Military Times spoke with several national security specialists, defense analysts and foreign policy pundits who warned that the U.S. military’s finite interceptor stockpile could be strained and potentially exhausted if the ever-changing projected timeline of Operation Epic Fury depletes a resource that cannot be replenished at the scale and pace of war.

“You can’t replace those kinds of missiles overnight,” said Kelly Grieco, a senior fellow at the Stimson Center, a nonpartisan Washington think tank. “It would take years.”

The U.S. currently employs several systems designed to destroy incoming missiles and drones, including the Patriot missile defense system, Aegis Combat System (SM-3/SM-6) and Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) anti-ballistic missile systems.

As of December 2025, the Missile Defense Agency’s arsenal of SM-3s was 414 and the number of THAAD interceptors was 534, according to the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Conversely, the Pentagon was receiving nearly 270 Patriot Advanced Capability-3 Missile Segment Enhancement per year since 2015.

That number has begun to climb, meanwhile, with Lockheed Martin in January agreeing to a seven-year deal with the U.S. government to produce approximately 2,000 PAC-3 missiles per year.

“Lockheed Martin is well-positioned to fulfill this agreement, having recently increased PAC-3 MSE production by more than 60% over the past two years,” the company announced in January. “In 2025, Lockheed Martin delivered more than 600 PAC-3 MSEs, a 20% increase from the previous year.”

But SM-3s and THAADS, known as ballistic missile defense unique interceptors, are the most adept at air-defense against incoming munitions, according to CSIS. As a result, they cost more and take longer to manufacture.

Though the exact number of interceptors used by the U.S. military during the first six days of Operation Epic Fury has not been released by the Defense Department, Grieco said it was likely not an insignificant amount, stressing that the resource was limited.

The U.S. likely used between 100 and 150 THAAD interceptors and 80 SM-3s in support of Israel during its Twelve-Day War with Iran and an unknown number of Patriot interceptors in Qatar to defend Al Udeid Air Base from Iranian attacks, according to CSIS.

More than 150 THAAD interceptors would equate to roughly 30% of the THAAD stockpile, which is “concerning,” CSIS said.

If the U.S. used interceptors during the current Iran war at the same rate it did during the Twelve-Day War, it would use half of its entire interceptor stockpile in four to five weeks, according to Grieco.

Israeli officials assessed that Iran possessed 1,500 missiles and 200 launchers at the end of that war, according to Iran Watch, a website published by The Wisconsin Project on Nuclear Arms Control that tracks Iran’s missile capabilities.

Their capabilities grew in the months that followed, with Iran reportedly possessing roughly 2,500 projectiles as of March 1.

But if the U.S. does dip that far into their interceptor stockpile, it would likely require interceptors from other theaters to be moved to CENTCOM, stripping U.S. military assets bare in those other areas of operations.

If the Iran war bled into multiple months and the U.S. interceptor usage rate was similar to that of the 12-day war, the U.S. could hypothetically deplete its entire interceptor stockpile, Grieco said.

Vance insists Trump won’t ‘allow’ a long Iran war

Before that would even happen, however, U.S. military forces would have to transition away from attempting to intercept everything.

Resources stretched thin

Six U.S. service members died Sunday when their makeshift operations center at a civilian port in Kuwait was struck by a suicide drone.

The missed opportunity for air-defense was the result of interceptor resources being stressed, said Daniel Shapiro, a fellow at the Atlantic Council who served in the Obama administration as the U.S. ambassador to Israel for six years.

“If there was nothing deployed, that obviously contributed because what resources we had, had to be deployed elsewhere,” Shapiro said. “If it was deployed, it was unsuccessful.”

In addition to the PAC-3 production contract, the Defense Department reached an agreement with Lockheed Martin in January to quadruple the yearly production of THAAD interceptors from 96 to 400.

But this isn’t something that will happen instantaneously. The PAC-3 agreement, for instance, is slated to ramp up over a span of seven years.

At this time, the U.S. military cannot immediately increase the number of interceptors by a vast margin.

“The Department of Defense is really good, but magic is still not one of its capabilities,” Grieco said.

The Trump administration is scrambling to replenish munitions resources and will host a meeting Friday with Lockheed Martin, RTX, L3Harris and other defense firm executives to discuss an uptick in missile systems production to replenish munitions used in the Iran war.

Stress on resources could also factor into the timeline for the conflict.

A dwindling amount of interceptors may have led to the end of the Twelve-Day War, according to Shapiro. So many interceptors were used during that time that the U.S. and Israel were approaching interceptor inventory strain, he noted.

“My understanding was that had the conflict continued for another few days or another week or so, it could have become critical,” Shapiro said.

The volume of ballistic missiles Iran has fired from the first day of Operation Epic Fury has decreased by 90%, CENTCOM commander Adm. Brad Cooper said during a media briefing at MacDill Air Force Base Thursday. Iranian drone attacks had also decreased by 83% since day one, he added.

The drop in Iran’s rate of firing projectiles possibly means that the U.S. offensive against Iranian missile capabilities and missile storage facilities is working. At this time, however, that remains unclear.

Dr. Sanam Vakil, director of the Middle East and North Africa Program at Chatham House, said during an Atlantic Council Thursday roundtable that the calculus regarding Iran was unknown.

“Certainly on day six, it looks like its capability to launch missiles is maybe reduced, but it could also be deliberate,” Vakil said. “Iran is prepared for a longer war than I think the U.S. administration clearly calculated for.”

Iran could either be conserving missiles to distract with multiple attacks in different domains or preparing for a military campaign that will come in waves, she said, or both.

Who can outlast?

The question is whether Iran can continue its barrage of ballistic missiles and drones and outlast the interceptor stockpile the U.S. has.

The Pentagon continues to provide assurances that Iran is not capable of this feat.

“We’ve got no shortage of munitions,” Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said at MacDill Air Force Base Thursday.

Cooper said U.S. combat power continues to escalate while Iran’s is in decline.

And Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan Caine, who spoke at a Pentagon briefing Wednesday, addressed concerns regarding specific U.S. munitions shortages.

Senate Republicans vote down legislation to halt Iran war

“We have sufficient precision munitions for the task at hand, both on the offense and defense,” Caine said. “But I want to tell you, teammates, as a matter of practice, I don’t want to be talking about quantities.”

Despite the confidence military officials have projected, Hegseth and Caine reportedly admitted during a briefing with lawmakers Tuesday that Iran’s Shahed drones presented a problem for interceptors because they fly at a low altitude and can evade air defense systems, according to CNN.

And Iran has no shortage of the unmanned aerial vehicles — reportedly producing 10,000 per month, according to Reuters.

The drones are also cheap to manufacture, costing between $20,000 and $50,000, according to Open Source Munitions Portal, an online munitions archive run by a non-profit watchdog.

Contrast the $35,000 average cost of an Iranian Shahed drone with an estimated $4 million price tag of a PAC-3, and the cost exchange is 114-1 in favor of Iran.

Aside from missile math, the unknown timeline for Operation Epic Fury also factors in.

President Trump said this week that the military campaign could last four to five weeks, but that the U.S. had the capabilities to go far longer than that.

Hegseth, during a Pentagon briefing Wednesday, implied that the war could stretch up to two months, but reiterated the president’s point that the U.S. has enough munitions and equipment to beat Iran.

A U.S. CENTCOM memo obtained by Politico, meanwhile, detailed that the Pentagon was requesting military intelligence officers to be sent to its headquarters “to support operations against Iran for at least 100 days but likely through September.”

“The question is which clock will run first,” said Mohammed Soliman, a senior fellow at the Washington think tank the Middle East Institute.

Soliman said that any boots on the ground, including Kurdish allies, has the potential to prolong the conflict, leading to potential U.S. interceptor depletion.

Shortly after Military Times spoke with Soliman, reports emerged that pro-American, Iranian Kurdish forces had been supplied with arms by the CIA and were preparing to attack Iran.

The stress on the interceptor stockpile also depended on the endgame, according to Shalom Lipner, senior fellow at the Atlantic Council who served for over 25 years in the prime minister’s office in Jerusalem.

“It’s a race of attrition between the two sides to see who can get over the finish line before the other,” Lipner said.

Sen. Mark Kelly, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, raised concerns over the lopsided interceptor expenses during an interview with CNN.

“We can deal with some of this, but if they have more offensive assets than we have defensive, we get into trouble here possibly really quickly if our magazine depth goes to zero and they can then shoot these things freely around the region,” Kelly said.

The United States launched Operation Epic Fury on Feb. 28, killing Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei during the initial attack, leaving a vacuum of power that has yet to be filled, though Khamenei’s son is an early favorite to succeed him.

The Trump administration has laid out select objectives for the operation, including the decimation of Iran’s missile capabilities, navy and its nuclear program.

On Tuesday, Cooper announced on X that the U.S. military had struck nearly 2,000 targets, with more than 2,000 munitions. In retaliation, Cooper noted, Iran has launched over 500 ballistic missiles and over 2,000 drones.

The admiral added Thursday that the U.S. has destroyed 30 Iranian navy vessels, including one off the coast of Sri Lanka — in the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command area of responsibility — that was the result of the first U.S. Navy submarine torpedo kill since World War II.

A total of 50,000 U.S. troops, 200 fighter jets, two aircraft carriers and bombers are currently stationed in the theatre, with personnel and ordnance reinforcement on their way, Cooper said.

Hegseth reiterated that during the press conference Thursday, saying the amount of firepower surrounding Iran is about to “surge dramatically.”

“We’ve only just begun to fight, and fight decisively,” he said.

“This is what the fake news misses,” Hegseth said at a Pentagon briefing Wednesday, in which he also avowed that the United States was “winning decisively” in its battle against the Islamic Republic.

“But when a few drones get through, or tragic things happen, it’s front-page news,” he said, adding, “I get it – the press only wants to make the president look bad. But try for once to report the reality."

The six fallen soldiers were the first American casualties in the new war. The fatalities came one day after the U.S. launched Operation Epic Fury.

Pentagon names 5th soldier killed by Iran drone strike, 6th is ‘believed to be’ ID’d

In a statement to Military Times, Rep. Eugene Vindman, D-Va., a 25-year Army veteran, called Hegseth’s remarks “disgusting and despicable.”

“Six brave Americans lost their lives in uniform. Their sacrifice deserves honor,” Vindman said. “Instead, the Secretary of Defense is worried about how their deaths make the president look. That is a grievous insult to every service member who has worn the uniform. As a 25-year Army veteran who served in Iraq, I am appalled.”

Sen. Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill., who lost both legs while serving as a U.S. Army helicopter pilot in the Iraq War, told Military Times, “Our men and women in uniform will always show up and execute to the highest levels of professionalism and capabilities. Unfortunately, their Commander-in-Chief is not capable of doing that, and their Secretary of Defense is not capable of it either.”

And Sen. Mark Kelly, D-Ariz., a retired Navy Captain, wrote in a post on X, “There is nothing more sacred than the lives of our service members. They deserve a president and a Secretary of Defense who respect their service and sacrifice.”

