The U.S. military said Saturday that two additional service members were killed as part of the war with Iran, bringing the total number of U.S. military deaths to 16. The latest fatalities occurred in Jordan while American forces defended against Iranian ballistic missile and drone attacks. The military said one U.S. service member is “currently” missing.

The deaths illustrate the risks to American forces in a conflict fought with drones, missiles and airplanes, even without U.S. troops operating on the ground. American forces are positioned across the Middle East, leaving other nations vulnerable to Iranian attacks as the fighting escalated following a breakdown in peace talks.

President Donald Trump has said the war is necessary to stop Iran from developing nuclear weapons. As of Saturday afternoon, Trump had not issued a statement about the latest deaths. The White House instead sent out a statement issued by U.S. Central Command.

Earlier U.S. fatalities

The first American deaths came shortly after the war began on Feb. 28, when an Iranian drone strike at a civilian port in Kuwait killed six soldiers. They were members of a supply and logistics unit based in Iowa and were working in a shipping container-style building that had no defenses. A seventh soldier died more than a week after being wounded in Iran’s March 1 attack on Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia.

  • Six service members were killed later in March when a KC-135 refueling aircraft supporting U.S. military operations against Iran crashed in Iraq. Central Command said the aircraft was in “friendly” airspace when an unspecified incident involving another aircraft occurred.
  • A Navy pilot died in a helicopter crash in the Arabian Sea. The Navy initially described the July 1 crash as an emergency landing and said there was “no indication the emergency was caused by hostile action.” Three other sailors aboard were rescued.
  • The military said it was withholding additional information, including the names of the two service members killed in Jordan, until 24 hours after their families had been notified.

The conflict has also caused deaths beyond the U.S. military. Iranian authorities said at least 50 people had been killed and more than 500 wounded in U.S. strikes during the previous three weeks, including eight people killed in a strike on a bridge Friday. People working on ships, foreign workers and others in Gulf nations, Israel and Lebanon have also died in the conflict.