War With Iran Deepens as Four U.S. Troops Identified Among the Dead

For an 11th straight night, U.S. forces launched airstrikes on Iran on Tuesday, targeting aircraft hangars, drone storage depots, military command centers and naval infrastructure, according to the Pentagon, while Iran answered with missile and drone barrages against American allies throughout the region — an escalating exchange that has now left at least 18 U.S. service members dead.

The Pentagon on Tuesday named a third soldier killed in last week's Iranian missile and drone attack on Muwaffaq Salti Air Base in Jordan: Army Sgt. Angel S. Rampersad, 28, of Ozone Park, New York. Rampersad had been carried as missing immediately following the July 17 strike until unidentified remains were recovered and identified as hers. She was assigned to the 1st Battalion, 57th Air Defense Artillery Regiment, based in Ansbach, Germany.

Two additional service members perished in the same Jordan strike: 1st Lt. Tyler James Feehan, 25, of Ewa Beach, Hawaii, and Pvt. Isabella Gonzales, 19, of Carrollton, Texas. A fourth fatality, Army Sgt. Michael Emmanuel Swinton, 30, of Fayetteville, North Carolina, came Sunday at Erbil Air Base in Iraq during a controlled detonation of a downed Iranian attack drone.

President Trump flew to Dover Air Force Base in Delaware on Wednesday for a dignified transfer ceremony to receive the soldiers' remains. "All I'm going to say is, we love you. We love your child," Trump told reporters before boarding Air Force One. He described dignified transfer ceremonies as among "the hardest things to do as a president."

The resumed hostilities follow the collapse of a ceasefire agreement reached in mid-June between Washington and Tehran, which fell apart over a dispute about transit rights in the Strait of Hormuz. Iran has claimed authority over passage through the strategic waterway, while the administration has demanded a return to its prewar status as an open international corridor. The two nations have now traded strikes for 11 nights running.

Trump issued a blunt threat Wednesday, posting on social media that U.S. forces would demolish one bridge or power plant — including those near the Iranian capital — for every ship Iranian forces targeted in the strait. Iran's semiofficial Tasnim news agency cited a military source as saying Tehran would retaliate in kind, striking infrastructure and energy assets tied to American interests.

The broadening conflict is rattling global energy markets. Brent crude futures climbed roughly 4 percent Wednesday morning, trading near $95 a barrel, as the prolonged closure of the Strait of Hormuz kept squeezing oil supplies out of the Persian Gulf. Adding to the pressure, Iran-backed Houthi forces in Yemen announced a maritime embargo against Saudi Arabia and moved missiles and drones into position near the Bab el-Mandeb strait — the southern chokepoint of the Red Sea — threatening a key alternative route Saudi Arabia had been using to skirt Hormuz. At least seven oil tankers reversed course after the embargo was announced.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth appeared before the Senate Appropriations Committee on Tuesday and said the war has so far cost approximately $37.5 billion, a sum well beyond previous projections, while requesting that Congress authorize an additional $67 billion to maintain operations and rebuild depleted weapons stockpiles. Senators on both sides of the aisle pressed Hegseth on the conflict's goals and likely timeline. "We need straight answers," Republican Sen. John Kennedy said during the hearing.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio, speaking in Manila at an ASEAN foreign ministers' summit, said the United States would keep hitting Iranian targets for as long as Tehran sought to dominate the strait and refused to negotiate seriously. "Right now they don't seem to be serious" about a deal, Rubio said, adding that a prior agreement had been violated within two weeks of being signed.