The service members were killed when an Iranian drone struck a makeshift operations center in Port Shuaiba, Kuwait. The drone reportedly slipped past American defenses without triggering any alerts and exploded at a military base that appeared unusually exposed and vulnerable – raising questions about the security of U.S. forces across the Middle East. The incident is under investigation, the Army said in a statement.

The Pentagon identified the slain soldiers as Maj. Jeffrey O’Brien, 45, of Indianola, Iowa; Sgt. Declan Coady, 20, of West Des Moines, Iowa; Sgt. 1st Class Nicole Amor, 39, of White Bear Lake, Minnesota; Capt. Cody Khork, 35, of Winter Haven, Florida; and Sgt. 1st Class Noah Tietjens, 42, of Bellevue, Nebraska.

Chief Warrant Officer 3 Robert Marzan, 54, of Sacramento, California, is “believed to be” the sixth individual to die at the scene, according to the Pentagon.

Trump expressed condolences for the fallen service members Sunday, while acknowledging the American death toll was likely to rise amid the ongoing conflict.

“As one nation, we grieve for the true American patriots who have made the ultimate sacrifice for our nation, even as we continue the righteous mission for which they gave their lives,” Trump said in a video shared on Truth Social. “Sadly, there will likely be more, before it ends. That’s the way it is.”

The White House said the president will attend the dignified transfer of the troops’ remains when they arrive at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware.

The Landstuhl Regional Medical Center, located near Ramstein Air Base in Germany, is temporarily referring some labor and delivery patients to other hospitals within the local community, hospital officials told Military Times on Thursday.

The medical center sent a notice about the halt in those services to Landstuhl patients through a Tuesday memorandum that circulated on the unofficial Air Force amn/nco/snco Facebook page.

“Our staff is in direct contact with impacted patients to provide additional information and facilitate a smooth transition to our healthcare partners,” center officials told Military Times in a statement.

The memo states that the closure of labor and delivery is due to the hospital’s “primary objective.”

Although the memo doesn’t elaborate on what that objective is, the hospital’s primary role in critical combat care is to treat patients that are injured during training or combat operations throughout Europe, Africa and the Middle East, according to the hospital’s website.

During the ongoing U.S. military operations in Iran, the hospital is expected to continue its role in combat care.

Six U.S. service members were killed in an attack by Iran on Sunday in Port Shuaiba, Kuwait. Others have been listed as “seriously wounded” by U.S. Central Command as Iran continues to strike U.S. military installations across the Middle East following the joint U.S.-Israeli attack.

CENTCOM said Monday that 18 troops were wounded thus far, a large increase from the five reported over the weekend.

Officials did not detail the extent of the injuries or whether the wounded service members were taken to any military hospitals in Germany or the U.S.

Landstuhl is the largest American medical facility outside the U.S., the only American College of Surgeons-verified level II trauma center overseas and the only U.S. trauma center associated with a foreign trauma network, according to a 2023 U.S. Army release on the center’s 70th anniversary.

The hospital will continue to see labor and delivery patients for prenatal appointments until 36 weeks, according to the memo, and patients that are further along than 36 weeks are urged to contact the hospital about what steps to take next.

The hospital’s labor and delivery unit utilizes nurses, midwives, obstetricians and medical technicians throughout a patient’s birth experience, according to its website.

Hospital officials told Military Times that patients are encouraged to contact the medical center’s patient advocate with questions they may have regarding their care.

“The decision-making occurred at a very high level and we are saddened we cannot provide your care,” the memo reads.

Hospital officials declined to comment on which office made the decision.

There is no current timeline for when labor and delivery services will resume, per the memo.

Maj. Jeffrey R. O’Brien, 45, of Indianola, Iowa, has been identified, the Pentagon announced Wednesday. He was assigned to the 103rd Sustainment Command out of Des Moines, Iowa.

Chief Warrant Officer 3 Robert M. Marzan, 54, of Sacramento, California, “is believed to be the individual who perished at the scene,” according to a Pentagon statement.

“Positive identification of Chief Warrant Officer 3 Marzan will be completed by the medical examiner,” the release added. Marzan was also assigned to the 103rd Sustainment Command.

The Pentagon released the identities of the two soldiers one day after naming four other service members who were killed in the attack.

Capt. Cody A. Khork, 35, Sgt. 1st Class Noah L. Tietjens, 42, Sgt. 1st Class Nicole M. Amor, 39, and Sgt. Declan J. Coady, 20, died on March 1. All four soldiers were assigned to the 103rd Sustainment Command in Des Moines, Iowa.

“We honor our fallen heroes, who served fearlessly and selflessly in defense of our nation,” Lt. Gen. Robert Harter, chief of Army Reserve and commanding general of U.S. Army Reserve Command, said in a release. “Their sacrifice, and the sacrifices of their families, will never be forgotten.”

U.S. Central Command officials announced Sunday that three service members were killed in action and five troops were “seriously wounded” during combat actions against Iran.

On Monday officials said a fourth service member seriously wounded during Iran’s initial attacks succumbed to their injuries. Later that day officials stated U.S. forces recovered the remains of two “previously unaccounted for” troops from a facility struck during Iran’s initial attacks, bringing the total number of service members killed in the operation to six as of Monday, according to a CENTCOM update.

Several other troops “sustained minor shrapnel injuries and concussions — and are in the process of being returned to duty,” CENTCOM officials said Sunday.

“To the families and teammates of these Cactus Nation soldiers: you have my deepest sympathy and my respect,” Maj. Gen. Todd Erskine, commanding general, 79th Theater Sustainment Command, said in the release. “Our nation is kept safe by folks like these — brave men and women who put it all on the line every single day. They represent the heart of America. We will remember their names, their service, and their sacrifice.”

O’Brien’s awards and decorations include the Army Achievement Medal, Meritorious Unit Commendation, Army Superior Unit Award, Army Reserve Component Achievement Medal, National Defense Service Medal, Global War on Terrorism Expeditionary Medal, Army Service Ribbon and the Armed Forces Reserve Medal with “M” Device

Iran has unleashed retaliatory strikes at U.S. military installations and civilian infrastructure across the Middle East amid ongoing bombardment by U.S. and Israeli forces.

The assault by U.S. and partner forces began Saturday at 1:15 a.m., CENTCOM officials stated, with the goal of knocking out “the Iranian regime’s security apparatus, prioritizing locations that posed an imminent threat.”

Among the primary targets of the operation were Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps command-and-control facilities, Iranian air defense capabilities, missile and drone launch sites and military airfields.

The United States has spared “no expense or capability” to enhance air defense systems to protect American forces and allies in the Middle East, Hegseth told reporters at the Pentagon days after the U.S. and Israel attacked Iran in a war that has widened throughout the region.

“This does not mean we can stop everything, but we ensured that the maximum possible defense and maximum possible force protection was set up before we went on offense,” he said.

The acknowledgment that additional drone or missile strikes in the region could cause damage and harm to troops comes as President Donald Trump and top defense leaders have warned that more American casualties were expected in a conflict that began Saturday and could last months.

On Wednesday, the Trump administration revealed that a U.S. submarine fired a torpedo that sank an Iranian warship in the Indian Ocean.

‘The risk is still high’ to American troops

U.S. service members “remain in harm’s way, and we must be clear-eyed that the risk is still high,” Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said at the news conference with Hegseth.

Six soldiers were killed when an Iranian drone strike hit an operations center Sunday in the heart of a civilian port in Kuwait, more than 10 miles from the main Army base. The husband of one of the slain soldiers, who was part of a supply and logistics unit based in Iowa, says the center was a shipping container-style building and had no defenses.

Caine declined to answer a question about the possibility of deploying ground troops in Iran, which Trump has not ruled out.

“I’m not going to comment on U.S. boots on the ground,” Caine said. “I think that’s a question for policymakers. And I don’t make policy, I execute policy.”

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters that it was “not part of the plan for this operation at this time” but noted that “I’m not going to remove an option for the president that is on the table.”

Hegseth suggests conflict could last up to 2 months

Hegseth also signaled a possible longer time frame for the conflict than has previously been floated by the administration, saying it could last eight weeks but that the U.S. has the munitions and the equipment to beat Iran in a war of attrition. He declined to set a specific time range, saying the specific duration of the war would depend on how it unfolds.

“You can say four weeks, but it could be six, it could be eight, it could be three,” Hegseth said. “Ultimately, we set the pace and the tempo. The enemy is off balance, and we’re going to keep them off balance.”

More forces are arriving in the region, including jet fighters and bombers, Hegseth said, and the U.S. “will take all the time we need to make sure that we succeed.”

Hegseth and Caine say US forces have enough munitions

Supplies of weaponry are not an issue, Hegseth and Caine said, with the defense secretary noting that the military used more advanced weapons at the start of the campaign but was switching to gravity bombs now that the U.S. has gained control of the Iranian sky. Stockpiles of the advanced weapons remain “extremely strong,” Hegseth said.

Caine said U.S. attacks on Iranian missile sites and other offensive targets have been successful enough that forces can strike deeper inland, allowing for the shift from sophisticated weapons that can be launched from far away to more traditional, precision bombs dropped by aircraft.

Caine said the U.S. has “sufficient precision munitions for the task at hand, both on the offense and defense.” He noted that the military would not be releasing quantities, citing operational security.

“Our air defenses and that of our allies have plenty of runway,” Hegseth said. “We can sustain this fight easily for as long as we need to.”

Trump said this week the campaign is likely to last four weeks to five weeks but he was prepared “to go far longer than that.”

The number of ballistic missiles fired by Iran is down 86% from the first day of the U.S. military’s campaign, with a 23% drop in the past 24 hours, Caine said Wednesday, and Iran’s use of one-way attack drones is down 73% from the opening days. The decrease could indicate that Iran is holding some weapons in reserve to prolong the conflict.

Americans scramble to depart the Mideast

The administration promoted its efforts to help Americans depart the region. It abruptly advised those in 14 countries to leave immediately even as the threat of missiles and drones closed airspace in the region and caused widespread flight cancellations.

The State Department said it has assisted nearly 6,500 Americans since the start of the war and was working to arrange charter flights or other transportation. Caine said the military has opened up available seats as military transport planes arrive “to try to help folks get out.”

The State Department said more than 17,500 Americans have returned to the United States from the Middle East since Saturday, including more than 8,500 on Tuesday alone, although it acknowledged that the vast majority of those used commercial transportation without any government assistance.

Sailors aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln marked the ordnances they helped prepare for the mission, according to recent photos posted by the U.S. Central Command. Task & Purpose senior editor Matt White was first to notice the trend.

The photos show ordnances — which appear to be GBU-31s, a 2,000-pound class Joint Direct Attack Munition — being staged on Feb. 28 by red-vested aviation ordnancemen prior to being loaded onto strike fighter aircraft in support of Operation Epic Fury, according to CENTCOM photos.

