The number of U.S. casualties in the Iran War ticked higher on Tuesday, hours after American military forces conducted what U.S. Central Command called “self-defense strikes” in southern Iran. Official Pentagon statistics put the current casualty toll at 423, an increase of three wounded from the War Department’s last official tally issued on Friday.
The increase in casualties came as Iran’s supreme leader said the war had exposed the vulnerability of U.S. military bases.
The increase in casualties came as Iranian Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei said in a written statement that the war had exposed the vulnerability of U.S. military bases across the Middle East and as Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps threatened to respond to any U.S. strikes.
“The hands of time do not turn backward, and the nations and lands of the region will no longer serve as shields for American bases,” Khamenei said in his statement. “America, in addition to no longer having a safe place for aggression and military bases in the region, is moving further away from its former status day by day.”
The U.S. has been clinging to a rickety ceasefire with Iran for more than a month, as President Donald Trump — who previously threatened to commit genocide in that country — has oscillated between claims that a peace agreement is imminent and talk of renewed hostilities.
