Centcom says US service member killed in Iraq
US Central Command said on Sunday that a US service member in northern Iraq was killed in action on Saturday during a controlled detonation of a downed Iranian drone.
It comes after two US soldiers were killed and one missing by an Iranian attack on a military facility in Jordan.
Centcom said in an update shared on X:
double quotation mark A U.S. service member in northern Iraq was killed in action July 18 during a controlled detonation of unexploded ordnance from a downed Iranian one-way attack drone. A second service member was wounded and continues to receive medical treatment for a minor injury.
It added that it had located unidentified remains in Jordan after a service member was listed as missing in action.
“An examination process to verify the remains is ongoing,†Centcom said.
It brings the total number of US service members who have died since the US and Israel launched war against Iran five months ago to 17. More than 430 US troops have been wounded.
Key events
The US service member killed during the disposal of an Iranian drone in Iraq on Saturday was not a bomb technician but another soldier who was hit by debris or fragments when the drone was detonated, a US official has told the New York Times.
The incident is under investigation, according to the official.
Centcom says US service member killed in Iraq
US Central Command said on Sunday that a US service member in northern Iraq was killed in action on Saturday during a controlled detonation of a downed Iranian drone.
It comes after two US soldiers were killed and one missing by an Iranian attack on a military facility in Jordan.
Centcom said in an update shared on X:
double quotation mark A U.S. service member in northern Iraq was killed in action July 18 during a controlled detonation of unexploded ordnance from a downed Iranian one-way attack drone. A second service member was wounded and continues to receive medical treatment for a minor injury.
It added that it had located unidentified remains in Jordan after a service member was listed as missing in action.
“An examination process to verify the remains is ongoing,†Centcom said.
It brings the total number of US service members who have died since the US and Israel launched war against Iran five months ago to 17. More than 430 US troops have been wounded.
Closing summary
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The US military launched further strikes after vowing to “swiftly punish†Iran for an attack on Jordan that left two US service members dead and one missing, as fears deepened on Sunday that the war could spiral further into a wider regional conflict.
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Iran said the United States had attacked an under-construction nuclear power plant in Khuzestan province, in the country's southwest. The UN's nuclear watchdog, the IAEA urged restraint and said it was looking into the reports.
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The US's allies in the region also reported a fresh wave of Iranian fire. In Kuwait, officials said a power and water distillation plant was attacked for a second consecutive day. Air defences also intercepted strikes in Jordan and Bahrain. Jordan's foreign ministry summoned the chargé d'affaires of the Iranian embassy in Amman on Sunday to deliver “a strongly worded protest message†about the attacks.
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Meanwhile, the US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, met with Lebanese president Joseph Aoun in Washington on Sunday to discuss the implementation of the US-backed trilateral framework. Rubio hailed the country for its “move towards peace†after the latest round of Lebanon-Israel talks. Aoun is due to also meet with Donald Trump on Tuesday in Washington.
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And the United States was sending more warplanes to the Middle East, the New York Times (paywall) reported, citing US officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity on Sunday, another sign the Trump administration may soon further escalate its strikes against Iran. The redeployment of the aircraft had already been ordered before the Iranian attack on a military facility in Jordan that killed two US service members.
Iraqi prime minister Ali al-Zaidi is scheduled to visit Iran later this week following a trip to the US where he met with Donald Trump, AFP reports, citing Iraqi state media, on Sunday.
Washington and Tehran are Iraq's main allies, but their enmity has long turned the country into a proxy battleground and left successive governments struggling to maintain a delicate balance between the foes, who have traded intensifying attacks in recent days.
Iraq's national news agency, INA, quoted the foreign ministry as saying al-Zaidi will visit Tehran “at the end of this week†and is expected to sign memorandums of understanding “to strengthen bilateral tiesâ€.
It will be his first trip to Iran since coming to power this year with Washington's blessing after Trump vetoed another candidate.
Al-Zaidi returned to Iraq on Sunday after his one-week trip to the United States, having struck 48 agreements and partnerships with American companies.
A businessman, he has vowed to boost Iraq's fragile economy and disarm pro-Iran groups that have targeted US facilities.
In recent days, attacks blamed on Iran have rocked Iraq's autonomous Kurdistan region, which hosts US troops and foreign oil companies, as well as exiled Iranian Kurdish rebels.
US sending more warplanes to Middle East – report
The United States was sending more warplanes to the Middle East, the New York Times (paywall) reports, citing US officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity on Sunday, another sign the Trump administration may soon further escalate its strikes against Iran.