It is unclear if the ordnancemen seen in the photos are those with their names on the bombs.

On the tails, noses and sides of the bombs, names and messages are scribbled in chalk and marker.

While visible names include “Jose,” “Alex,” “Naomi,” “Joey” messages written in smaller script and on the tails are less visible.

But messages of bravado inscribed on bombs, missiles and other munitions are nothing new.

A lead sling bullet, now housed at The British Museum, can be seen with the tongue-in-cheek inscription of DEXAI or “Catch!” in Greek.

Historian John McCaul in "On Inscribed Sling-Bullets," notes that slings and lead bullets were frequently employed during sieges with town names and deities also inscribed on the projectiles.

The more ironic ones have stood the test of time, with zingers like the one found near the city of Argos, Greece, with the inscription “Bite it in vain” — aka the ancient equivalent to the idiom “This is a hard nut to crack.”

In 1945, the atomic bomb “Fat Man” was dropped by the U.S. at Nagasaki, Japan, and photos of its assembly show that names and messages were etched into the atomic bomb by people involved in its creation. Norman Ramsey, a physicist and member of the Manhattan Project, can be seen signing his name on “Fat Man” prior to its polar cap being placed on.

Photos from the National Museum of the U.S. Navy shows messages on the atomic bomb, like “Here’s to you” and “Lots of love.”

This action can be seen throughout history and is still prevalent today for many countries’ military members.

In 2015, Jordanian pilots used chalk to write messages on missiles headed for Syria vowing to eliminate the Islamic State. The messages included quotes from the Quran and statements meant for its target: “For you, the enemies of Islam,” according to BBC reporting at the time.

More recently, Ukrainian artillerymen have been writing messages on rockets, mortar shells or explosive drones used during the war in Ukraine as a way to symbolically voice their anger. Charity groups and even the military itself have capitalized on this idea by using this as a way to raise funds, per New York Times reporting.

While such expressions may appear infantile bordering on the obscene, the impulse to personalize weapons of war taps into, according to an American pilot who served in Vietnam, “the very primitive magical notion that, once you have named something, you have control over it.”

Video released Wednesday shows the next-gen munitions being launched in open desert terrain from M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems as part of Operation Epic Fury. The operation against Iran has seen a variety of precision munitions launched from land, sea and air, according to CENTCOM.

“I just could not be prouder of our men and women in uniform leveraging innovation to create dilemmas for the enemy,” Adm. Brad Cooper, CENTCOM commander, said in a release.

The PrSM is enhanced with GPS capabilities to navigate in flight and can accurately strike targets from around 250 miles away. Its warhead is designed to deliver a fragmentation effect when it explodes, increasing power on impact. The missile, meanwhile, is reportedly built to withstand turbulent in-flight conditions.

The PrSM is among a wide array of advanced technological assets the U.S. military has deployed during its ongoing operations in Iran.

Other notable weapon deployments in the ongoing conflict include Patriot Interceptor Missile Systems and THAAD Anti-Ballistic Missile Systems. LUCAS one-way attack drones were also used for the first time in combat by the U.S. Special Operations Command-led Task Force Scorpion Strike.

Specific details about the targets engaged by the PrSMs have not been provided as of publication.

Prior to its combat debut, the U.S. Army was working with Lockheed Martin to ramp up production capacity for the munition, Defense News reported last October.

The Army tested its short-range and long-range capabilities on White Sands Missile Range in April and September of last year. Tests saw the munitions fired from HIMARS systems as well as the M270A2 Multiple Launch Rocket System, or MLRS.

Operation Epic Fury has seen over 2,000 military targets across Iran destroyed, the Pentagon said, including a naval frigate that was sunk in the first torpedo kill by a U.S. Navy submarine since World War II.

U.S. Southern Command said in a statement late Tuesday that Ecuadorian and U.S. military forces had launched “operations against Designated Terrorist Organizations in Ecuador,” calling the actions a “powerful example of the commitment of partners in Latin America and the Caribbean to combat the scourge of narco-terrorism.”

A 30-second video accompanying a post on X showed a helicopter flying over a group of men walking on the ground, but the footage stops without revealing the following steps.

“We are taking decisive action to confront narco-terrorists who have long inflicted terror, violence, and corruption on citizens throughout the hemisphere,” the post added, without providing other details of the operation.

Ecuador’s foreign and defense ministries did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Associated Press. The operation was not mentioned Wednesday at the Pentagon briefing, which was focused on Iran.

The announcement comes after Ecuadorian President Daniel Noboa revealed earlier this week that his government has initiated a new phase in the fight against organized crime with joint actions alongside allied countries, as Ecuador faces a sustained wave of violence linked to crimes such as drug trafficking and illegal mining.

“Ecuador demands security, our people need to live in peace,” said Noboa, adding that military and police forces will be involved in the operations he described as “very important.”

Ecuador maintains good relations with the United States, Israel and Italy, among others, often collaborating on security issues.

In February, Noboa ordered the foreign ministry to seek cooperation agreements with “allied nations” that would allow “the incorporation of special forces” on a temporary basis as support for the Ecuadorian police and armed forces.

Authorities identify Ecuador as a critical logistical hub in the global drug trade, where drugs — particularly cocaine — are stockpiled, stored and distributed, especially from the northern border with Colombia.

The shipments are transported from its ports to Central America, the United States and Europe.

“Iran tried to kill President Trump, and President Trump got the last laugh,” Hegseth declared during a press briefing with reporters. “This is not a ‘mission accomplished’ situation. This is simply a reality check.”

Iranian animus toward Trump traces back to his first term, when he authorized a January 2020 drone strike that killed General Qasem Soleimani, a powerful commander in the Quds Force. Since then, federal prosecutors have charged multiple people in two separate cases of Iranian murder-for-hire plots during the 2024 presidential campaign, though officials have not presented evidence directly tying Tehran to those schemes.

Hegseth did not name the alleged mastermind he said was killed in the ongoing operations.

In an interview Sunday, Trump addressed how the threats to his life spurred his decision to wage war on Iran and kill the country’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

“I got him before he got me,” Trump said in a phone interview with ABC News. “They tried twice. Well, I got him first.”

Khamenei, who led the Islamic Republic since 1989, was killed Saturday by Israel in a joint operation with the U.S. It was the result of months of close intelligence sharing between the allies, officials told Military Times.

Hegseth described the broader U.S.-Israeli campaign against Iran on Wednesday as “accelerating.” He indicated the two nations will establish complete control of Iranian airspace within days.

“It means we will fly all day, all night, day and night, finding, fixing, and finishing the missiles and defense industrial base of the Iranian military,” Hegseth said. “More and larger waves are coming. We are accelerating, not decelerating.”

Hegseth dismissed reports that stocks of munitions were running low, noting that the U.S. will deploy 500-pound, 1,000-pound and 2,000-pound GPS and laser-guided precision bombs “of which we have a nearly unlimited stockpile.”

As U.S. and Israeli forces advance their offensive, Iran has launched a series of retaliatory missile and drone strikes on American interests and allies across the Middle East.

US troops who died in Iran war remembered as devoted parents and soldiers

American military installations — including the U.S. Fifth Fleet headquarters in Bahrain, Ali Al Salem Air Base in Kuwait, Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar and Al Dhafra Air Base in the United Arab Emirates — have been targeted by the Islamic Republic.

But Gen. Dan Caine, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Wednesday that Iranian ballistic missile launches have decreased 86% since the opening day of fighting, including a 23% drop over the past 24 hours. He added that Iran’s one-way attack drones are down 73%.

The Pentagon also disclosed that a torpedo from a U.S. submarine sank an Iranian warship in the Indian Ocean Tuesday night – marking the first sinking of an enemy warship by an American torpedo since World War II.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth confirmed the strike during a Pentagon press briefing on Operation Epic Fury alongside Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan Caine.

“Yesterday, in the Indian Ocean ... an American submarine sunk an Iranian warship that thought it was safe in international waters,” Hegseth said. “Instead, it was sunk by a torpedo. Quiet death. The first sinking of an enemy ship by a torpedo since World War II.”

The identity of the fast-attack boat was not revealed, as is custom for operational security surrounding submarine operations.

The strike occurred off the southern coast of Sri Lanka, according to Reuters, which would indicate the action occurred in the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command area of responsibility.

The IRIS Dena, a Moudge-class frigate assigned to the Southern Fleet of the Islamic Republic of Iran Navy, was in the region after reportedly taking part in a naval drill in the Bay of Bengal.

Sri Lankan Foreign minister Vijitha Herath said 180 people were on board the IRIS Dena. Thirty-two people were subsequently rescued by Sri Lankan naval personnel.

Commander Buddhika Sampath, a Sri Lankan navy spokesman, said the rescue effort was also recovering bodies from the scene.

“For the first time since 1945, a United States Navy fast attack submarine has sunk an enemy combatant ship using a single Mk-48 torpedo to achieve immediate effect, sending the warship to the bottom of the sea,” Caine said during the press briefing Wednesday.

“This is an incredible demonstration of America’s global reach. To hunt, find and kill an out-of-area deployer is something that only the United States can do at this type of scale.”

Caine added that, to date, the U.S. has hit over 2,000 total targets across Iran and destroyed more than 20 of the Islamic Republic’s naval vessels.

The campaign has “effectively neutralized, at this point in time, Iran’s major naval presence in theater,” he said.

Strikes on infrastructure and naval capability by the vast assembly of U.S. forces in the region are expected to continue over the next 24 to 48 hours, Caine noted.

“We’ll continue to assess our progress against the military objectives,” he said.

“She was almost home,” her husband, Joey Amor, said from their home in White Bear Lake, Minnesota, on Tuesday. “You don’t go to Kuwait thinking something’s going to happen, and for her to be one of the first – it hurts.”

Amor was one of four U.S. soldiers killed in the Iran war on Sunday and identified Tuesday by the Pentagon; two soldiers haven’t yet been publicly identified. The members of the Army Reserve worked in logistics and kept troops supplied with food and equipment.

They died just one day after the U.S. and Israel launched its military campaign against Iran. Iran responded by launching missiles and drones against Israel and several Gulf Arab states that host U.S. armed forces.

Those killed also included Capt. Cody Khork, 35, of Winter Haven, Florida; Sgt. 1st Class Noah Tietjens, 42, of Bellevue, Nebraska; and Sgt. Declan Coady, 20, of West Des Moines, lowa, who was posthumously promoted from specialist. No other names were released.

“These men and women all bravely volunteered to defend our country, and their sacrifice will never be forgotten,” Army Secretary Daniel Driscoll said.

All were assigned to the 103rd Sustainment Command, which provides food, fuel, water and ammunition, transport equipment and supplies.

“Sadly, there will likely be more, before it ends. That’s the way it is,” President Donald Trump said of deaths.

One of the youngest in his class

Coady had just told his father last week that he had been recommended for a promotion from specialist to sergeant, a rank he received posthumously.

