WASHINGTON — The U.S. military on Monday identified two soldiers killed in action last week as part of the war with Iran.
The Defense Department said in a statement that 1st Lt. Tyler James Feehan, 25, of Ewa Beach, Hawaii, and Pvt. Isabella Gonzales, 19, of Carrollton, Texas, were killed in Jordan, where they were supporting a U.S. mission against the Islamic State group. It’s unclear how they were killed.
On Saturday, the U.S. Central Command said two service members were killed in Jordan while defending against Iranian ballistic missile and drone attacks.
The U.S. military has said the total number of deaths in the war with Iran is 17.
The deaths reflect the complicated reality that American soldiers don’t need to be on the ground in Iran for there to be lethal risks in a conflict that involves drones, missiles and airplanes. American forces are arrayed across the Middle East, making other nations targets of Iran as the fighting has escalated after a breakdown in peace talks.
President Trump, a Republican, has said the war is necessary to stop Iran from developing nuclear weapons.
First fatalities came soon after the war started
Shortly after the war began on Feb. 28, an Iranian drone strike at a civilian port in Kuwait killed six American soldiers. The soldiers were part of a supply and logistics unit based in Iowa who were working at a shipping container-style building that had no defenses.
A seventh soldier died more than a week after being wounded during a March 1 attack by Iran on the Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia.
Later in March, six service members were killed when a KC-135 refueling aircraft supporting U.S. military operations against Iran crashed in Iraq. The aircraft was in “friendly” airspace when an unspecified incident involving another aircraft took place, according to U.S. Central Command.
On Monday, the U.S. military said a Navy pilot died in a helicopter crash in the Arabian Sea. The Navy initially described the July 1 crash as an emergency landing and said there was “no indication the emergency was caused by hostile action.” The remaining three sailors aboard the helicopter were rescued.
Drones and missiles still claiming lives
The latest U.S. military death from the conflict was on Saturday in northern Iraq when an American service member in northern Iraq was killed during a “controlled detonation” of unexploded ordnance from a downed Iranian drone, U.S. Central Command said Sunday. A second service member was wounded and was receiving medical treatment for a minor injury.
The military said it was withholding additional information until 24 hours after families had been notified.
The deaths in the war are not limited to Americans.
Iranian authorities said at least 50 people have been killed and more than 500 wounded in U.S. strikes in the past three weeks, including eight killed in a strike on a bridge Friday.
People working on ships, as well as foreign workers and others in Gulf nations, Israel and Lebanon have also perished in the conflict.
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