DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) \u2014 The U.S. military says two troops are dead and one is missing after Iranian attacks on a base in Jordan. They are the first U.S. deaths due to direct Iranian fire since the opening days of the war.<\/p>\n
A statement says they were killed Friday as the U.S. and partner forces defended against Iranian ballistic missile and drone attacks. These are the first U.S. deaths due to Iranian fire since the opening days of the war.<\/p>\n
It says four other service members who were medically evacuated to Jordanian hospitals were later discharged.<\/p>\n
The dead were not identified.<\/p>\n
THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. AP\u2019s earlier story follows below.<\/p>\n
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) \u2014<\/p>\n
THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. AP\u2019s earlier story follows below.<\/p>\n
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) \u2014 Iran\u2019s supreme leader warned of \u201cunforgettable lessons\u201d Saturday if the United States keeps attacking the Islamic Republic and called President Donald Trump\u2019s signature \u201cworthless and invalid.\u201d The comments came hours after a negotiator said Tehran was suspending its commitments to the\u00a0interim deal<\/a>\u00a0signed about a month ago.<\/p>\n The statement attributed to Mojtaba Khamenei, still unseen since the war began, was read out on state television after the United States and Iran again exchanged strikes aimed at infrastructure and military targets.<\/p>\n Tehran\u2019s declarations snapped another fragile thread as the war shows\u00a0no end in sight<\/a>. The deal was aimed at permanently ending the fighting. Now Khamenei warns of \u201clessons\u201d not only from Iran but its armed proxies in the region, calling them the \u201cAxis of Resistance.\u201d<\/p>\n The battle over the\u00a0Strait of Hormuz<\/a>\u00a0has intensified in a conflict increasingly focused on control of the essential waterway that previously carried a fifth of the world\u2019s crude oil. The widening strikes threatened civilians and services to them, including desalination plants for drinking water, while the global economy again was on alert.<\/p>\n The U.S. Central Command said early Saturday that its seventh straight night of strikes hit \u201csurveillance sites, military logistics infrastructure, underground weapons storage, and maritime capabilities.\u201d<\/p>\n The U.S. has violated its commitments under the deal that was signed about a month ago and now Iran is \u201cno longer implementing them,\u201d Kazem Gharibabadi, Iran\u2019s deputy foreign minister, told state TV.<\/p>\n There was no new word on mediation efforts.<\/p>\n Kuwait sees the most striking damage<\/p>\n The most significant damage from Iranian strikes on Saturday occurred in Kuwait, where a water desalination plant and an oil facility were hit, according to the Kuwait authorities and the Kuwait Petroleum Corporation. Both declined to provide locations.<\/p>\n The strikes injured several people at the oil facility and caused a fire at the desalination plant, forcing several power generation units offline. It was the\u00a0second attack against a desalination plant in two days<\/a>\u00a0in the tiny desert nation that depends on desalination for 90% of its drinking water.<\/p>\n Several firefighters and a worker were injured while battling two other blazes sparked by Iranian strikes, according to the Kuwait Fire Force. Kuwait briefly closed its airspace due to missile threats, and Kuwait Airways said it was rescheduling most flights to and from the capital.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, Iraq said it shot down attack drones over the city of Irbil. Jordan\u2019s state-run Petra news agency said the kingdom\u2019s air defense systems had downed Iranian missiles, while air sirens sounded multiple times in Bahrain throughout the day and in Saudi Arabia in the morning, according to their governments.<\/p>\n The secretary general of the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council, Jasem Mohamed al-Budaiwi, accused Iran of war crimes for strikes on infrastructure and civilian facilities.<\/p>\n US strikes hit infrastructure in Iran<\/p>\n U.S. airstrikes hit an electricity and desalination plant in Iran\u2019s southern Hormozgan province, Iranian state TV reported. IRNA said the Bonji desalination plant was destroyed, cutting off water supplies to about 10,000 people, and that a desalination plant on strategic Qeshm Island inside the strait was damaged.<\/p>\n Overnight strikes damaged two tunnels and a bridge, disrupting one of the main highways toward Bandar Abbas, Iran\u2019s main port that sits near the narrowest part of the strait, according to Iran\u2019s state-run news agency. IRNA said three bridges were hit Saturday, including one on a route to Bandar Abbas.<\/p>\n Iran acknowledged \u201cattacks on power infrastructure\u201d during the U.S. airstrikes for the first time Friday when its Energy Ministry issued a call for people to use less power in southern provinces \u201cexperiencing extreme heat.\u201d It did not specify what was hit.<\/p>\n The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps stepped up its warning that countries hosting U.S. forces should be \u201cprepared to receive a corresponding response,\u201d according to Iran\u2019s state TV.<\/p>\n Iranian authorities said at least 50 people have been killed and more than 500 wounded in U.S. strikes in the past three weeks, including eight killed in a strike on a bridge Friday.<\/p>\n U.S. officials acknowledged 13 additional U.S. service members \u2014 10 Army soldiers and three Navy sailors \u2014 had been injured since Monday, but offered no details. Since the war began, 14 U.S. service members have been killed and 427 wounded.<\/p>\n Iran and US vie for Strait of Hormuz<\/p>\n Iran effectively closed the strait to shipping traffic after the war started with U.S. and Israeli strikes on Feb. 28. That sent the price of oil soaring and has given Tehran significant leverage in negotiations.<\/p>\n Iran has said the strait must be under its sole control and that vessels should pay fees to Tehran, even though the world for decades has considered it an international waterway. It fired on ships on recent days. Crossings through the strait fell to a three-week low, according to an international shipping tracker.<\/p>\n Trump has resumed threats to target power stations and bridges to try to compel Iran to loosen its hold. The U.S. in the past week reimposed a naval blockade on Iranian ports to halt its shipments of crude oil.<\/p>\n A growing amount of the region\u2019s energy is being shipped through\u00a0pipelines<\/a>, but not nearly enough to offset the decline in shipping.<\/p>\n