He was one of the youngest people in his class but seemed to impress his instructors, his father Andrew Coady said Tuesday.

“He was very good at what he did,” he said.

Coady trained as an information technology specialist with the Army Reserves and was studying cybersecurity at Drake University in Des Moines. He was taking online classes while in Kuwait and wanted to become an officer.

“I still don’t fully think it’s real,” his sister Keira Coady said. “I just remember all of our conversations about what he was going to do when he came back.”

A mother of two who loved gardening

Amor, 39, was an avid gardener who enjoyed making salsa from the peppers and tomatoes in her garden with her son, a senior in high school. She also enjoyed rollerblading and bicycling with her fourth-grade daughter.

A week before the drone attack, Amor was moved off-base to a shipping container-style building that had no defenses, Joey Amor said.

“They were dispersing because they were in fear that the base they were on was going to get attacked and they felt it was safer in smaller groups in separate places,” he said.

He last spoke to her about two hours before she was killed. He said she was working long shifts and they had been messaging about her tripping and falling the night before.

“She just never responded in the morning,” he said.

A calling to serve his country

Khork was very patriotic and drawn from a young age to serving the U.S., his family said in a statement Tuesday.

He enlisted in the Army Reserve and joined Florida Southern College’s ROTC program.

“That commitment helped shape the course of his life and reflected the deep sense of duty that was always at the core of who he was,” said his mother, Donna Burhans, father, James Khork, and stepmother, Stacey Khork, in a statement.

Khork also loved history and had a degree in political science.

His family described him as “the life of the party, known for his infectious spirit, generous heart, and deep care for those who served alongside him and for everyone blessed to know him.”

One of Khork’s friends, Abbas Jaffer, posted on Facebook on Monday that he had lost the best person he had ever known.

“My best friend, best man, and brother gave his life defending our country overseas,” Jaffer said. Khork and Jaffer had been friends for more than 16 years.

A loving father and husband

Tietjens lived with his family in the Omaha suburb of Bellevue, Nebraska. He was married with a son, according to a Facebook page.

Tietjens earned a black belt in Philippine Combatives and Taekwondo and was “an instructor who gave his time, discipline, and leadership to others,” the Philippine Martial Arts Alliance said in a Facebook post.

On the mat and as a soldier, “he carried the same values: honor, discipline, service, and commitment to others,” the organization said.

Nebraska Gov. Gov. Pillen paid tribute to the family Tuesday.

“Noah stepped up to serve and defend the American people from foreign enemies around the world — a sacrifice we must never forget," he wrote.

“We are holding the Tietjens family close in our hearts during this unbelievably difficult time and will keep them in our prayers,” he said.

Capt. Cody A. Khork, 35, of Winter Haven, Florida.; Sgt. 1st Class Noah L. Tietjens, 42, of Bellevue, Nebraska; Sgt. 1st Class Nicole M. Amor, 39, of White Bear Lake, Minnesota; and Sgt. Declan J. Coady, 20, of West Des Moines, Iowa, died on March 1, 2026, in Port Shuaiba, Kuwait, according to a DOD release.

The soldiers, who were assigned to the 103rd Sustainment Command in Des Moines, Iowa, were killed during an attack by an unmanned aircraft, the release added.

The incident is currently under investigation.

“We honor our fallen heroes, who served fearlessly and selflessly in defense of our nation,” Lt. Gen. Robert Harter, chief of Army Reserve and commanding general of U.S. Army Reserve Command, said in a release. “Their sacrifice, and the sacrifices of their families, will never be forgotten.”

U.S. Central Command officials announced Sunday that three service members were killed in action and five troops were “seriously wounded” during combat actions against Iran.

On Monday officials said a fourth service member seriously wounded during Iran’s initial attacks succumbed to their injuries. Later that day officials stated U.S. forces recovered the remains of two “previously unaccounted for” troops from a facility struck during Iran’s initial attacks, bringing the total number of service members killed in the operation to six as of Monday, according to a CENTCOM update.

Several other troops “sustained minor shrapnel injuries and concussions — and are in the process of being returned to duty,” CENTCOM officials said Sunday.

“To the families and teammates of these Cactus Nation soldiers: you have my deepest sympathy and my respect,” Maj. Gen. Todd Erskine, commanding general, 79th Theater Sustainment Command, said in the release. “Our nation is kept safe by folks like these — brave men and women who put it all on the line every single day. They represent the heart of America. We will remember their names, their service, and their sacrifice.”

Khork enlisted as a 13P (multiple launch rocket system/fire direction specialist) in the National Guard in 2009, officials stated. He commissioned as a military police officer in the Army Reserve in 2014, deploying to Saudi Arabia in 2018, Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, in 2021, and Poland in 2024.

Khork’s awards include: the Meritorious Service Medal, Army Commendation Medal, Joint Service Achievement Medal, Army Superior Unit Award, Army Reserve Component Achievement Medal, National Defense Service Medal, Global War on Terrorism Expeditionary Service Medal, Global War on Terrorism Service Medal, Korea Defense Service Medal, Armed Forces Service Medal, Army Service Ribbon, Overseas Service Ribbon, Army Reserve Component Overseas Training Ribbon, Armed Forces Reserve Medal with 10 Year Device and “M” Device and the Military Outstanding Volunteer Service Medal.

Amor enlisted in the National Guard as a 92A (automated logistics specialist) in 2005. She transferred to the Army Reserve in 2006 and later deployed to Kuwait and Iraq in 2019.

Amor’s awards include: the Army Commendation Medal, National Defense Service Medal, Army Reserve Component Achievement Medal, Global War on Terrorism Expeditionary Service Medal, NCO Professional Development Ribbon, Army Service Ribbon, Overseas Service Ribbon and the Armed Forces Reserve Medal with “M” Device.

Tietjens enlisted in the Army Reserve in 2006 as a 91B (wheeled vehicle mechanic). He previously deployed twice to Kuwait, once in 2009 and again in 2019.

Tietjens’ awards include: the Meritorious Service Medal, Army Commendation Medal, Army Achievement Medal, National Defense Service Medal, Global War on Terrorism Expeditionary Medal, Global War on Terrorism Service Medal, Iraq Campaign Medal with Campaign Star, Army Service Ribbon, Overseas Service Ribbon and the Armed Forces Reserve Medal with “M” Device.

Coady, who was posthumously promoted from specialist, enlisted in the Army Reserve in 2023 as a 25B (Army information technology specialist).

Coady’s awards include: the Army Service Ribbon, National Defense Service Ribbon and the Overseas Service Ribbon.

Additional details surrounding the circumstances of the other service members’ deaths have not yet been made available.

Iran has unleashed retaliatory strikes at U.S. military installations and civilian infrastructure across the Middle East amid ongoing bombardment by U.S. and Israeli forces.

The assault by U.S. and partner forces began Saturday at 1:15 a.m., CENTCOM officials stated, with the goal of knocking out “the Iranian regime’s security apparatus, prioritizing locations that posed an imminent threat.”

Among the primary targets of the operation were Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps command-and-control facilities, Iranian air defense capabilities, missile and drone launch sites and military airfields.

“There’s just no way that Donald Trump is going to allow this country to get into a multiyear conflict with no clear end in sight and no clear objective,” Vance said in an interview on Fox News’ “Jesse Watters Primetime.” His remarks were his first in public since the U.S.-Israeli strikes on Iran began Saturday.

“The president wants to make it clear to the Iranians and to the world that he is not going to rest until he accomplishes that all-important objective of ensuring that Iran can’t have a nuclear weapon,” the vice president added.

Trump on Monday outlined the administration’s four key objectives for its operations: destroying Iran’s missile capabilities, “annihilating” its navy, preventing Tehran from obtaining a nuclear weapon and ensuring the “Iranian regime” cannot continue to “arm, fund and direct” its proxy groups in the Middle East.

The vice president was in the White House Situation Room with Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Energy Secretary Chris Wright as Trump launched Operation Epic Fury from his Mar-a-Lago war room in Palm Beach, Florida.

It’s quite a shift from Vance’s previous stance. In 2023, while serving as a U.S. senator representing Ohio, Vance endorsed Trump in a Wall Street Journal op-ed headlined: “Trump’s best foreign policy? Not starting any wars.”

“He has my support in 2024 because I know he won’t recklessly send Americans to fight wars overseas,” Trump’s future vice president wrote. “In Mr. Trump’s four years in office, he started no wars despite enormous pressure from his own party and even members of his own administration.

“Not starting wars is perhaps a low bar, but that’s a reflection of the hawkishness of Mr. Trump’s predecessors and the foreign-policy establishment they slavishly followed,” he asserted.

Trump, in the first year of his second term, has ordered more airstrikes than his predecessor, President Joe Biden, did in his full four years.

Vance’s comments Monday come as the American death toll from the operation mounts. Six service members have been killed in action since the first wave of strikes began Saturday morning Eastern time, according to U.S. Central Command. Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth have conceded that additional casualties are likely.

The U.S. has also signaled it plans to escalate its military offensive against Iran, as it urges Americans in more than a dozen countries in the Middle East to “depart now” due to serious safety risks.

“The hardest hits are yet to come,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters on Capitol Hill on Monday, warning, “The next phase will be even more punishing on Iran than it is right now.”

The number of American personnel killed and injured in Operation Epic Fury rose Monday as the United States continued its assault on Iran, U.S. Central Command officials confirmed.

In a statement on X, Central Command said a service member who had been “seriously wounded” in the initial assault had succumbed to their injuries. Two others, who were previously unaccounted for, have been recovered — bringing the total number of military personnel killed in action to six.

Pentagon officials did not provide specifics on the circumstances that lead to the deaths, but during a press conference Monday, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said a projectile had made it through air defenses and struck a fortified U.S. military position.

Hegseth did not disclose the facility’s location, but reporting by the Washington Post indicated the casualties occurred in Kuwait.

“You have air defenses and lots coming in, and you hit most of it, and we absolutely do — we have incredible air defenders. Every once in a while, you might have one, unfortunately — we call it a ‘squirter’ — that makes its way through, and in that particular case, it hit a tactical operations center,” Hegseth said.

U.S. Central Command said Monday that 18 troops had been wounded, up from the five reported over the weekend, according to Stars and Stripes.

Central Command did not respond to questions regarding the extent of the injuries or whether the service members had been evacuated from the theatre to U.S. military hospitals in Germany or the United States.

The U.S. and Israel launched strikes Saturday on Iran, killing Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and other top leaders. The Iranian Red Crescent Society reported by mid-day Eastern Standard Time that 555 Iranians had been killed in the initial assault.

During a press conference Monday, Air Force Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that additional air assets were being sent to the region but he declined to say how many service members were in theatre.

“I think we are just about where we want to be in terms of total combat capacity and combat power,” Caine said.

The identities of the fallen have not been released pending notification of the next of kin.

Caine warned Monday that there would likely be more casualties.

