilitary force, said it targeted multiple US military facilities at Kuwait’s Ali Al-Salem Air Base.

Iran also claimed to have struck US drone installations at Bahrain’s Salman Port and Sakhir Air Base, along with American assets at Kuwait’s Camp Arifjan, according to the semi-official Tasnim News Agency, which is associated with the IRGC.

Bahrain’s defence 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 US installations in the Middle East.

One military official familiar with the matter said that since the beginning of military operations on February 28, Iran has launched approximately 8500 drones and missiles at targets across the region.

Of those, approximately 100 have gotten through US and regional partner air defence 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 Defence Command at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, while Gonzales was assigned to the 10th Army Air Missile Defence Command in Ansbach, Germany.

The US military launched another wave of retaliatory strikes against Iran on Monday evening, marking the 10th consecutive day with similar US 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 US Central Command, which oversees operations in the region.

Trump said Sunday that the US 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 per cent at a time when the closure of the Strait of Hormuz has already halted 10 per cent of global oil shipments.

Before the strikes of the past two weeks, the US-Iran ceasefire briefly energised 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 unauthorised. 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, 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 US “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.”