About 140 U.S. service members have been wounded since the start of Operation Epic Fury, the Pentagon announced Tuesday, as the U.S. looks to intensify its strikes against Iran and weighs escorting oil tankers and other vessels through the Strait of Hormuz.
Multiple reports said Iran was planning to mine the waterway or perhaps had started doing so, prompting the U.S. to blast Iranian minelayers and vow to keep open the strategic strait.
The latest casualty number marks the first time since the early days of the war that the Pentagon has released a comprehensive accounting of the number of Americans wounded. Seven U.S. service members have been killed, most from an Iranian drone attack on a U.S. base in Kuwait.
Most of the 140 injuries were minor, and 108 service members had already returned to duty, said Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell. Eight suffered severe injuries.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, informed reporters that operations Tuesday would be the “most intense day of strikes” since the conflict began late last month, using “the most fighters [and] the most bombers” to date.
The defense officials said the U.S. had hit more than 5,000 targets in the country since the start of the operation and made significant progress in reducing the number of daily missile and drone attacks coming out of Iran.
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Destroying Iran’s ballistic missile, drone and nuclear infrastructure has emerged as the primary strategic goal of the U.S. in its war with Iran.
War timeline
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt reiterated Washington’s position that Iran cannot obtain a nuclear weapon and that the Middle East will be a safer place without the Islamic republic.
“We’ve taken out their ballistic missile capability, we can firmly, finally ensure that they can no longer be a nuclear bomb threat to the United States, our allies and our troops in the region,” Ms. Leavitt said.
“The president has reiterated, he has said, he was not going to sit back and allow the Iranian regime to threaten or to attack the United States of America,” she said.
Despite the escalation, Mr. Hegseth declined to provide a timeline for the war. He told reporters that President Trump has “maximum options” and “gets to control the throttle.”
SEE ALSO: Could U.S. forces locate, seize Iran’s stockpile of enriched uranium?
Mr. Hegseth previously said the war could last as long as eight weeks, but he has increasingly deferred to the president on when the war will end.
The Pentagon’s comments follow Mr. Trump’s contradictory remarks Monday about the status of the war.
In a phone interview with CBS in the afternoon, the president said the war with Iran was “very complete, pretty much,” while insisting that U.S. forces had decimated the Islamic republic’s military.
Markets rebounded significantly after Mr. Trump’s comments. The price of oil dropped to $86 a barrel from its dramatic high of nearly $120 earlier in the day.
Mr. Trump followed up just hours later by telling a group of Republican lawmakers in Miami that “we haven’t won enough” and later concluded that the war would not end this week but would do so “very soon.”
Keeping the strait open
The president also ramped up the aggression on social media Monday evening, warning Iran that it would face even more intense strikes if it did not allow ships to travel through the Strait of Hormuz.
“If Iran does anything that stops the flow of Oil within the Strait of Hormuz, they will be hit by the United States of America twenty times harder than they have been hit thus far. … Death, Fire, and Fury will reign upon them,” Mr. Trump wrote on Truth Social.
Mr. Trump’s promise to increase pressure on Iran over the security of the Strait of Hormuz underscores growing anxiety among U.S. and European officials over international energy prices.
Iran announced the closure of the strait to Western and Israeli ships on March 4 and confirmed Tuesday that it would not allow any oil to leave the region until the conflict ceases.
At least one-fifth of the world’s oil travels through the Strait of Hormuz each year, making it essential to the global energy trade.
CNN, citing “two people familiar with U.S. intelligence reporting on the issue,” reported Tuesday that Iran had begun laying mines in the strait.
According to the network, the mining is not yet extensive, but Iran still has most of its small boats and minelayers. Other news outlets reported that Iran was planning to mine the strategic chokepoint.
However, Mr. Trump said he had no reports of active Iranian mining of the strait, but he added that U.S. forces had “completely destroyed” 10 inactive minelaying ships.
Energy Secretary Chris Wright posted on X, and then deleted, that the Navy had “successfully escorted” an oil tanker through the Strait of Hormuz.
The White House declined to comment on why the post was deleted, but Ms. Leavitt confirmed that the Navy had not escorted any tankers through the Strait and directed questions about the post to the Department of Energy.
Iranian attacks, threats
Mr. Wright and Mr. Trump signaled last week that they were prepared to escort ships through the strait, shielding them from potential attacks from Iranian drones and missiles, but declined to provide a timeline.
It remains unclear whether the Navy is preparing to escort all oil tankers through the strait, and Gen. Caine deferred to the president when asked about the issue.
France announced earlier this week that it would lead a European effort to establish a “purely defensive, purely escort mission” to steward ships through the strait once the most intense period of fighting concludes.
The Qatari Foreign Ministry called Iranian attacks on oil shipments and infrastructure a “dangerous precedent” and urged allies to focus on stopping Iran’s attacks on refineries and oil fields in the region.
Qatar, like its Arab Gulf neighbors, has had its energy infrastructure and U.S. diplomatic buildings repeatedly attacked by Iran.
Additionally, officials from the Group of Seven leading industrialized nations met Monday and again Tuesday to discuss the potential use of strategic oil reserves to ease oil prices impacted by any disruptions in the strait.
Ministers asked the International Energy Agency for updated data on oil stocks that could be used if the organization decides to dip into the reserves.
Iranian attacks on its wealthy Arab neighbors continued. Two people were killed in the United Arab Emirates in an Iranian drone attack of about 40 devices. In Bahrain, a 29-year-old woman was killed in a residential building in Manama.
The Islamic republic vowed to fight to the finish as Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf, its parliament speaker, said on X that Iran was “definitely not looking for a ceasefire.”
Security official Ali Larijani posted a veiled assassination threat against Mr. Trump. He wrote on X, “Even those bigger than you couldn’t eliminate Iran. Be careful not to get eliminated yourself.”
Russia denies helping Iran
On the diplomatic front, Special Envoy Steve Witkoff said Russian President Vladimir Putin assured Mr. Trump during a phone call Monday that the Kremlin had not shared intelligence with Iran.
Pressed on whether the U.S. could take the Russians’ denial “at their word,” Mr. Witkoff said he was not sure.
“I’m not an intelligence officer, so I can’t tell you,” said Mr. Witkoff, who has been one of Washington’s lead negotiators in talks to end the Russia-Ukraine war. “Let’s hope that they’re not sharing.”
Unidentified officials told The Washington Post last week that Russia had been supplying Iran with satellite imagery and targeting data on U.S. warships and aircraft since well before the war.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi appeared to partially confirm the relationship Friday by telling NBC that Tehran was receiving assistance from Russia and China, though he declined to elaborate.
Ms. Leavitt told Fox News on Friday that it “does not really matter” if Russia is providing Iran with intelligence because “President Trump and the United States military are absolutely decimating the rogue Iranian terrorist regime.”
Ms. Leavitt declined to provide further information on Mr. Trump’s phone conversation with Mr. Putin.
• Mike Glenn, Jeff Mordock and Mary McCue Bell contributed to this report.
• Vaughn Cockayne can be reached at vcockayne@washingtontimes.com.
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