“We expect to take additional losses, and as always, we will work to minimize U.S. losses,” Caine said. “But, as the secretary said, this is major combat operations.”

At a White House ceremony Monday honoring three Medal of Honor recipients, President Donald Trump said the purpose of the operation was three-fold: to destroy Iran’s missile capability; “annihilate” their navy; and ensure that the country would never have nuclear weapons.

Over the weekend, U.S. Northern Command raised the security levels on military installations in the United States to Force Protection Level Bravo, indicating a higher state of alert for those guarding U.S. bases.

Under the Bravo condition, 100% of people entering installations will be required to show current identification and vehicles may be subjected to inspection.

Also, the Trusted Traveler Program — an initiative that allows service members, those who hold a Defense Department identification card and civilians to bring individuals on base without a background check — is suspended.

The president, speaking Monday at a White House Medal of Honor ceremony recognizing American veterans from the wars in Vietnam and Afghanistan, estimated the attacks on the Islamic Republic could last four to five weeks. But he insisted the U.S. has the capability to extend its bombardment far longer.

Trump argued the operation was “our last best chance to strike” the Iranian regime, which he described as “sick and sinister.”

The U.S. and Israel bombed Iran after three rounds of nuclear negotiations, mediated by Oman, failed to produce a breakthrough. The regime in Tehran, Trump said, posed an imminent threat to the U.S. because it would “soon” have missiles capable of reaching “our beautiful America.” Many experts, however, believe Iran is years away from developing a missile with the range necessary to hit the United States.

Trump set forth four objectives of the war: destroying Iran’s missile capabilities, “annihilating” its navy, preventing Tehran from obtaining a nuclear weapon and ensuring the “Iranian regime” cannot continue to “arm, fund and direct” its proxy groups elsewhere in the Middle East, sometimes collectively known as the Axis of Resistance.

Gen. Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters Monday the U.S. is sending additional troops and fighter jets to the Middle East to strengthen its military posture. Caine declined to provide specifics on the size of the deployment.

“We are just about where we want to be in terms of total combat capacity and total combat power,” he said.

Additional troops to deploy to Middle East as Gen. Caine says to expect ‘additional losses’

As the conflict escalated, a fourth American service member was killed in action, U.S. Central Command announced Monday. The identities of all the deceased troops are being withheld until after next of kin notifications are complete, CENTCOM said.

Trump’s administration acknowledged the war could result in further American casualties. In his speech Monday, the president expressed condolences to the families of the fallen.

“Today, we grieve for the four heroic American service members who have been killed in action and send our love and support to their families,” Trump said. “In their memory, we continue this mission with ferocious, unyielding resolve to crush the threat this terrorist regime poses to the American people.”

Speaking to reporters at a Pentagon media briefing Monday in Washington, Caine, alongside Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, provided details and updates regarding Operation Epic Fury, the U.S. military campaign launched on Feb. 28 that targeted Iranian missile sites and air defense sites, among other targets.

“This is not a single, overnight operation,” Caine said. “We expect to take additional losses.”

Four service members have been killed in action so far, U.S. Central Command officials announced Monday.

During his remarks, Caine expressed his condolences to the families of the troops who died during combat.

The Joints Chief of Staff did not relay the specifics of how many additional troops were on their way, but said that there was more tactical aviation flowing into theatre.

However, according to Caine, the military was close to where it wanted to be for total combat capacity and combat power for Navy Adm. Brad Cooper, commander of CENTCOM.

CIA tracked Iranian leaders for months ahead of attacks that began with 3 strikes in 60 seconds

Cooper will continue to consistently assess the trajectory of the military campaign, deciding whether it is on or off that line, Caine said.

The Joint Force would then develop options for consideration by the defense secretary and the president that would increase or decrease the amount of combat capability.

“It won’t happen overnight,” Hegseth said. “This is a big battle space with a lot of capabilities, that’s part of the reason why it’s such a threat to us.”

The U.S. is aggressively pushing into Iranian airspace to destroy anything attempting to target the U.S., according to the defense secretary.

“Think of it as shooting the archer instead of the arrows,” Hegesth said.

Within the first 24 hours of Operation Epic Fury, the U.S. struck more than 1,000 targets, with Hegseth reiterating this morning that the overall objective is to protect and defend the U.S. and prevent Iran from being able to project power outside its borders.

Three U.S. F-15E Strike Eagle jets also went down after an incident of friendly fire involving Kuwait air defenses, CENTCOM said.

The six aircrew on board the jets ejected safely.

“This is not a so-called regime change war, but the regime sure did change,” Hegseth said during his remarks.

The U.S. and Israeli military have killed 555 people in Iran so far, according to a Monday statement from the Iranian Red Crescent Society.

“To those who would test our resolve, or threaten the United States, our allies or our interests — understand clearly, we can reach you, we can sustain the fight, and we can scale the fight and we will prevail,” Caine said.

Initial reports Sunday indicated that three U.S. troops had been killed in action, with five more listed as “seriously wounded.”

“The fourth service member, who was seriously wounded during Iran’s initial attacks, eventually succumbed to their injuries,” CENTCOM announced Monday.

Several other troops “sustained minor shrapnel injuries and concussions — and are in the process of being returned to duty,” a previous release stated.

Additional details surrounding the circumstances of the U.S. service member deaths have not yet been made available.

The identities of U.S. troops killed in action are being withheld until 24 hours after next of kin notification, officials said.

“Major combat operations continue and our response effort is ongoing,” the statement Monday read.

CENTCOM officials on Monday also announced that three U.S. F-15E Strike Eagle fighter jets had been shot down by Kuwaiti air defenses “due to an apparent friendly fire incident.”

“All six aircrew ejected safely, have been safely recovered and are in stable condition,” a CENTCOM release stated. “Kuwait has acknowledged this incident, and we are grateful for the efforts of the Kuwaiti defense forces and their support in this ongoing operation.”

At least 555 people in Iran have been killed by U.S.-Israeli strikes, the Iranian Red Crescent Society said Monday, while more than 130 cities across the country have been hit during the attacks.

The U.S. Air Force crews were flying in support of the ongoing campaign against Iran, dubbed Operation Epic Fury, when they were shot down, officials said.

“All six aircrew ejected safely, have been safely recovered and are in stable condition,” a CENTCOM release stated. “Kuwait has acknowledged this incident, and we are grateful for the efforts of the Kuwaiti defense forces and their support in this ongoing operation.”

The incident is under investigation, the release added.

Iran has escalated its retaliatory strikes over the last 24 hours, targeting multinational bases and civilian infrastructure across the region.

In a statement Monday, the Kuwait Ministry of Foreign Affairs criticized Iran for “unjustified strikes [that] targeted sovereign territories, endangered civilians and inflicted damage on civilian infrastructure.”

“The State of Kuwait, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the Kingdom of Bahrain, the State of Qatar, the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, the United Arab Emirates and the United States of America strongly condemn the Islamic Republic of Iran’s indiscriminate and reckless attacks with missiles and drones against sovereign territories across the region,” the statement read.

The assault by U.S. and partner forces began Saturday at 1:15 a.m., with the goal of knocking out “the Iranian regime’s security apparatus, prioritizing locations that posed an imminent threat,” CENTCOM officials stated.

Among the primary targets of the operation were Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps command and control facilities, Iranian air defense capabilities, missile and drone launch sites and military airfields, according to the statement.

U.S. President Donald Trump announced Sunday that nine Iranian naval ships have been sunk as part of combat operations.

The compound of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was also targeted during the early stages of the operation. Khamenei was killed when the compound was hit, Trump later confirmed in a Truth Social post, calling the moment “the single greatest chance for the Iranian people to take back their Country.”

Three U.S. service members have been killed in action during combat operations, CENTCOM officials announced Sunday. Five more have been listed as “seriously wounded.”

At least 555 people in Iran have been killed by U.S.-Israeli strikes, the Iranian Red Crescent Society said Monday, while more than 130 cities across the country have been hit during the attacks.

Blasts rattled windows across the country and sent plumes of smoke high into the sky above Tehran. More than 200 people have been killed since the start of the strikes that killed Khamenei and other senior leaders, Iranian leaders have said.

Iran vowed revenge, firing missiles at Israel and Gulf Arab states in a counteroffensive that the U.S. military said resulted in the deaths of three service members — the first known American casualties from the conflict. Israeli rescue services said strikes had hit several locations, including Jerusalem and a synagogue in the central town of Beit Shemesh, where nine people were killed and 28 wounded, bringing the overall death toll in the country to 11. Eleven people were still missing after the strike, police said.

3 US troops killed, 5 seriously wounded in actions against Iran

But the attacks on Iran showed no signs of relenting as the U.S. and Israel took aim at key military, political and intelligence targets in what appeared to be a widening war that carried the potential for a prolonged conflict that could envelop the Middle East and destabilize it. The strikes, the second time in eight months that the U.S. and Israel had combined against Iran, represented a startling show of military might for an American president who swept into office on an “America First” platform and vowed to keep out of “forever wars.”

U.S. President Donald Trump said the U.S. would “avenge” the deaths of the service members and that “there will likely be more” killed before the conflict ends.

In a video he posted on social media, Trump called the three service members “true American patriots who have made the ultimate sacrifice for our nation, even as we continue the righteous mission for which they gave their lives.”

He added: “Sadly, there will likely be more, before it ends. That’s the way it is. Likely be more.”

Israel, which had pledged “nonstop” strikes, said it was increasing its attacks, with 100 fighter jets simultaneously striking targets in Tehran, Brig. Gen. Effie Defrin told reporters at a briefing. The targets included buildings belonging to Iran’s air force, its missile command and its internal security force, which violently quashed anti-government protests in January.

The U.S. military, meanwhile, said B-2 stealth bombers struck Iran’s ballistic missile facilities with 2,000-pound bombs. Trump said on social media that nine Iranian warships had been sunk and that the Iranian navy’s headquarters had been “largely destroyed.”

Europe has mostly stayed out of the war and pressed for diplomacy, but in an indication that the conflict could draw in other nations, Britain, France and Germany said Sunday they were ready to work with the U.S. to help stop Iran’s attacks.

Prime Minister Keir Starmer said Britain would allow the United States to use its bases to strike Iranian missile sites. The U.K. maintains nearby bases on Cyprus and the Chagos Islands, a British archipelago in the Indian Ocean.

In the 12-day war last June, Israeli and American strikes greatly weakened Iran’s air defenses, military leadership and nuclear program. But the killing of Khamenei, who ruled Iran for more than three decades, creates a leadership vacuum, increasing the risk of regional instability.

Trump, who a day earlier had encouraged Iranians to “take over” their government, signaled Sunday that he was open to dialogue with Iran’s new leadership.

“They want to talk, and I have agreed to talk, so I will be talking to them,” he told The Atlantic.

Streets of Tehran are largely deserted

In Tehran, there was little sign that Iranians had heeded Trump’s call for an uprising against the government.

