At least 200 American troops wounded in Iran war, US military says | US military
At least 200 US troops have been injured in the US-Israeli war against Iran, a US military spokesperson said on Monday.
“Since the start of Operation Epic Fury, approximately 200 US service members have been injured,” US Central Command spokesperson Cpt Tim Hawkins told the Guardian by email.
“The vast majority of these injuries are minor,” Hawkins said, adding that 180 soldiers have since returned to duty. He did not elaborate when asked follow-up questions about the types of injuries service members suffered or their causes.
ABC News previously reported that the injuries included burns, shrapnel and traumatic brain injury (TBI), citing an unnamed U.S. official. Of the 200 injured, at least 10 service members were “seriously injured,” Hawkins previously told the media outlet.
On Monday, 13 service members were killed in the US war against Iran. Six crew members died last week when a US military refueling plane crashed in western Iraq.
Six US service members were killed when an Iranian drone struck an operations center at a civilian port in Kuwait and a seventh US service member died after being injured in an attack on Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia.
More than 1,300 Iranians have been killed, the country’s U.N. ambassador said last week, along with hundreds of civilians in Lebanon and 15 people in Israel.
Donald Trump has made conflicting statements on the conflict so far, previously urging Western allies to go to war and protect the Strait of Hormuz amid fears of a global oil disruption, while suggesting that the United States should not make military efforts to protect the strait given that the country has “a lot of oil.”
