The Defense Department on Monday released the names of two soldiers killed in Iranian strikes in Jordan, identifying them as 25-year-old Tyler James Feehan of Hawaii and 19-year-old Isabella Gonzales of Texas.
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Gonzales was killed Friday and Feehan on Saturday. The Pentagon did not provide details on the exact circumstances of their deaths.
Feehan and Gonzales had been assigned to Army missile defense commands in Fort Bragg, North Carolina, and Ansbach, Germany, respectively, it said.
The Pentagon said the two U.S. troops were part of a longtime, ongoing mission to counter ISIS, Operation Inherent Resolve, that began in 2014.
The troops were not technically part of the war with Iran, dubbed Operation Epic Fury by the Pentagon, despite President Donald Trump saying on Sunday that the troops were killed while ensuring Iran does not get a nuclear weapon.
“Those great patriots were out there fighting that Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon,” Trump told reporters.
In addition, another U.S. service member was killed in a separate incident in Iraq.
The release of the two soldiers’ identities comes after the U.S. military announced Sunday that it had recovered unidentified human remains while searching for an American service member reported missing following an Iranian missile and drone attack in Jordan.
U.S. Central Command said military personnel found the remains Sunday at the site of Friday’s attack in Jordan. Officials said an examination is underway to determine whether they belong to the missing service member.
Central Command said Saturday that two service members were killed and a third was missing following Iran’s attack Friday on U.S. and partner forces in Jordan.
Separately, a U.S. service member was killed Saturday in northern Iraq during the controlled detonation of unexploded ordnance from a downed Iranian one-way attack drone, the combatant command said. A second service member suffered a minor injury and remains under medical care.
“Our hearts go out to these families,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters Sunday. “These are heroes that pay the ultimate price.”
In a social media post Monday, Trump said U.S. military leaders had been given the directive to make Iran pay “many times over” for the killing of U.S. soldiers. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Monday afternoon in a post on X that the president would attend the transfer of the remains of killed service members at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware on Tuesday night.
Leavitt later posted on X that the transfer of remains would not take place on Tuesday. “The exact day and time are still being finalized,” she wrote.
Fifteen U.S. service members have been killed in combat since military operations against Iran began, while two more service members died from noncombat-related causes. American military members who have been wounded since the start of the conflict now number 140, including eight who were wounded severely.
The discrepancy in the naming of the conflict reflects an ongoing confusion about the war with Iran — specifically about whether Operation Epic Fury continues.
NBC News previously reported that the Trump administration was considering re-naming the start of combat operations in Iran to circumvent the 1973 War Powers Resolution, which requires troops to be withdrawn within 60 days of starting combat operations if Congress was not notified beforehand.
In May, Trump notified Congress that Operation Epic Fury had ended. Since then, the Pentagon has not said what the ongoing military operation in Iran is named.
The military says Operation Inherent Resolve is the Combined Joint Task Force that works with partner forces to ensure the defeat of ISIS. Asked about the discrepancy in the mission the fallen service members were on, Acting Pentagon Press Secretary Joel Valdez said in a statement, “They were deployed on orders to support Operation Inherent Resolve.”
There are more than 50,000 troops in the region, according to U.S. Central Command. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan Caine last gave a briefing at the Pentagon on the war in Iran in May.
At least 3,375 people have been killed in Iran since military operations began, according to the country’s state-affiliated news media, citing a senior judicial official.
The mounting death toll has effectively ended the interim ceasefire between the U.S. and Iran negotiated last month. After weeks of trading accusations that each side has violated the agreement, the two countries resumed attacks, with U.S. forces striking Iranian military targets and Tehran launching missiles and drones at U.S. allies in the region.
Rubio said that the U.S. remained open to diplomacy with Iran, but that “even within their own system, there’s a growing split.”
“They continue to send signals that they want to talk, that they want to negotiate,” he said. “But their behavior is what we’re responding to, and their behavior is they’re launching missiles and drones against ships, including tonight.”
“Their behavior has to change in order for ours to change,” Rubio added.
On Sunday evening, Central Command said it conducted a ninth consecutive night of attacks on Iran starting at 7 p.m. ET. It said in a subsequent statement shortly after 10 p.m. ET that the strikes had concluded.
“CENTCOM assets targeted Iranian military command centers, air defense and coastal surveillance sites, maritime capabilities, missile and drone launch sites, and communications networks to further diminish Iran’s ability to attack commercial vessels and civilian mariners transiting the Strait of Hormuz,” it said.
On Saturday, the command said U.S. forces completed the eighth night of launching munitions against Iran when it targeted Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps forces believed to have been involved in Friday’s attack on U.S. service members in Jordan.
The military said the two service members died defending against an Iranian ballistic missile and drone attack. Four other U.S. service members were medically evacuated to hospitals in Jordan and have since been discharged.