The streets were largely deserted as people sheltered during heavy airstrikes, witnesses told The Associated Press, speaking anonymously for fear of retribution. The paramilitary Basij, which has played a central role in crushing protests, set up checkpoints across the city, they said.

Two powerful explosions were heard in Tehran’s Niavaran neighborhood late Sunday.

An eyewitness in the city told AP that the windows of their apartment shook violently, and residents came out onto the streets fearing it was too dangerous to stay inside. The witness spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals. Video footage from Tehran showed plumes of smoke filling the skyline, and the official IRNA news agency reported that parts of the building of the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB) were struck Sunday.

In southern Iran, at least 165 people were killed Saturday when a girls’ school was struck, and dozens more were wounded, IRNA reported. The Israeli military said it was not aware of strikes in the area. The U.S. military said it was looking into the reports.

The U.S. military did not provide details about the three service members who were killed or about five others who were seriously wounded. It said several others suffered minor injuries and concussions.

Iran says new leadership is in place

As supreme leader, Khamenei had final say on all major policies since 1989. He led Iran’s clerical establishment and the Revolutionary Guard, the two main centers of power in the governing theocracy.

The CIA had been tracking the movements of senior Iranian leaders, including Khamenei, for months, according to a person familiar with the operation who was not authorized to comment publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity. The intelligence was shared with Israeli officials, and the timing of the strikes was adjusted in part because of that information, the person said.

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said in a prerecorded message that a new leadership council had begun its work. The country’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, said a new supreme leader would be chosen in “one or two days.”

A senior White House official who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal administration deliberations, said Trump was eventually willing to talk but that the operation would continue unabated for now.

Iran vows revenge for Khamenei killing

As word spread of Khamenei’s death, some in Tehran could be seen cheering from rooftops, witnesses said. Others mourned as a black flag was raised over the Imam Reza shrine in Mashhad.

An Iranian medical professional in northern Iran said he and colleagues spent the early hours of Sunday celebrating Khamenei’s death indoors because armed security forces are still heavily deployed in his city.

There were forces stopping and interrogating people celebrating in their cars, but there was no gunfire, said the doctor, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal.

“It was one of the best nights, if not the best night of our lives,” the doctor said in a voice message from the city of Rasht. In fact, “it was actually my first time ever smoking a cigarette. It was a very, very nice time. We didn’t sleep at all. And we don’t even feel tired.”

Araghchi, Iran’s foreign minister, blamed the U.S. and Israel for starting the war. He said he had spoken to his counterparts in the Gulf countries and urged them to pressure the U.S. and Israel to end it.

“You have crossed our red line and must pay the price,” Iran’s parliamentary speaker, Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf, said in a televised address. “We will deliver such devastating blows that you yourselves will be driven to beg.”

Trump warned against any retaliation.

“THEY BETTER NOT DO THAT,” he said in a social media post. “IF THEY DO, WE WILL HIT THEM WITH A FORCE THAT HAS NEVER BEEN SEEN BEFORE!”

Strikes were planned for months and feared for weeks

Tensions have escalated in recent weeks as the Trump administration built up the largest force of American warships and aircraft in the Middle East in decades. The president insisted he wanted a deal to constrain Iran’s nuclear program while the country struggled with growing dissent following nationwide protests.

An Israeli military official described Saturday’s mission as the result of months of “extremely high coordination” with the U.S. The official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss a covert operation, said a variety of factors created a “golden opportunity” to take out much of Iran’s leadership. Those factors included weeks of training and monitoring the movements of senior figures, along with “real time intelligence” that the targets were gathered together.

The results, the official said, were near-simultaneous strikes, within 60 seconds of one another, in three locations 1,000 miles (1,609 kilometers) from Israel that killed Khamenei and some 40 senior figures, including the head of the Revolutionary Guard and the country’s defense minister.

Lidman reported from Tel Aviv, Israel; Boak from West Palm Beach, Florida; and Tucker from Washington. Associated Press writers Joe Federman in Jerusalem, Sarah El Deeb in Beirut, Amir Radjy in Cairo, Aamer Madhani, Konstantin Toropin, David Klepper and Matthew Lee in Washington, and AP journalists around the world, contributed to this report.

“I have just been informed that we have destroyed and sunk 9 Iranian Naval Ships, some of them relatively large and important,” Trump wrote in a post on X, adding that Iran’s naval headquarters has been “largely destroyed” in a different attack.

“We are going after the rest — They will soon be floating at the bottom of the sea, also!” Trump wrote.

U.S. Central Command officials said earlier Sunday that an Iranian Jamaran-class corvette was struck by U.S. forces at the beginning of Operation Epic Fury.

“The ship is currently sinking to the bottom of the Gulf of Oman at a Chah Bahar pier,” the statement reads. “As the president said, members of Iran’s armed forces, IRGC and police ‘must lay down your weapons.’ Abandon ship.”

Three U.S. service members have been killed in action during combat operations against Iran, CENTCOM officials announced Sunday. Five more have been listed as “seriously wounded.”

U.S. B-2 stealth bombers struck Iran’s hardened ballistic missiles with 2,000-lb. bombs Saturday night, CENTCOM announced in a separate post Sunday.

Meanwhile, the U.S. military called the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ claim that it struck the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln with ballistic missiles a “lie” in a post on X on Sunday.

“The Lincoln was not hit. The missiles launched didn’t even come close,” CENTCOM said in the post. “The Lincoln continues to launch aircraft in support of CENTCOM’s relentless campaign to defend the American people by eliminating threats from the Iranian regime.”

The Lincoln carrier strike group is one of two U.S. aircraft carrier strike groups deployed to the region, alongside the Gerald R. Ford carrier strike group, as part of the largest buildup of U.S. firepower in the Middle East in a generation.

The assault by U.S. and partner forces began Saturday at 1:15 a.m., CENTCOM officials stated, with the goal of knocking out “the Iranian regime’s security apparatus, prioritizing locations that posed an imminent threat.”

Among the primary targets of the operation were Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps command and control facilities, Iranian air defense capabilities, missile and drone launch sites and military airfields, according to the statement.

The compound of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was also targeted in the operation. A senior Israeli official told Reuters that Khamenei was killed in the strike. Trump later confirmed in a Truth Social post on Saturday that Khamenei was killed in the attack, calling the moment “the single greatest chance for the Iranian people to take back their Country.”

At least 201 people have been killed and more than 700 injured across Iran, according to the Iranian Red Crescent Society.

Three U.S. service members have been killed in action during combat operations against Iran, U.S. Central Command officials announced Sunday. Five more have been listed as “seriously wounded.”

Several other troops “sustained minor shrapnel injuries and concussions — and are in the process of being returned to duty,” according to the CENTCOM release.

A barrage of Iranian retaliatory strikes were launched at U.S. military installations across the Middle East on Saturday on the heels of a U.S. and Israeli air, land and sea bombardment across the Islamic Republic — a campaign dubbed Operation Epic Fury.

Initial reports on Saturday indicated there were no U.S. casualties. Additional details surrounding the circumstances of the U.S. service member deaths have not yet been made available.

“Major combat operations continue and our response effort is ongoing,” the statement read.

Claims were circulating online over the weekend that Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps struck the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln.

CENTCOM officials dismissed the rumor Sunday, saying the “Lincoln was not hit.”

“The missiles launched didn’t even come close,” CENTCOM officials said. “The Lincoln continues to launch aircraft in support of CENTCOM’s relentless campaign to defend the American people by eliminating threats from the Iranian regime.”

The assault by U.S. and partner forces began Saturday at 1:15 a.m., CENTCOM officials stated, with the goal of knocking out “the Iranian regime’s security apparatus, prioritizing locations that posed an imminent threat.”

Among the primary targets of the operation were Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps command and control facilities, Iranian air defense capabilities, missile and drone launch sites and military airfields, according to the statement.

The compound of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was also targeted in the operation. A senior Israeli official told Reuters that Khamenei was killed in the strike. President Donald Trump later confirmed in a Truth Social post on Saturday that Khamenei was killed in the attack, calling the moment “the single greatest chance for the Iranian people to take back their Country.”

At least 201 people have been killed and more than 700 injured across Iran, according to the Iranian Red Crescent Society.

The identities of U.S. service members killed in action are being withheld until 24 hours after next of kin notification, officials said.

Iranian state media reported the death early Sunday, after a major attack launched by Israel and the United States. U.S. President Donald Trump said hours earlier that Khamenei had been killed in the joint operation.

Khamenei dramatically remolded the Islamic Republic since he took the reins after the death of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in 1989. Khomeini was the fiery, charismatic ideologue who led the overthrow of the shah and installed rule by Shiite Muslim clerics tasked with spreading religious purity. It fell to Khamenei, a stodgier figure with weaker religious credentials and a leaden demeanor, to turn that revolutionary vision into a state establishment.

No US casualties reported following Iran’s retaliatory strikes, officials say

He ended up ruling far longer than Khomeini. He greatly expanded the Shiite clerical class and built the paramilitary Revolutionary Guard into the most important body underpinning his rule. The Guard became a military and business behemoth, the country’s most elite force and head of its ballistic missile arsenal, with hands across Iran’s economic sectors.

But the strains became harder to contain. Political repression and the faltering economy fueled successively bigger waves of mass protests. Anger over the 2022 death of Mahsa Amini, detained for not wearing her mandatory headscarf properly, escalated into demonstrations against social restrictions. In early January, hundreds of thousands marched in cities across the country, many chanting, “Death to Khamenei.”

Khamenei responded with the deadliest crackdown seen in nearly 50 years of clerical rule as security forces opened fire on crowds, killing thousands.

At the same time, the Mideast wars sparked by Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel set in motion the collapse of the regionwide “Axis of Resistance” built by Khamenei. Israel and Iran attacked each other directly for the first time in 2024. Israel struck Iran again in June 2025, as it and the United States targeted the country’s nuclear program and killed top military officers and nuclear scientists. Iran retaliated by sending missiles and drones at Israel.

Khamenei’s death raises questions about the future of the Islamic Republic.

The 88-seat Assembly of Experts, a group of mostly hard-line clerics, will choose Khamenei’s replacement. But no clear successor is in place.

As he launched the bombing Saturday, U.S. President Donald Trump called on Iranians to “take over your government. It will be yours to take. This will be probably your only chance for generations.” What happens next may depend greatly on bodies like the Revolutionary Guard, which has repeatedly shown its willingness to use overwhelming force to keep power even as many of Iran’s 90 million people grow disenchanted.

“Culturally, the government is bankrupt,” said Mehdi Khalaji, an analyst at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said in 2017. “The ideology of the Islamic Republic did not work at all.”

Khamenei’s daughter and son-in-law, a grandchild and a daughter-in-law also were killed in Saturday’s attack, according to the semiofficial Fars news agency, citing unidentified sources.

Iran’s government declared 40 days of public mourning and a seven-day nationwide public holiday to commemorate Khamenei’s death.

