A fourth American service member has died after coming under attack from Iran over the weekend, the US military said Monday.
Tampa, Fla.-based US Central Command (CENTCOM) said the victim succumbed to their injuries after being initially listed as seriously wounded in the attack targeting Kuwait.
The identities of fallen service members are withheld until 24 hours after next of kin have been notified.
“Major combat operations continue and our response effort is ongoing,” CENTCOM said.
Four American military members are now understood to have been seriously wounded in the attack.
CENTCOM initially announced Sunday that three US service members had been killed and five were seriously wounded, while several others who suffered minor shrapnel injuries and concussions had been treated and were preparing to return to duty.
The victims were members of a US Army unit that oversees supplies and logistics, a person familiar with the situation told the Associated Press Sunday.
President Trump told the New York Times Sunday evening, before the fourth death was announced, that “three is three too many, as far as I’m concerned,” but added that “if you look at projections, they [the Pentagon] do projections, it, you know, it could be quite a bit higher than that.”
At a news conference Monday, Gen. Dan “Raizin” Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, confirmed that “we expect to take additional losses, and as always, we will work to minimize US losses.”
“This is not a single, overnight operation,” he said. “The military objectives that CENTCOM and the Joint Force have been tasked with will take some time to achieve — and in some cases will be difficult and gritty work … these are major combat operations.”
The president separately said that he anticipated the campaign against Iran to last approximately one month after strikes began Feb. 28.
Follow The Post’s coverage of the United States’ airstrikes on Iran:
- Three US service members killed, 5 seriously wounded in Operation Epic Fury
- Trump reveals US destroyed 9 ‘important’ Iranian naval ships — and is ‘going after the rest’
- The US and Israel tracked Khamenei for months — and then he gave them a massive opportunity to take him out
- Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iran’s ex-president who said ‘Israel must be wiped off the map,’ killed in Israeli airstrikes
- Who will lead Iran next? After Khamenei’s death, opposition leaders jockey for power
“It’s always been a four-week process,” Trump told the Daily Mail. “We figured it will be four weeks or so. It’s always been about a four-week process so — as strong as it is, it’s a big country, it’ll take four weeks — or less.”
In the same interview, the president said he was not surprised by the progress of the campaign — except “we took out their entire leadership – far, far more than what we thought.”
With Post wires
