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The United States has announced its first casualties in the escalating war with Iran, which entered its second day on Sunday.

“Three U.S. service members have been killed in action and five are seriously wounded as part of Operation Epic Fury,” U.S. Central Command, the combatant command that’s responsible for military operations in the Middle East, said in a post on X.

The United States has announced its first casualties in the escalating war with Iran, which entered its second day on Sunday.

“Three U.S. service members have been killed in action and five are seriously wounded as part of Operation Epic Fury,” U.S. Central Command, the combatant command that’s responsible for military operations in the Middle East, said in a post on X.

“Several others sustained minor shrapnel injuries and concussions — and are in the process of being returned to duty. Major combat operations continue and our response effort is ongoing,” Centcom said. “The situation is fluid, so out of respect for the families, we will withhold additional information, including the identities of our fallen warriors, until 24 hours after next of kin have been notified.”

Centcom told Foreign Policy that it had no additional information to share at this time when asked for more details on the circumstances surrounding the deaths and injuries.

U.S. President Donald Trump waited hours after the Centcom announcement before commenting on the casualties, even as he posted on Truth Social about other aspects of the war.

“We expect casualties with something like this,” Trump told NBC News. “We have three, but we expect casualties, but in the end it’s going to be a great deal for the world.”

The U.S. and Israeli strikes have killed a number of Iranian leaders so far, including Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and top military officials in his inner circle. Ali Shamkhani, the secretary of Iran’s Defense Council; Mohammed Pakpour, the commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps; Defense Minister Amir Nasirzadeh; and Abdolrahim Mousavi, the chief of staff of Iran’s armed forces, were also killed. Israel said a “majority of the highest-ranking senior military officials of the Iranian security leadership” were eliminated by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).

Despite such assessments on the success of the operation so far, the U.S. casualties could cost Trump politically. A Reuters/Ipsos poll that concluded on Sunday found that just 1 in 4 Americans supported the U.S. strikes on Iran—with 43 percent saying they disapproved of the attack. The negative polling numbers on the strikes come as Trump’s approval rating continues to dip, with a majority of Americans (60 percent) expressing disapproval of his presidency in a poll conducted on Feb. 12-17, before the Iran operation.

In the lead-up to the war, Gen. Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, reportedly warned Trump that strikes against Iran would carry significant risks—including the possibility of U.S. troops being killed. Foreign Policy also spoke with four former U.S. military leaders ahead of the operation who raised concerns about the risks.

In previous exchanges of fire with Iran under Trump, including during his first term after the strike that killed Qassem Suleimani and last June amid the 12-day war, no U.S. troops were killed.

The U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran were met with swift retaliation. Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said on Sunday that Tehran saw revenge as its “legitimate right and duty.” Since the operation began, Iran has launched attacks on Israel, U.S. bases in the Middle East, and civilian areas of major cities in Gulf countries including Doha, Qatar, and Dubai and Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates. There have also been reports of Iranian strikes, intercepted strikes, or explosions in Bahrain, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Oman, Saudi Arabia, and Syria.

The governments of multiple Arab nations have been enraged by the Iranian attacks, which have led to deaths and injuries in a number of countries so far. Airports, residential areas, and hotels across the region have been hit by Iranian strikes, according to Centcom. At least nine were killed in an Iranian missile strike on the Israeli city of Beit Shemesh on Sunday, which reportedly hit a residential area.

The U.S. and Israeli strikes have reportedly killed and wounded dozens of civilians across Iran. A strike that hit a girls’ school in southern Iran on Saturday killed more than 150, including children, according to Iranian authorities. Tehran has blamed the strike on the United States and Israel. The U.S. military is looking into the incident, while Israel has said it wasn’t aware of IDF operations in the area. Foreign Policy cannot independently verify the reports of and estimates on civilian casualties in Iran.

At a U.N. Security Council meeting on Saturday, Iran’s ambassador to the United Nations, Amir Saeid Iravani, said the U.S. and Israeli strikes on his country amounted to a “war crime and a crime against humanity.”

Iran and the region are now facing an extremely uncertain future. Khamenei’s death ends nearly 40 years of his repressive, authoritarian rule in Iran, but it doesn’t mean that the regime has collapsed. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi on Sunday said a new supreme leader could be selected in one to two days. An interim three-member leadership council, which was announced on Sunday in line with a process outlined in the country’s constitution, will oversee the government until a successor is chosen.

The council consists of Pezeshkian as well as Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Ejei, the chief justice of the Supreme Court, and Alireza Arafi, a clerical member of the Guardian Council (a powerful, unelected 12-member body that acts as a constitutional and theological watchdog, overseeing elections and reviewing legislation). The Assembly of Experts, an 88-member body of Islamic jurists, is responsible for choosing Khamenei’s successor.

While some Iranians have been seen mourning Khamenei, social media videos also showed large numbers celebrating in the streets. His death comes just weeks after the Iranian regime responded to mass anti-government protests with brutal violence that is estimated to have killed thousands of demonstrators.

Trump in January initially threatened to conduct strikes on Iran over its violent crackdown on the protests but then shifted to warning of potential U.S. military action in relation to Tehran’s nuclear program. When Operation Epic Fury began on Saturday, the United States and Iran had already held several rounds of indirect diplomatic talks on Iran’s nuclear program and were expected to continue the discussions.

Trump has offered a range of justifications for the strikes—primarily pointing to the country’s nuclear program (despite continuously pushing the exaggerated claim that U.S. strikes last June “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear program). The president said the United States could not allow Iran to obtain a nuclear weapon, an ambition that Tehran has long denied having. Trump has not provided evidence that Iran was actively pursuing a nuclear weapon. The president has also said Iran was “working to build missiles that will soon reach” the United States, though recent U.S. intelligence assessments undermine this.

Trump has also leaned on the decades of animosity between Tehran and Washington in making the case for the operation, accusing the Iranian regime of waging an “unending campaign of bloodshed” against the United States for nearly half a century—pointing to moments such as the 1979 hostage crisis. Trump has endorsed regime change in Iran, calling for the Iranian people to rise up and “take over” their country.

But the president on Sunday also told the Atlantic that Iran has expressed a desire to resume negotiations and that he’s willing to talk with the country’s leadership. “They want to talk, and I have agreed to talk, so I will be talking to them. They should have done it sooner. They should have given what was very practical and easy to do sooner. They waited too long,” Trump said.

Trump did not say when talks might occur. In the meantime, the war is poised to continue, with the president signaling that the operation in Iran could go on for the next four weeks.

This post is part of FP’s ongoing coverage. Read more here.

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