According to the officials, Air Force F-16 fighter jets from Germany and stealthy F-35 jets from the UK were being sent to the region, along with additional aerial refuelling aircraft.
US Central Command, which oversees operations in the region, declined to comment to the NYT on the reported deployments.
The redeployment of the aircraft had already been ordered before an Iranian attack on Friday that killed two US Army soldiers, left another service member missing, and injured many people in Jordan.
That attack came as the two sides traded strikes and counter-strikes all week long, and prompted retaliation by the United States that the military said was in part to “swiftly punish Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps forcesâ€.
Even before those strikes, Donald Trump signalled that he planned to increase attacks on Iran in the coming week, and intended to hit more Iranian infrastructure, including bridges and power plants.
A reminder that targeting civilian infrastructure without a clear military target could constitute a war crime.
It was not immediately clear where all the additional warplanes would be stationed, but an Israeli military official who spoke on the condition of anonymity on Saturday told the New York Times the United States had decided to place some additional aerial refuelling aircraft at Israeli Air Force bases.
Jordan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs summoned the chargé d'affaires of the Iranian embassy in Amman on Sunday to deliver “a strongly worded protest message†about Iranian attacks.
The ministry also took issue with “provocative and inflammatory statements†made by official Iranian entities, it said in a statement.
Foreign ministry spokesperson Fuad Al-Majali said the ministry instructed the Iranian diplomat to relay “a clear message†to Tehran to immediately halt its attacks on the kingdom, the statement added.
“Jordan's security and the safety of its citizens represent a red line that cannot be crossed,†he said, according to the statement.
Earlier on Sunday, Jordanian air defenses intercepted three Iranian missiles on Sunday afternoon local time while a fourth landed in a remote area, the country's military said.
Further to that last post, Lebanese officials said president Joseph Aoun is due to meet with Donald Trump on Tuesday in Washington.
While in Washington, Aoun planned talks “on the situation in Lebanon and ways to strengthen the ceasefire†as well as on “the withdrawal of Israel from the Lebanese regions it occupies,†his office said earlier.
Rubio meets with Aoun to discuss trilateral framework
As we reported earlier, US secretary of state Marco Rubio met with Lebanese president Joseph Aoun in Washington on Sunday to discuss the implementation of the US-backed trilateral framework, hailing the country for its “move towards peace†after the latest round of Lebanon-Israel talks.
Rubio “commended the courage of the Government of Lebanon, under President Aoun's leadership, for their determined effort to reclaim Lebanon's sovereignty, disarm Hezbollah and dismantle its terrorist infrastructure, and move towards peaceâ€, the US state department said in a statement.
It added that Rubio reaffirmed the US's commitment to supporting the implementation of the framework.
The UN's nuclear watchdog called for restraint on Sunday after Iran's Atomic Energy Organization said the United States had attacked an under-construction nuclear power plant in the country's south-west.
The US and Iran have been trading escalating attacks for days, and Washington carried out fresh airstrikes on Sunday to “punish†Iran for the deaths of two US service members in Jordan on Friday – its first reported losses since the return to open hostilities in the war.
Tehran's Atomic Energy Organization said US forces “in an aggressive and brutal act contrary to international law, attacked the under-construction Darkhovin nuclear power plant… with a number of projectiles on Sundayâ€, according to a statement carried by state TV.
As we reported earlier, the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said it was looking into the reports, noting the plant “is in the very early stages of construction and contained no nuclear material when last visited by the IAEAâ€.
While the incident “is not believed to pose any radiological riskâ€, IAEA director Rafael Grossi reiterated his “call for military restraint in the vicinity of all nuclear-related sitesâ€, the agency said, in a post on X.
The US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, met with Lebanese President Joseph Aoun in Washington on Sunday, a state department official told the AFP news agency.
It is the first trip to Washington by a Lebanese head of state since Michel Sleiman was received by former US president Barack Obama in 2009. The Lebanese president's office said Aoun would meet Donald Trump on Tuesday.
Aoun, who served as the commander of Lebanon's US-backed army before ‌being elected president last year, will reportedly present a plan to Trump on how to disarm Hezbollah and secure Israel's withdrawal from southern Lebanon. Hezbollah has firmly rejected the government's direct talks with Israel and efforts by the state, which it operates independently of, to strip it ​of its arms.
