The U.S. military said on Sunday that it recovered unidentified human remains in Jordan while searching for an American service member missing after Friday’s Iranian missile and drone attack. The discovery came as the region’s U.S.-Iran confrontation claimed another life in northern Iraq on Saturday.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio, speaking to reporters on Sunday, called the dead and missing service members heroes and said, “Our hearts go out to these families.” He added that the United States remained open to diplomacy with Iran even as the fighting widened across Jordan and Iraq. CENTCOM said two U.S. service members were killed in Friday’s attack in Jordan and a third was still missing, while four others were evacuated to hospitals and later discharged.
The remains were found at the site of Friday’s attack, and officials said an examination is underway to determine whether they belong to the missing service member. That question matters because the military is now dealing with two separate fatal incidents tied to the same conflict: the Jordan attack, which killed two service members while they were defending against an Iranian ballistic missile and drone strike, and the Iraq blast, where one service member died during the controlled detonation of unexploded ordnance from a downed Iranian one-way attack drone. A second service member in Iraq suffered a minor injury and remains under medical care.
Even as the casualty count rose, CENTCOM said it carried out a ninth consecutive night of attacks on Iran on Sunday evening, starting at 7 p.m. ET and ending shortly after 10 p.m. ET. It said the strikes hit military command centers, air defense and coastal surveillance sites, maritime capabilities, missile and drone launch sites, and communications networks, with the goal of reducing Iran’s ability to attack commercial vessels and civilian mariners transiting the Strait of Hormuz. On Saturday, CENTCOM said U.S. forces had completed the eighth night of launching munitions against Iran.
The friction is plain: Washington says it is still open to talks, but it is also striking Iranian targets night after night. Rubio said Iran’s behavior has to change for the American response to change, and he pointed to the missile and drone attacks on ships, including on Sunday night, as proof that the conflict is still moving forward, not easing. The next development hinges on the examination in Jordan, which will determine whether the remains are those of the missing service member and could close one painful uncertainty even as the wider exchange continues.