From a questioned start to a hard-line grip on Iran

Ali Khamenei was born into a religious family in the northeastern holy city of Mashhad, a hotbed of revolutionary fervor during the struggle against the Western-allied shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.

Like many other Iranian leaders, he studied under Khomeini at the seminary in the holy city of Qom, south of Tehran, in the early 1960s, before Khomeini’s exile to Iraq and France.

Khamenei joined the anti-shah movement, facing time in both prison and in hiding. When Khomeini returned to Iran in triumph in February 1979 and proclaimed the Islamic Republic, Khamenei was appointed to the secretive Revolutionary Council. In 1981, he was elected Iran’s third president; that same year, a bombing by opponents left him with one hand paralyzed.

With his thick, heavy-framed glasses, Khamenei lacked the steely gaze and fiery aura of Khomeini, the father of the Islamic Revolution. He fell far short of Khomeini’s religious scholarship, holding the relatively low rank of “hojatolislam” in the Shiite clerical hierarchy.

After being named supreme leader after Khomeini’s death, he bounded overnight to the level of grand ayatollah, at the top of the hierarchy, and for years had to deal with skepticism over his credentials.

Khamenei acknowledged the doubts with humility. “I am an individual with many faults and shortcomings and truly a minor seminarian,” he said in his first speech in his new post.

Despite his lack of charisma, Khamenei stabilized Iran after the 1980s war with Iraq and governed for over three decades — far longer than Khomeini.

Hard-liners considered him second only to God in his authority. Khamenei created an ever-growing bureaucracy of Shiite clerics and governmental agencies that blurred responsibilities and left him as the ultimate arbiter. As Iran questioned whether to keep the Revolutionary Guard after the war with Iraq, Khamenei came to its rescue and allowed the paramilitary force to gain a powerful grip on Iran’s economy. He also used a system of appointees to undercut the civilian government elected by its people.

The rise and fall of Iran’s proxy forces

Under Khamenei’s reign, Iran shifted fully from conventional warfare to support for proxies, building the so-called Axis of Resistance to advance its interests in the region. The Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, established with Iran’s help in the 1980s, drove Israel from southern Lebanon in 2000 and battled it to a stalemate in the monthlong 2006 war.

Through Hezbollah, Iran perfected a strategy of making local militant groups its allies to project power — often through violence. Iran followed that model when backing Yemen’s Houthi rebels, who in 2014 seized the country’s capital, Sanaa, and held on for over a decade in a stalemated war in the Arab world’s poorest nation — despite facing a Saudi-led coalition and later, U.S.-led airstrikes over their attacks in the Red Sea corridor.

Elsewhere, suspected Iranian-backed militants bombed a Jewish center in Buenos Aires in 1994, killing 85 people. Iran also was allegedly linked to the 1996 bombing of the Khobar Towers housing complex in Saudi Arabia, which killed 19 members of the U.S. military. Iran denied responsibility for both attacks.

Iran emerged as a prime beneficiary of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, which replaced its main regional threat, Saddam Hussein, with a friendly Shiite-led government. Iranian-backed militias waged a brutal insurgency against U.S. forces and embedded themselves within the country’s political landscape.

Khamenei used the Guard’s expeditionary Quds Force most successfully after the Sunni extremists of the Islamic State group seized large swaths of Iraq and Syria in 2014. Guard troops advised Shiite militias, the best fighters in Iraq, and gave crucial support to President Bashar al-Assad in Syria’s civil war.

That secured Assad for a decade, until the chaos sparked by Hamas’ attack on Israel in 2023. Israel devastated the Gaza Strip and launched airstrikes and ground operations pulverizing Hamas, which Iran had armed and funded for years. Israel is widely believed to have killed Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in an operation in Tehran in 2024, further embarrassing the Islamic Republic.

Hezbollah found its ranks targeted by exploding pagers and an Israeli campaign killed its longtime leader Hassan Nasrallah. Then, in December 2024, rebel fighters toppled Assad in an offensive in Syria, ending a half-century of his family’s autocratic rule.

Nuclear program advances to near-weapons-grade levels

The supreme leader remained deeply suspicious of the U.S., referring to it as the “Great Satan” even after President Barack Obama came into office in 2009, offering dialogue and a fresh start.

He shrugged off U.N. sanctions and pushed ahead with Iran’s nuclear program, which the U.S. and its allies say hid a secret project to build a nuclear weapon up until 2003. Khamenei issued a verbal fatwa, or religious ruling, that nuclear weapons are un-Islamic, but vowed the country would never give up its right to develop what he called a peaceful nuclear energy program.

Under Iran’s 2015 nuclear deal with world powers, Tehran agreed to drastically reduce its stockpile and enrichment of uranium in exchange for the lifting of economic sanctions. But only three years later, Trump in his first term unilaterally withdrew Washington from the accord, arguing it didn’t go far enough.

Iran has since broken all the limits of the nuclear deal and accumulated a stockpile of uranium enriched to nearly weapons-grade levels, now large enough to pursue several nuclear weapons if it chose to do so. Diplomatic efforts to restore the deal under President Joe Biden stalled.

In a March 2011 speech, Khamenei used toppled Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi, who had given up his own nuclear program years earlier, as an example of why Iran’s nuclear program remained so important in the wake of the Arab Spring upheavals in the Middle East.

“Just the way you give a lollipop to a child, Westerners gave ‘incentives’ to them and they gave up everything,” Khamenei said.

Protests and demands for change intensified

Khamenei’s first major challenge came in 1997, when pro-reform politicians gained control of parliament and cleric Mohammad Khatami was elected president by a landslide, riding a large youth vote. The reformists demanded a loosening of the strict social rules imposed by the revolution and called for improved ties with the outside world, including the U.S.

Khamenei-backed hard-liners moved to contain the liberal movement, fearing it would eventually call for an end to clerical rule. Khamenei stopped parliament from loosening restrictions on the media in an unusually overt intervention. Clerical bodies blocked other key liberal legislation and banned many reformist lawmakers from running for reelection, ensuring a return of hard-liner control in the 2004 elections.

That set the stage for the election of hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in 2005 and his disputed reelection in 2009 amid charges of vote-rigging. Mass protests broke out, posing the greatest threat in decades to Iran’s clerical leadership. The Revolutionary Guard, Basij militia and police unleashed a crackdown in which dozens were killed and hundreds arrested.

The turmoil, and reports of protesters being tortured to death or raped in prison, dealt a severe blow to Khamenei’s prestige.

As sanctions bit further, popular unrest rose. Economic protests broke out in 2017 and demonstrations escalated in 2019 over a rise in government-set gasoline prices. A bloody crackdown that followed killed over 300 people, according to activists.

Although Khamenei struggled to preserve the ideological purity of the Islamic Revolution, Iran’s government has largely failed to rid the country of Western influence. Satellite dishes, banned in theory, crowd Tehran’s rooftops. Banned social media sites are widely used, even by some prominent politicians, despite being blocked.

Protests erupted again in 2022 over the death of Amini, a young woman detained for not wearing her hijab, or headscarf, to the liking of authorities. More than 500 people were killed and tens of thousands arrested when security forces crushed the demonstrations again.

In late December 2025, new economic protests erupted and would grow into what appeared to be the biggest protest movement ever. Hundreds of thousands across the country took to the streets, overtly demanding an end to the Islamic Republic. Some even chanted for the return of the shah’s son, living in exile since 1979. The ferocity of the crackdown stunned Iranians.

Confrontation with US

With U.S. President Donald Trump, Khamenei faced a more aggressive and unpredictable American drive to stop Iran’s nuclear program. Trump unilaterally withdrew America from Iran’s nuclear deal with world powers in 2018, bringing a return of sanctions.

The two sides came close to war with the United States after an American drone strike killed Revolutionary Guard Gen. Qassem Soleimani in January 2020. At Soleimani’s mass funeral that drew millions to the streets, Khamenei wept over the casket of the man he once called a “living martyr.” Two days later, the Guard mistakenly shot down a Ukrainian airliner after its takeoff from Tehran, killing all 176 people aboard.

Iran ramped uranium enrichment back up, reaching 60% purity — a short, technical step away from weapons-grade levels of 90%. Still, when Trump returned to the White House in January 2025, Khamenei resumed talks, underscoring the deep toll the sanctions had taken. Iran’s long-ailing economy entered a freefall, worsening domestic unrest.

But a deal remained elusive. In June, Israel and the U.S. bombed Iranian nuclear facilities, inflicting heavy damage. How far back it set the program remained unclear.

During the crackdown on nationwide protests in January, Trump renewed threats to strike, demanding Iran make major concessions at the negotiating table. Then came three rounds of indirect talks. Then came Saturday.

Former Associated Press writer Brian Murphy contributed.

Both the House and Senate, where the president’s Republican Party has a slim majority, had already drafted such resolutions long before the strikes Saturday. Now they are ready to plunge into a rare war powers debate next week that will serve as a referendum on Trump’s decision to go it alone on military action without formal authorization from Congress.

“Has President Trump learned nothing from decades of U.S. meddling in Iran and forever wars in the Middle East?” said Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., a leader in the bipartisan effort. He said the strikes on Iran were “a colossal mistake.”

In the House, Reps. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., and Thomas Massie, R-Ky., are demanding Congress go on record with a public vote on their own bipartisan measure. “Congress must convene on Monday to vote,” Khanna said, “to stop this.”

Massie blasted Trump’s own presidential campaign slogan and said: “This is not ‘America First.’”

But most Republicans, particularly their leaders, welcomed Trump’s move against Iran. Many cited the longtime U.S. adversary’s nuclear programs and missile capabilities as requiring a military response.

“Well done, Mr. President,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C. “As I watch and monitor this historic operation, I’m in awe of President Trump’s determination to be a man of peace but at the end of the day, evil’s worst nightmare.”

War powers debate tests Congress

The administration’s decision to launch, with Israel, what appears to be an open-ended joint military operation aimed at changing the government in Tehran is testing the Constitution’s separation of powers in deep and dramatic ways. Nearly two months earlier, Trump ordered U.S. strikes that toppled Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro.

While presidents have the authority as the commander in chief to conduct certain strategic military operations on their own, the Constitution vests Congress with the power to wage war. Before the Iraq War began in March 2003, Republican President George W. Bush made a monthslong push to secure congressional authorization. No such vote was attempted on Iran, and an earlier Senate effort to halt Trump’s actions after last summer’s strike on Iran failed.

The congressional debate over war powers would mostly be symbolic. Even if a resolution were to pass the narrowly split Congress, Trump likely would veto it and Congress would not have the two-thirds majority needed to overturn that rejection. Congress has often failed to block other U.S. military actions, including in a Senate vote on Venezuela, but the roll calls stand as a public record.

Republican leaders back Trump’s action

The response by House Speaker Mike Johnson reflected the party’s long-standing views. Iran, he said, is facing “the severe consequences of its evil actions.”