As well is killing many Lebanese civilians in airstrikes across the country, the Israeli military has destroyed dozens of villages in the areas it occupies, something Human Rights Watch said could amount to a war crime. Hundreds of thousands of Lebanese people remain displaced from their homes.
Israel has occupied large swathes of south Lebanon in what it calls a “security zone†and says it is trying to protect its northern communities from the threat of Hezbollah.
Lebanon was drawn into the war when Hezbollah fired rockets at Israel on 2 March to avenge the US-Israeli killing of Iran's former supreme leader in Tehran in late February.
More than 50 people have been killed in US attacks since the beginning of July, Iran's Fars news agency has cited the country's health ministry as saying.
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has confirmed it is “looking into reports†of an overnight attack on an under-construction nuclear plant in Darkhovin, in Iran's southwestern Khuzestan province (see this post for more details).
“The facility is in the very early stages of construction and contained no nuclear material when last visited by the IAEA,†the UN agency said in a statement.
The IAEA said the reported attack is “not believed to pose any radiological risk†but stressed that the agency's director general, Rafael Grossi, urges for “military restraint in the vicinity of all nuclear-related sitesâ€.
Iran's Atomic Energy Organization said earlier today that the US attacked an under-construction nuclear power plant site Khuzestan province with multiple projectiles.
Trump urges Republicans to add Iran to Russian sanctions bill
The US president, Donald Trump, has said the Republican party should add Iran to the Russian sanctions bill, arguing that this is what Lindsey Graham, the late Republican senator and his close political ally, wanted.
“That's what Lindsey wanted to do, and it was going to happen. IMPORTANT!!!†he wrote on the Truth Social platform in a brief post.
The bill would allow Trump to place 100% tariffs on goods coming from the top five buyers of Russian oil ​and natural gas.
The legislation is meant to cut revenues from the sale of ​Russia's energy for its war on Ukraine. Republicans and Democrats have both indicated that the bill could become law over the summer.
The White House had previously suggested the scope of the bill could be widened to include Iran and Hezbollah, the Lebanese militant group Tehran has supported and funded for decades.
Earlier this month, the US reimposed sanctions on Iranian oil sales in response to attacks on commercial ships near the strait of Hormuz. This was after the US agreed to a 60-day sanctions waiver and promised to unfreeze Iran's assets under the now collapsed memorandum of understanding. The waiver was welcomed in Iran, where US sanctions have long crippled the economy.
Sirens have sounded in the Jordanian capital Amman on Sunday, an AFP correspondent said, as the United States and Iran exchanged drone and missile attacks.
Jordan's state-run Al-Mamlaka channel also reported that “sirens have been activated in different parts of the kingdomâ€.
IDF says missiles launched from Iran toward Jordan and spillover into Israeli territory possible
The Israeli military said Sunday it had identified missiles launched from Iran towards Aqaba in Jordan, after Jordan's government denied the city's airport and seaport were evacuated over a threat.
“A short while ago, the IDF identified the launch of missiles from Iran toward the city of Aqaba in Jordan, adjacent to Israeli territory,†the military said. “It is possible that as a result of the fire, there will be spillover into Israeli territory.â€
Kuwait reports another Iranian attack on a power and water plant
Kuwait's ministry of electricity, water and renewable energy said a power and water distillation plant was attacked by Iran for the second time in two days, causing a fire in some of its facilities.
In a statement posted to social media, the ministry said the attack impacted a “large number of electricity generation unitsâ€, triggering emergency plans to mitigate the effects and “maintain the stability of the electricity gridâ€.
It added that firefighters were working to extinguish the fire while the extent of the damage is being assessed.
As my colleague Donna Ferguson notes in this story, Kuwait on Saturday accused Iran of targeting civilian sites and vital infrastructure in the country, such as a power and water desalination plant.
Kuwait, which is extremely arid, relies on desalinated water for about 90% of its drinking water, so is extremely vulnerable to attacks from Iran.
Iran says US attacked under-construction nuclear power plant
Iran's Atomic Energy Organization said earlier today that the US attacked an under-construction nuclear power plant site in Khuzestan province, in the country's southwest.
US forces “in an aggressive and brutal act contrary to international law, attacked the under-construction Darkhovin nuclear power plant… with a number of projectiles on Sunday,†the organisation said in a statement carried by state TV.
Construction â of the nuclear power plant reportedly began four years ago. We have not been able to verify this report and the US has not commented on the reported attack.
