By Idrees Ali
July 20 (Reuters) – President Donald Trump on Monday said Iran would “pay” for killing U.S. soldiers after multiple service members were killed over the weekend in the war against Iran, marking one of the deadliest periods for U.S. forces since the war started in February.
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The number of U.S. troops killed in the war on Iran rose to 17 over the weekend, with the remains of an additional service member being examined. Two of the personnel were confirmed to have been killed when Iran attacked U.S. personnel in Jordan.
“Every time Iran kills an American Soldier they will pay for that killing many times over,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “This directive has been passed on to Secretary of War, Pete Hegseth, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Daniel Caine.”
In March, six U.S. troops were killed when an Iranian drone slammed into a U.S. military facility in Port Shuaiba, Kuwait.
Roughly 430 U.S. troops have been injured in the conflict so far. The Pentagon said on Monday that since July 7, 100 service members were injured but that 96 percent have returned to duty. It is unclear how many of those, if any, were included in the 430 number in the Pentagon’s public database.
After a brief ceasefire, fighting intensified around July 7, including U.S. strikes on Iran and Iranian attacks on U.S. forces in the Middle East.
The White House said Trump would attend the dignified transfer at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware for the service members killed.
It is unclear what specific “directive” Trump passed to the Pentagon. But a U.S. official told Reuters that prior to the deadly attack in Jordan, the United States had already started moving additional military aircraft, including fighter jets and refueling tankers, to the Middle East.
Joe Kent, who headed the National Counterterrorism Center until March, said the back and forth between U.S. and Iranian forces risked further escalation.
“Get our troops out now before we suffer a mass casualty attack. Break the escalation trap,” Kent, who resigned over Trump’s war in Iran, wrote on X.
In the past week, Trump has threatened to expand the targets being struck in Iran to include energy plants and bridges, sending ground forces to seize Iran’s Kharg Island oil hub and bombing a deep-underground nuclear-linked site known as Pickaxe Mountain.
Sources have told Reuters that recent waves of U.S. strikes on Iran aimed at forcing open the Strait of Hormuz are also targeting Iranian military capabilities the U.S. would want to destroy before executing more complex operations against Iran.
The war, including its monetary cost, is set to dominate a congressional hearing on Tuesday with Hegseth and Caine.
(Reporting by Idrees Ali and Christian Martinez; Editing by Susan Heavey, Don Durfee, Andrea Ricci and Sanjeev Miglani)
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