Johnson, R-La., said the leaders of the House and Senate and the respective intelligence committees had been briefed in detail earlier in the week that military action “may become necessary” to protect U.S. troops and citizens in Iran. He said he received updates from Secretary of State Marco Rubio and will stay in “close contact” with Trump and the Defense Department “as this operation proceeds.”

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., commended Trump “for taking action to thwart these threats.”

Thune said he looked forward to administration officials briefing all senators — a signal that lawmakers are seeking more answers to their questions about Trump’s plans ahead.

Democrats warn strikes are illegal

Many Democrats are calling the operation illegal, saying the Constitution gives Congress alone the power to declare war. To them, the administration has failed to lay out its rationale or plan for the military strikes, and the aftermath.

Sen. Chris Van Hollen, who serves on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said the president has undertaken “illegal, regime-change war against Iran.”

“This is not making us safer & only damages the US & our interests,” Van Hollen, D-Md., said in a social media post. “The Senate must immediately vote on the War Powers Resolution to stop it.”

House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York said while Iran is a “bad actor and must be aggressively confronted” for its human rights abuses and the threat it poses to the U.S. and allies, the administration ”must seek authorization for the preemptive use of military force that constitutes an act of war.”

New York Sen. Chuck Schumer, the Democratic leader, demanded that Congress be briefed immediately on the administration’s plans.

“Iran must never be allowed to attain a nuclear weapon but the American people do not want another endless and costly war in the Middle East when there are so many problems at home,” he said.

Associated Press writers Mary Clare Jalonick and Matt Brown contributed to this report.

The Low-cost Unmanned Combat Attack System, or LUCAS drone, was launched as part of Operation Epic Fury, which targeted Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps command and control facilities, Iranian air defense capabilities, missile and drone launch sites and military airfields, CENTCOM officials announced.

“The president ordered bold action, and our brave soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines, guardians, and Coast Guardsmen are answering the call,” Adm. Brad Cooper, commander of CENTCOM, said in the release.

The LUCAS platform is a one-way attack drone reverse-engineered after the Iranian Shahed-136.

Built by the Arizona-based SpektreWorks, the drone, which can be launched via catapults, rocket-assisted takeoff and mobile ground systems, is a spinoff of the company’s FLM 136 target model, one designed for counter-drone training while simulating Iran’s Shahed variant.

The FLM 136 model carries a range capability of around 500 miles, with a maximum payload of 40 pounds, or “roughly twice the explosive yield of a hellfire missile,” according to Alex Hollings, host of Sandboxx News’ FirePower.

With a maximum takeoff weight of 180 pounds, the FLM 136 is significantly lighter than the Iranian Shahed. The platforms are also immensely more cost-effective — and scalable — compared to the more advanced munitions in the U.S. arsenal, carrying a price tag of around $35,000 per unit.

A LUCAS drone was successfully launched from a ship for the first time in December, with personnel aboard the Independence-class littoral combat ship USS Santa Barbara carrying out an exercise in the Arabian Gulf, the Defense Department previously announced.

Those troops make up the newly formed Task Force Scorpion Strike squadron, a first-of-its-kind one-way-attack drone squadron led by U.S. Special Operations Command-Central personnel.

“This new task force sets the conditions for using innovation as a deterrent,” Cooper said in a December release. “Equipping our skilled warfighters faster with cutting-edge drone capabilities showcases U.S. military innovation and strength, which deters bad actors.”

The establishment of the task force in December followed a directive months earlier by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, “Unleashing U.S. Military Drone Dominance,” to accelerate acquisition and fielding of affordable autonomous systems throughout the military services.

“To simulate the modern battlefield, senior officers must overcome the bureaucracy’s instinctive risk-aversion on everything from budgeting to weaponizing and training,” Hegseth wrote in the July memo. “Next year I expect to see this capability integrated into all relevant combat training, including force-on-force drone wars.”

The Navy’s operations in U.S. Central Command comprise around 2.5 million square miles of ocean and include the Arabian Gulf, Gulf of Oman, Red Sea and parts of the Indian Ocean.

Some of the first strikes appeared to hit areas around the offices of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and Iranian media reported strikes nationwide. Smoke could be seen rising from the capital. It wasn’t immediately clear whether the 86-year-old leader was in his offices at the time of the strike.

“When we are finished, take over your government. It will be yours to take. This will be probably your only chance for generations,” Trump said in a video announcing “major combat operations” were underway. “For many years, you have asked for America’s help, but you never got it.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu echoed that sweeping goal. “Our joint operation will create the conditions for the brave Iranian people to take their fate into their own hands,” Netanyahu said.

The strikes opened a stunning new chapter in U.S. intervention in Iran and marked the second time in eight months that the Trump administration has used military force against the Islamic Republic. They also came just weeks after Trump ordered a military operation to capture Venezuela’s president, Nicolás Maduro, and bring him and his wife to New York to face federal drug conspiracy charges.

The operation also comes as tensions have soared in recent weeks as American warships moved into the region, and Trump said he wanted a deal to constrain Iran’s nuclear program at a moment when the country is struggling at home with growing dissent following nationwide protests.

Iran responded as it had been threatening to do for months — first launching a wave of missiles and drones targeting Israel. It followed with strikes targeting U.S. military installations in Bahrain, Kuwait and Qatar. The United Arab Emirates and Iraq shut down their airspace.

Iran’s Foreign Ministry issued a defiant statement, saying that the country “will not hesitate” in its response. In a statement posted on X, the ministry said: “The time has come to defend the homeland and confront the enemy’s military assault.”

Forty people were reported killed at a girls’ school in southern Iran in the Israeli-U.S. strikes, according to Iran’s state-run IRNA news agency. At least 45 others were wounded in the attack in Minab in Iran’s Hormozgan province.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment on reported strike on the school.

Four people were also killed by an Iranian missile striking a building in Syria’s southern city of Sweida, according to Syrian state television.

Shrapnel from an Iranian missile attack on the capital of the UAE killed one person, state media said.

Attack was coordinated between Israel and US

The attacks came after weeks of the U.S. military massing forces in the region even as U.S. and Iranian envoys held talks in Switzerland and Oman aimed at finding a diplomatic solution to head off American military operation.

Oman’s Foreign Minister Badr al-Busaidi, a key mediator in the U.S.-Iran nuclear talks, said in a post on X that he was dismayed that U.S. and Israel moved forward with the operation.

“Active and serious negotiations have yet again been undermined,” said al-Busaidi, who traveled to Washington on Friday to meet with Vice President JD Vance for talks. “Neither the interests of the United States nor the cause of global peace are well served by this. And I pray for the innocents who will suffer. I urge the United States not to get sucked in further.”

Israel said the operation was carried out as a “broad, coordinated, and joint operation against the regime” that has been planned for months between the Israeli and U.S. militaries.

Trump, in justifying the military action, claimed that Iran has continued to develop its nuclear program and plans to develop missiles to reach the U.S.

He also acknowledged that there could be American casualties, saying “that often happens in war.”

It was a notable call on Americans to brace themselves from a U.S. leader who swept into office on an “America First” platform and vowed to keep out of “forever wars” that had bogged down his recent predecessors.

Trump’s statement indicated the U.S. was striking for reasons far beyond the nuclear program, listing grievances stretching back to the beginning of the Islamic Republic following a revolution in 1979 that turned Iran from one of America’s closest allies in the Middle East into a fierce foe.

The U.S. president said he was aiming to “annihilate” the Iranian navy and destroy regional proxies supported by Tehran.

He also called on the Iranian Revolutionary Guard to lay down its arms, pledging that members would be given immunity, while warning they would face “certain death” if they didn’t.

“They’ve rejected every opportunity to renounce their nuclear ambitions, and we can’t take it anymore,” Trump said.

Trump had threatened military action — but held off — following Iran’s recent crackdown on protests spurred by economic grievances and evolved into a nationwide, anti-government push against the ruling clerics.

The Human Rights Activists News Agency says it confirmed more than 7,000 deaths in the crackdown and that it is investigating thousands more. The government has acknowledged more than 3,000 killed, though it has undercounted or not reported fatalities from past unrest.

Iran has said it hasn’t enriched since June, but it has blocked international inspectors from visiting the sites America bombed during a 12-day war then. Satellite photos analyzed by The Associated Press have shown new activity at two of those sites, suggesting Iran is trying to assess and potentially recover material there.

Iran currently has a self-imposed limit on its ballistic missile program, limiting their range to 2,000 kilometers (1,240 miles). That puts all the Mideast and some of Eastern Europe in their range. There is no public evidence of Iran seeking to have intercontinental ballistic missiles, though Washington has criticized its space program as potentially allowing it to one day.

Iran had hoped to avert a war, but maintains it has the right to enrich uranium and does not want to discuss other issues, like its long-range missile program or support for armed groups like Hamas and Hezbollah.

The strikes could also have a huge impact on global markets, particularly if Iran is able to make the Strait of Hormuz unsafe for commercial traffic. More than 14 million barrels per day of oil passed through the strait in 2025, about a third of total worldwide oil exports transported by sea.

Strikes hit targets across Iran

Iranian media reported strikes nationwide. Roads to Khamenei’s compound in downtown Tehran had been shut down by authorities as other blasts rang out across the capital.

Khamenei has not made a public appearance in recent days and wasn’t immediately seen after. During the 12-day war in June, he was believed to have been taken to a secure location away from his Tehran compound.

In Tehran, witnesses heard the first blast by Khamenei’s office. Iranian state television later reported on the explosion, without offering a cause.

More explosions struck Iran’s capital after Israel said it was attacking the country. Authorities have offered no casualty information from the strikes.

Targets in the Israeli campaign included Iran’s military, symbols of government and intelligence targets, according to an official briefed on the operation, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss nonpublic information on the attack.

Iran retaliates

Hours after the strikes, Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard said it launched a “first wave” of drones and missiles targeting Israel, where a nationwide warning was issued as the military said it was working to intercept incoming Iranian missiles. There was no immediate word on any damage or casualties from the ongoing attack.

Meanwhile, Bahrain said that a missile attack targeted the U.S. Navy’s 5th Fleet headquarters in the island kingdom. Witnesses heard sirens and explosions in Kuwait, home to U.S. Army Central. Explosions could be also be heard in Qatar.

Iraq and the United Arab Emirates closed their airspace, and sirens sounded in Jordan.

Iraqi officials also reported a drone strike hit a headquarters of the Iran-backed Kataib Hezbollah militia in Iraq, killing two people and wounding three Saturday. The group had earlier threatened to enter the fray should Iran come under attack. An Israeli military official said Israel was not aware of any Israeli strikes on Kataib Hezbollah headquarters in Iraq.

The Iranian-backed Houthis in Yemen, meanwhile, vowed to resume attacks on Red Sea shipping routes and on Israel, according to two senior Houthi officials. They spoke on condition of anonymity because there was no official announcement from the Houthi leadership.

U.S. embassies or consulates in Qatar, United Arab Emirates and Israel posted on social media that they told staffers to shelter in place and recommended all Americans “do the same until further notice.”