An Iranian woman walks past an anti-U.S. banner in Tehran on Sunday.
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AMMAN, Jordan — The U.S. military carried out a wave of airstrikes in Iran over the weekend as it announced that a third U.S. service member had been killed in military operations since Friday.
The U.S. attacks were the ninth consecutive day of bombing since peace talks between the two countries collapsed in dispute over a memorandum of understanding focused on the Strait of Hormuz, the key oil shipping waterway.
U.S. Central Command said a service member was killed during a controlled detonation of an Iranian drone in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq. It also said that it had recovered unidentified remains at a base in Jordan where two military personnel were killed in an Iranian strike Friday. It said it was still trying to determine the identity of the deceased and did not say whether the remains were those of a service member.
The Department of Defense identified on Monday the two service members killed last week as 1st Lt. Tyler James Feehan, 25, of Ewa Beach, Hawaii, and Pvt. Isabella Gonzales, 19, of Carrollton, Texas. It said both were killed during an Iranian attack last Friday at Muwaffaq Salti Air Base in Jordan.
President Trump said the waves of strikes were “in honor” of the dead service members. “We hit them very hard again tonight,” he told reporters after landing in Maryland from an appearance at the World Cup final.
The U.S. says the weekend deaths make 17 military personnel now killed in the conflict with Iran. Iran says at least 3,000 Iranians, many of them civilians, have been killed since the U.S. and Israel began the war against Iran on Feb. 28. The dead include 168 children and 14 adults killed in a strike on a girls school. The U.S. military says it still has not conducted a full review of that attack.
A man walks past a mural on Sunday in Tehran showing a reference to an Iranian epic.
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Iran kept up its attacks Monday in retaliation for the U.S. strikes that targeted bridges and electrical infrastructure in a southern Iranian province alongside the Strait of Hormuz. Iran had said it would respond in kind and on the weekend targeted electricity installations and water desalination plants in Kuwait, which hosts a large U.S. military presence.
It also targeted Bahrain, home of the U.S. Navy’s 5th Fleet.
Iran said U.S. missiles had struck several Iranian cities early Monday local time. It did not give details of casualties or damage.
On Monday, Iran said it disabled two oil tankers that had attempted to transit the Strait of Hormuz without its permission. The British military said a ship was burning near the Omani coastline in the strait. It was not clear whether that vessel had been targeted by Iran.
Oil prices continued to rise on Monday, topping more than $90 per barrel for benchmark crude.
In Jordan, Iran said its missiles targeted U.S. military aircraft at the international airport in the resort city of Aqaba. Iran claimed the attacks damaged U.S. transport and command and control aircraft. There was no confirmation of the claim.
The U.S. Embassy on Sunday warned Americans to avoid the Aqaba airport and seaport due to threats. Jordan denied there were threats against the installations, but Iranian missiles struck shortly after. The small and vulnerable kingdom hosts a large but low-profile U.S. military presence.
The U.S. has been moving more air defense assets inside Jordanian bases since the war in Iran began, according to military experts. Jordan’s population is strongly opposed to supporting Israel due to its actions in Gaza and the Israeli-occupied West Bank, and most Jordanians never see U.S. military personnel operating in bases outside the cities.
Aqaba’s airport was operating again on Monday.