Phil Stewart and Idrees Ali, Reuters

WASHINGTON • Three U.S. service members have been killed and another five have been seriously wounded in the first casualties of the unfolding U.S. operations against Iran, the U.S. military said on Sunday.

The casualties were announced on the second day of strikes by the U.S. and Israel against Iran, which led to the death of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and an escalation i attacks by both sides.

In a statement on Sunday, the U.S. military’s Central Command said that U.S. troops suffered additional, less serious injuries, as well.

“Several others sustained minor shrapnel injuries and concussions — and are in the process of being returned to duty. Major combat operations continue and our response effort is ongoing,” Central Command said in a statement on X.

The military declined to offer specifics of how the U.S. forces were killed and wounded, as Iran’s Revolutionary Guards launched blistering rounds of drones and missiles at targets throughout the Middle East.

On Sunday morning, Iran said it had launched an attack on the Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier with four ballistic missiles, the country’s state media reported. Central Command said the ship was not hit and that Iran’s missiles didn’t come close.

The U.S. deaths are the first combat-related fatalities suffered by the U.S. military in major operations ordered by President Donald Trump since he returned to office last year. The U.S. bombing of Iran’s nuclear sites last June and the U.S. military’s seizure of Venezuela’s president in January led to no U.S. fatalities.

Trump had warned on Saturday that there could be U.S. casualties.

“My administration has taken every possible step to minimize the risk to U.S. personnel in the region,” he said.

“Even so, and I do not make this statement lightly, the Iranian regime seeks to kill. The lives of courageous American heroes may be lost, and we may have casualties. That often happens in war,” Trump added.

Following the U.S.-Israeli strikes that killed Khamenei and other leaders, Iran’s counterattacks have struck U.S. bases in Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates.

Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard has threatened to launch its “most intense offensive operation” ever, targeting Israeli and American military installations.

Before the strikes, Trump had built up the largest U.S. military presence in the Middle East in decades. The arrival of the Lincoln and three accompanying guided-missile destroyers at the end of January bolstered the number of warships in the region.

The world’s largest aircraft carrier, the USS Gerald R. Ford, and four accompanying destroyers later were dispatched from the Caribbean Sea to head to the Middle East.