{"id":4605,"date":"2026-03-13T17:15:06","date_gmt":"2026-03-13T17:15:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/4605\/"},"modified":"2026-03-13T17:15:06","modified_gmt":"2026-03-13T17:15:06","slug":"6-u-s-service-members-confirmed-dead-in-military-plane-crash-hegseth-says-irans-new-supreme-leader-is-wounded-and-likely-disfigured","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/4605\/","title":{"rendered":"6 U.S. service members confirmed dead in military plane crash; Hegseth says Iran&#8217;s new supreme leader is &#8216;wounded and likely disfigured&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said on Friday that Iran&#8217;s new supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, is \u201cwounded and likely disfigured\u201d after Khamenei \u2014 who has not been seen in public since the war began \u2014 vowed in his first statement to avenge the \u201cblood of martyrs.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The Pentagon confirmed that all six crew members aboard a refueling U.S. military aircraft that crashed in western Iraq on Thursday have been found dead. The <a class=\"link \" href=\"https:\/\/www.centcom.mil\/MEDIA\/PRESS-RELEASES\/Press-Release-View\/Article\/4434083\/all-crew-members-of-us-kc-135-loss-in-iraq-confirmed-deceased\/\" data-i13n=\"cpos:1;pos:1\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:U.S. Central Command said;cpos:1;pos:1;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkPosition&quot;:&quot;1&quot;,&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;context_link&quot;,&quot;yPosition&quot;:&quot;1&quot;,&quot;yModuleName&quot;:&quot;content-canvas&quot;,&quot;yLinkText&quot;:&quot;U.S. Central Command said&quot;,&quot;yHasCommerce&quot;:false}\">U.S. Central Command said<\/a> that while an investigation is ongoing, the incident \u201cwas not due to hostile fire or friendly fire.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">President Trump said in <a class=\"link \" href=\"https:\/\/truthsocial.com\/@realDonaldTrump\/posts\/116219996530067941\" data-i13n=\"cpos:2;pos:1\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:a social media post overnight;cpos:2;pos:1;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkPosition&quot;:&quot;2&quot;,&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;context_link&quot;,&quot;yPosition&quot;:&quot;1&quot;,&quot;yModuleName&quot;:&quot;content-canvas&quot;,&quot;yLinkText&quot;:&quot;a social media post overnight&quot;,&quot;yHasCommerce&quot;:false}\">a social media post overnight <\/a> that the U.S. is decimating Iran&#8217;s leadership and its &#8220;terrorist regime,&#8221; adding: &#8220;Watch what happens to these deranged scumbags today.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">A large explosion struck in Iran\u2019s capital of Tehran in a crowded square, where thousands of people had taken to the streets for an annual state-organized rally to support Palestinians, chanting \u201cDeath to Israel.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Meanwhile, the overall death toll from the war continues to rise. At least 1,300 people have been killed in Iran since the U.S.-Israeli strikes began on Feb. 28. More than 680 people in Lebanon have been killed and at least 15 in Israel, according to officials in those countries.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Seven U.S. service members have died in Iranian counterstrikes. The Pentagon said 140 U.S. service members have been wounded in the ongoing conflict, including eight who were \u201cseverely injured.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Live215 updates<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said on Friday that Iran&#8217;s new supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, is \u201cwounded and likely&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4606,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[8,19,655,9,456,95,542,2066,7,187],"class_list":{"0":"post-4605","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-top-stories","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-iran","10":"tag-mojtaba-khamenei","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-pentagon","13":"tag-pete-hegseth","14":"tag-president-trump","15":"tag-supreme-leader","16":"tag-top-stories","17":"tag-u-s-central-command"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@news\/116222998766316876","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4605","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4605"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4605\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4606"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4605"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4605"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4605"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}